Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Sculptures, Part 1

Starting in 1801, the Seventh Earl of Elgin removed many classical Greek sculptures from Greece, particularly from the Parthenon and other monuments at the Acropolis in Athens. Pt. 1 covers the events leading up to the early removal efforts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class the production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying.
As we mentioned in our recent Unearthed, over the last
several months, there's been a lot of discussion around the

(00:23):
Parthenon sculptures, which are also known as the Elgin Marbles.
These are classical Greek sculptures that the seventh Earl of
Elgin arranged to have removed from Greece, particularly from the
Parthenon and other monuments at the Acropolis and Athens, and
that started in eighteen oh one. And this controversy surrounding
these sculptures is really not new, like there's been a

(00:44):
lot about it in the last few months, but it
goes all the way back to the early nineteenth century,
even before these sculptures were placed in the British Museum,
which happened in eighteen seventeen. Greece has been actively trying
to get them back since the start of the Greek
Revolution in Britain has consistently refused to return them, and
there's been more vocal demand for the sculptures return at

(01:08):
various points over the last two hundred years, including now,
so this is not something that people just started talking about.
And this is also tied to much broader conversations about
things like the role of museums and the preservation of
cultural heritage and respect for indigenous and colonized people. So
it's really a bigger topic than we can really do
justice too in periodic updates on on Earth about where

(01:32):
the conversation is at the moment. It's also a bigger
topic than we can cover in just one episode. I
was telling Holly before we started recording that it even
could have been more than two, but we're going to
cover it as two parts. Today we will have some
background about Lord Elgin and his initial removal of these
sculptures and architectural elements, and the next time we will

(01:53):
be talking about how things progressed from there up into
the debates about uh this artwork in architectural material today.
Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin and eleven of Kincarden,
was born on July seventeen sixty six. As a young man,
he was considered to be quite promising. In seventeen ninety,

(02:13):
at the age of twenty four, he started serving in
the House of Lords as a Scottish Representative peer. He
embarked on his first diplomatic assignment at the age of
twenty five, and he served in the British Army, reaching
the rank of lieutenant colonel by the age of twenty nine.
He was also chronically ill and in his early thirties.
His doctor recommended that he try warm sea bathing, so

(02:35):
he started looking for some kind of position where he
would be stationed somewhere and what he thought would be
a more hospitable climate for his health. That opportunity wound
up coming straight from the King George the Third. At
a ball, the King pulled Elgin aside and mentioned that
he had decided to appoint an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
That person would be stationed in Constantinople, which is Istanbul,

(02:58):
Turkey today. The King recommended that Elgin apply for this position.
Britain already had some other diplomatic staff in Constantinople, but
this ambassador post was new. Britain and the Ottoman Empire
had each been fighting against France in the French Revolutionary Wars.
The British Army and Navy had been assisting Ottoman forces

(03:18):
and Britain wanted a formal treaty of alliance between the
two nations. Britain also wanted to negotiate various trading arrangements
with the Ottoman Empire, including gaining access to trade through
the Black Seeds, so having a full ambassador stationed in
the Ottoman capital made a lot of logical sense. In
sevent when he was thirty three, Elgin was appointed to

(03:41):
be the Minister Plany Potentiary and Ambassador Extraordinary of his
Britannic Majesty to the Sublime port of Sultan Selim the Third.
He put off his departure for several months so that
he could marry twenty one year old married Nisbit, and
so he could hire the staff that would accompany and
work with him in Constantinople. As he was preparing for

(04:01):
this assignment, Elgin also proposed another project for his time
in Constantinople. The idea started with architect Thomas Harrison, who
was designing a home for Elgin. Harrison suggested that Elgin's
position in Constantinople might give him an opportunity to expand
British knowledge of classical Greek art and architecture. So students

(04:21):
in Britain already had access to things like written descriptions
and engravings showing these kinds of sculptures and historic buildings
and monuments, but it was possible that Elgin could use
his position to gather more detailed information. He could get
permission from Ottoman authorities to send artists and mold makers

(04:41):
to these monuments and other sites, and they could make
more detailed diagrams and illustrations, and also make plaster casts
of the artwork and the architectural elements. At this point, though,
this proposed project didn't involve really removing anything, at least
not anything major, and Elgin was an art lover and
he was incredibly excited by this idea. He went back

(05:04):
to the government to try to get funding for it,
making a case for how much it would enrich Britain's
own artistic and architectural traditions. The government, though, declined to
fund this project, but it did pay for a search
for previously unknown manuscripts in Ottoman libraries, and that actually
had some overlap with what Elgin was trying to do,
and a lot of the permissions for the search came

(05:26):
through Elgan's work and influence. But that manuscript search is
also its own whole story beyond the sculpture story that
we were talking about in these episodes. Yeah, I felt
like it would be an oversight to not mention that
it was also going on, but it's beyond the scope
of what we're really getting into. When the government decided
not to pay for this project, Elegan decided that he

(05:47):
would fund it himself. And it was also customary at
this point for ambassadors to pay for their staff's salaries themselves,
rather than those staff members being positions that were paid
also by the government, So this was adding up to
be a really expensive position for Elgin. Even though his
own salary also turned out to be less than he
expected when he took the job, he thought that he

(06:08):
could manage, especially since at some point he would be
coming into his wife's family fortune, which was significant. He
also genuinely thought that documenting all this classical Greek art
and architecture was really important, and he thought it would
be worth the expense. When Ellian finally departed on his
sea voyage to Constantinople, he and his retinue made several

(06:30):
stops along the way, and some of them were because
his wife Mary was pregnant with their first child, and
she was very, very seasick. But they also stopped in
Naples and Rome with the hope of recruiting draftsman, architects, painters,
mold makers, and other artists and artisans to help with
their project of documenting classical art and architecture in Greece.

(06:51):
This is a recruitment effort, though turned out to be
something of a challenge. France had invaded Italy during the
French Revolutionary Wars, and France had seized a lot of
Italy's most famous artwork to take back to the Louver.
The Louver Museum had opened in seventeen nine three after
being a royal palace for more than two hundred years,
and France during the French Revolutionary Wars had just aggressively

(07:15):
looted artwork from the nations that had invaded, and then
it was using that artwork to expand the Louver's collection.
After invading Italy, France had recruited Italian artists to help
prepare and transport all this artwork back to Paris. On
top of the general labor shortage this created for Elgin,
many of Italy's artistic community had sided with France and

(07:37):
that meant that Elgin had concerns about the loyalty of
anyone that they recruited. Although Elgin was ultimately able to
hire people with the skills that he needed, he wound
up having to spend a lot more than he had
budgeted to do it. Leading the team was Giovanni Battista Lucieri,
a landscape painter from Naples. Elgin and his retinue arrived

(07:58):
in Constantinople and May at eighteen eighty he dispatched Lucieri
and this team of artists and artisans to Athens, and
they arrived there that August. We will get to what
happened after they arrived after a quick sponsor break. By

(08:20):
the time Lord Elgin and his staff arrived in Constantinople
in May of eighteen eighty, several of the concrete objectives
that had led to the creation of this whole ambassador
posting had already been accomplished by some other people. For example,
a formal treaty of alliance between Britain and the Ottoman
Empire had already been negotiated, but it wasn't ratified yet,

(08:40):
and British trade was already being allowed through the Black Sea.
In fact, some of the diplomatic personnel already in Constantinople
were surprised and frustrated by Elgin's appointment. This included British
Navy officer Sir Sidney Smith and his brother John Spencer Smith,
who had been acting as ministers. They thought the arrival
of a new ambassador undermined their ability to finish the

(09:02):
negotiations they had already started, and raised questions among Ottoman authorities.
In terms of Elgin's work as ambassador, it seems to
have become somewhat more general, protecting British interests in an
overall sense, protecting Christians and British citizens in Ottoman territory,
and ratifying and formalizing those agreements that other people had

(09:23):
drafted before him. Meanwhile, Giovanni Batista Lucierian team arrived in Athens.
They started trying to get access to the Acropolis. Today,
the Acropolis is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
because of all the monuments there and the history of
the site, and the words of UNESCO from its description
of the Acropolis is outstanding universal value. Quote. On this

(09:46):
hill were born democracy, philosophy, theater, freedom of expression and speech,
which provide to this day the intellectual and spiritual foundation
for the contemporary world and its values. But in the
nineteenth century the acropolis looked much different from the way
it does today. Most of the city of Athens was
in its immediate vicinity. The acropolis itself was being used

(10:09):
as a village and garrison, with houses and other structures
built in and around the complex of monuments. In some cases,
parts of those monuments had been used as building materials
for these new structures. So for a little bit about
these monuments that Lucieri and the team were there to document.
They included the Parthenon, the Erectheon, the Propylia, and the

(10:31):
Temple of Athena Nike. These were built in the fifth
century b c. In the period known as the Athenian
Golden Age. This was after the city state of Athens
established itself as a democracy following war with Persia. Athenian
statesman Pericles embarked on an ambitious plan to create just
a massive monument complex on top of the acropolis. This

(10:54):
work involved multiple architects and sculptors, with sculptor Piteous being
described as the art director for this whole project. Phideous
in his assistants also created most of the statuary that
adorned the Parthenon. The Parthenon is a Doric temple dedicated
to the goddess Athena Parthenos. Built between four forty seven
and four thirty two b C. It's a rectangular structure

(11:17):
with a colonnade and extensive sculpture adorning its roof line.
It's both an artistic and an architectural marvel, and at
the time of its construction was the largest and most
elaborate temple in mainland Greece. The Parthenon surviving sculptures are
no longer on the structure itself. Originally, the walls of
the Parthenon's inner chamber or the cella or adorned with

(11:40):
a freeze, or a band of horizontally oriented relief sculptures
that ran all the way around the upper perimeter. The
freeze tells the story of a festival honoring the goddess Athena.
Then the exterior colonnades roof line had a series of
ninety two high relief carvings in the spaces called metapes,

(12:01):
and then the pediment or the triangular space on the
east and the west sides, where the peak of the
roof happened. That area contained statues as well, and initially
the Parthenon also contained a massive ivory and gold statue
of the goddess Athena, which at the time was also
the largest statue in Athens. The Parthenon survived fairly well

(12:23):
for about eight hundred years after its construction. The Athena
Parthenos statue was removed at some point and later lost,
although there are ancient copies of it that have survived.
The Parthenon itself was damaged by fire in the third
century CE, and later it was converted into a Christian church,
and at that time some of its traditional Greek religious

(12:44):
elements were intentionally damaged. Then, after the Ottoman Empire conquered Greece,
it converted the Parthenon into a mosque. That conversion happened
sometime in the fifteenth century, and at some point after
that the Empire started using it as a military fortification
as well. In sixteen eight seven, when Venice and the
Ottoman Empire were at war, the Parthenon was being used

(13:07):
as a powder magazine among other purposes, and the gunpowder
being stored there exploded when the building was attacked that
killed at least three hundred people and caused significant damage
to the structure. There were also stories about Ottoman forces
and local Greeks destroying the acropolis monuments to make use
of their component parts, either pounding the marble into mortar

(13:29):
or pulling sculptures down to get to the lead that
was used to connect them to the building. If that
was true, those practices were probably ended by the eighteenth century,
because at that point it had become extremely common for
foreign visitors to Athens to try to buy pieces of
classical sculpture and other antiquities. These were typically visitors from
Western Europe who made offers to Ottoman authorities for everything

(13:53):
from whole statues to broken off fragments, and for the
most part, Ottoman authorities were fine with this. They were
really invested in trying to protect the area's historical or
cultural heritage, and they realized that there was money to
be made here, even on things like broken off corners
of marble columns. In testimony that he gave before Parliament

(14:14):
later on, Elgin described the situation this way, quote, every
traveler coming added to the general defacement of the statuary
in his reach. There are now in London pieces broken
off within our day, and the Turks have been continually
defacing the heads, and in some instances they have actually
acknowledged to me that they have pounded down the statues

(14:35):
to convert them into mortar. It was upon these suggestions,
and with these feelings, that I proceeded to remove as
much of the sculpture as I conveniently could. It was
no part of my original plan to bring away anything
but my models. So in some cases, these Western European
efforts to acquire Greek antiquities went so far as to

(14:57):
have official or semi official attempts to secure them on
behalf of various governments. For example, the Comte Deschozoi Gauffier
was the French ambassador to the Ottoman port at the
end of the eighteenth century, and he specifically instructed an
antiquary who toured Greece with him to quote pillage anything
that is pillageable in Athens or its territory. He also

(15:19):
embarked on a similar cast making project to what Elgin
had proposed and we talked about earlier, and he hoped
to secure the freezes and other carvings from the Parthenon
as well. Ottoman authorities refused that request. But did allow
him to take some pieces that had been dug up
after having previously fallen or been knocked off the Parthenon.

(15:39):
Like Elgin, Choizoe, Gaufier was motivated at least in part
by the idea that this was a rescue mission. They
sincerely thought that unless they removed these sculptures and other
artwork from Athens, that these antiquities would be lost forever.
And really this was not an unreasonable fear. Pieces and
fragments stolen from Greece or bought from Ottoman authorities wound

(16:01):
up in people's private collections. In a lot of cases
they were just never seen again. There were also ongoing
threats of destruction by Vandal's warfare, volcanic and seismic activity.
The list really went on and on. By the start
of the nineteenth century, as much as fort of the
sculptures at the Acropolis had already been removed or destroyed

(16:25):
or otherwise irreparably damaged. So people like Elegan, Schwizoa, Gaufier
and others really sincerely thought that if they did not
do something to protect these works, that those works would
be lost. While Schwizo Guffier had been talking about plundering
anything that was plunderable. Elgin, at least at first, was
focused on documentation and not removal, and we're gonna get

(16:47):
to how that shifted after we first paused for a
little sponsor break. Although Giovanni Batista Lucy Arey and his
team got to Athens in August of eighteen eighty, it
was February of eighteen o one before they got access
to the Parthenon for the first time. The acropolis was

(17:09):
still being used for military purposes and it was under
the control of a military governor known as the Disdar,
so it wasn't a place that people could just show
up and tour without some kind of approval. Also, since
the freezes metapes and other elements they wanted to document.
We're up at the Parthenon's roofline. Elgin's artists couldn't just
walk in and set up easels on the ground. They

(17:31):
had to build scaffolding to get them up to where
the art was, especially when it came to making molds
of these sculptures. And they also wanted to be able
to dig at the site to find the boundaries of
parts of the structure that were no longer standing, and
to look for statuary that had previously fallen or been
knocked down. Lucy Area's team ultimately got access to the
site by paying local Ottoman authorities, typically the dISTAR, but

(17:54):
after they got their scaffolding in place, they were barred
from the site. Authorities had apparently become concerned about a
French force that was gathering in striking distance of Athens,
and they decided to bar all foreign visitors to the
acropolis for the sake of security. Luciery and his team
were told that they would only be admitted again if
they got formal instructions from the government. These instructions would

(18:17):
be in a form that was known as a furman.
The team continued working in other parts of Athens while
this ferman was being negotiated, and they did get sporadic
access to the Parthenon from time to time while it
was in the works. A firman was finally issued in
May of eighteen o one, but it was routed from
Constantinople to Athens through Ottoman government channels and it was

(18:39):
apparently delayed along the way. In July, the team made
another request for a firman, this time by way of
a memo that was written by the Reverend Philip Hunt.
Hunt was an Anglican priest and the chaplain to the
British embassy in Constantinople. He had been to Athens and
had seen firsthand what Luciery and the team were trying
to do, and he had witnessed the resistance they were

(19:01):
encountering from authorities. Hunt drafted a memo that detailed exactly
what permissions he thought needed to be granted for the
team to successfully complete their project of documenting all of
this artwork and architecture. Hunts memo outlined that they wanted
permission to enter the citadel, where they would draw, make
plaster models, erect scaffolding, and dig to find the positions

(19:22):
of old foundations. He also said that they should have
the quote liberty to take away any sculptures or inscriptions
which do not interfere with the works or walls of
the citadel. That last sentence seems to have had two objectives. One,
it would give Lucy Area's team the authority to remove statues, fragments,
or other objects that weren't connected to the walls of

(19:45):
the Parthenon anymore so things that had already broken off,
or fallen or been knocked down two, it would assuage
the Ottoman authorities fears that the British team's work was
going to weaken the integrity of the parts of the
Parthenon that we're still standing. So the idea of being
if they were getting in there and they were taking
things that were central to the integrity of the structure,

(20:07):
it would weaken it. That would have the potential to
put the structure itself at the military personnel working in
there at risk, especially if this French attack actually happened.
So this idea of things that quote do not interfere
with the works or walls of the citadel would prevent
that from happening. Right, They weren't asking for permission to

(20:27):
take away things that were still attached. The only surviving
copy of the Ferman that followed Hunt's memo is an
Italian translation, So the way this likely played out was
that Hunt's memo was translated into Turkish, and then the Furman,
written in Turkish, was translated into Italian, which was the
official language in much of the Mediterranean at the time. Normally,

(20:47):
the Furman would have come from the Grand Vizir, but
he was in Egypt with the Ottoman army trying to
repel a French invasion, so the Ferman was issued by
an acting deputy instead. This fermin mostly restay it Hunt's
memo point by point. It turned it from a list
of permissions that should be requested into a document that
granted those permissions, but it omitted that last statement about

(21:11):
quote interfering with the works or walls of the citadel.
Rather than sending the Ferman through formal channels, Elgin named
Hunt a temporary personal secretary, so it would be within
his role to carry instructions to Athens himself and act
as Elegan's representative once he got there. Elgan's other secretaries
were tied up with other assignments at the time, which

(21:33):
is why this job fell to Hunt. Elgin also got
approval from the Ottoman deputy to bypass formal channels to
make Hunt the Ferman's career in Athens. Hunt delivered the
Ferman to the Voivode, who was the governor of Athens
and the dis stars superior. According to British accounts, the
Voivode was appalled at the treatment that Lucierries team had

(21:53):
said they were experiencing at the Acropolis. Both their lack
of access to the Parthenon and the reportedly being her
a asked by the Ottoman military when they were there,
and they're being made to pay a fee every day
that they entered the structure. Various questions still surround this fermin.
One is whether the surviving Italian translation is even genuine.

(22:14):
Elgin was able to produce it fifteen years later when
Parliament was investigating how he had obtained the Parthenon marbles
and whether Britain should purchase them from him, and that
has led skeptics to question whether this is the original
or not. Academics in Turkey have also questioned whether the
document in question was actually a ferman which was a
binding order, saying that it might have been intended as

(22:37):
a general correspondence from authorities in Constantinople to authorities and Athens,
rather than being something more formal. People have also raised
questions about the voivodes apparent eagerness to work with the
British team after getting this document. As this was going on,
Britain was supporting the Ottoman Empire and its campaign against
the French invasion of Egypt. Brittain had also us promised

(23:00):
its support and helping to defend the Greece itself against
the threat of a French invasion. In other words, it's
possible that the Voivode was worried about offending the ambassador
of an important military ally, and that led him to
be particularly cooperative once he got this communication. It's also
clear that there was some degree of persuasion involved on
the British team's part. When a Parliamentary select Committee question

(23:23):
hunt about all of this years later, he made it
clear that he induced, that's his word, the Voivode to
interpret the Firman as granting permission to remove artwork from
the parthen On walls. He also talked openly of giving
the Voivote and other officials gems, money, armaments, and other
gifts throughout his work. According to one traveler's diary, Lucieri's

(23:46):
team also had to pay a few hundred piastres in
the vicinity of like fifty five euros today for each
statue that they removed. And it's also unclear how broad
that whole permission to quote take away any sculptures or
inscriptions was really supposed to be. It doesn't seem like
Elegan or his delegates were envisioning a huge removal of

(24:08):
artwork from the Parthenon. When they made that original request
and a letter that Elgin wrote at the time, he
talked about taking away quote, little ornaments or detached pieces
if any are found, which would be interesting for the arts.
He wasn't really talking about taking away entire sculptures or
sections of the Parthenon. Freeze. Hunt's original memo requesting the

(24:29):
Ferman is similar, specifically limiting the request to being allowed
to remove things that did not interfere with the Parthenon's
works or walls. The Ferman didn't include that detail, but
in the context of its writing, it also doesn't seem
to have been intended as a blanket permission for the
British team to remove large amounts of sculpture from the
Parthenon's physical structure. Regardless, a few days after arriving in

(24:52):
Athens and delivering the Ferman to the void Vote, Hunt
asked for permission to remove one of the metapiece that
was already kind of loose. The Voivode either interpreted the
firm and is allowing for this removal, or he interpreted
it as giving him the authority to make that decision.
As we said earlier, also some inducement of that interpretation happening.

(25:13):
Elgin's team took down the metapee in question later that day,
and they took down a second one the following day.
Hunt reported this to Elgin in a letter that reveals
another motivation for this removal besides the edification of British
artists and architects and protecting Greek antiquities from damage and destruction,
and that motivation was keeping this artwork out of the

(25:35):
hands of the French. In reporting his success to Elgin,
Hunt wrote, quote, these admirable specimens of Greek sculpture, which
have been repeatedly refused to the gold and influence of
France in the zenith of her power, I have now
embarked with other precious fragments of antiquity. This was just
the start of the British removal of art from the

(25:56):
Parthenon and from elsewhere at the Acropolis and in Athens
in general. All. Ultimately, people working under Elgin's direction removed
some of all of the different sculptural elements that we
described earlier. Parts of the freeze, the metapees and the
pediment sculptures, along with the northeast column blocks of molding
and other statuary and architectural elements. They also removed other

(26:18):
antiquities from elsewhere at the Acropolis and elsewhere in Athens.
Although Elgin's original project had been focused on making accurate diagrams,
illustrations and molds, and taking fragments or pieces that had
already been broken or fallen or otherwise been removed from
the Parthenon, as time went on he became more and
more focused on getting as many original objects as possible,

(26:41):
particularly from the High Classical period around the fifth century BC.
In one letter, Elgin wrote quote, I should wish to
have examples in the actual objects of each thing, and
architectural ornament of each cornice, each freeze, each capital, of
the decorated ceilings, of the fluted column specimens, of the

(27:01):
different architectural orders, and of the variant forms of the
orders of the metapies and the like, as much as possible. Finally,
everything in the way of sculpture, metals and curious marbles
that can be discovered by means of assiduous and indefatigable excavation.
This excavation not to be pushed on as much as possible,

(27:21):
be its success. What it may as part of this,
Elegan's team bought a house on the Acropolis that had
belonged to an Ottoman soldier, and they tore the house
down and excavated its foundations, and they found a piece
of the west pediment that had probably been thrown down
in that powder magazine explosion in seven. They also found
a central piece of the Parthenon freeze, which seemed to

(27:44):
have been removed from the structure long before. They also
escalated their work and removing sculptures and carvings directly from
the Parthenon itself. The freeze that runs around the perimeter
had been carved directly into the stone blocks that were
part of the structure, so Elgin's team had to saw
the faces off of the blocks to remove them. It

(28:05):
just makes my stomach sinkly. Uh. The increasingly ambitious scope
of Elgin's collection of artwork presented a problem. Marble is heavy,
and all these freezes, relief statues, and architectural pieces were
really adding up. Elgin needed a way to get them home.
At one point he wrote back to England to ask
if a warship could be dispatched that was capable of

(28:29):
bringing an entire building disassembled to be reconstructed in England.
Throughout all of this, documents from Elgin and his team
referenced to what they saw as a rescue mission, taking
all these elements into safe keeping to prevent their future destruction,
and their letters also reveal an ongoing sense of rivalry
with France and of getting material for Britain that surpassed

(28:51):
what had been placed in the louver. At the same time,
other people on Elgin's diplomatic team were buying or taking
items from all over Greece, many of which were destined
for their own personal collections for themselves, so outside of
the scope of this project. Later on, Elgin and his
team would say that they had encountered no resistance from
the Greek population over what they were doing, and no

(29:13):
sign that the local people were upset or angry about it,
and that they had handled all of it as carefully
as possible. But other accounts contradict that English clergyman and
naturalist Edward Daniel Clark saw some of the ongoing work
at the Parthenon while touring Greece. He wrote in a
letter quote, we saw this fine piece of sculpture raised

(29:33):
from its station between the triglyphs, but the workmen, endeavoring
to give it a position adapted to the projected line
of descent. A part of the adjoining masonry was loosened
by the machinery, and down came the fine masses of
pentelic in marble, scattering their white fragments with thundering noise
among the ruins. Clark's account went on to describe the
disdar as in tears over what was being done. Clark

(29:57):
was not alone in this reaction. Shortly before Aigan's embassy
left Constantinople, which we're going to talk about more in
Part two, a teacher named Johannes Benizelo wrote a letter
to Hunt that read, in part quote, one thing only
would make you sad, as it does all those who
have some understanding of these things, the last deplorable stripping

(30:18):
of the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis and of
the other relics of antiquity. The temple is like a
noble and wealthy lady who has lost all her diamonds
and jewelry. Oh, how we Athenians must take this event
to heart, and how we must praise and admire the
ancient heroes of Rome, Pompey and Hadrian when we look
on these things in the end that the material Elegan's

(30:39):
team removed from the Parthenon included almost half of the
original friezes fifteen and the ninety two metapees and seventeen
pediment statues. They also removed other statues and architectural elements. Overall,
it was about half of the surviving sculptures, friezes, and
similar objects. It took more than one seventy grates to

(31:00):
back them and at least fifteen different ships to transport
them all to England. We're going to talk about when
they got to England. Uh, next time. For now, you
got some listener mail I do. I have listener mail
about a different ancient monument and it follows our episode
on the rock youn Churches of Lalibela. And this is

(31:21):
from Jerusalem, Jerusalem, writes Hi, Tracy and Holly, thank you
so much for taking the time to do an episode
on La Labella. I'm Ethiopian American. Both of my parents
are Ethiopian, and I was born in the States and
it was a great Christmas gift seeing my favorite podcast
cover one of my favorite places. I just wanted to
give you a bit more context and hopefully answer some
of the questions you post and you're behind the scenes

(31:42):
Mini sed one. If you want more information about the
story of Middle Ech taking the Ark of the Covenant
and moving it to Ethiopia, I would encourage you to
check out a book called the Kebra Nigest. It means
the Glory of Kings in English. It essentially describes the
history of Ethiopia, including the story of the Queen of Sheba,
King Solomon, and their son Menelek. Here is a link

(32:04):
to the English translation to All Ethiopian Orthodox churches actually
have replicas of the Ark of the Covenant called a
taboo in Gez, which is the a liturgical language, not
just the churches and Lali Bella. Although viewing of this
replica is restricted to specific church officials and a specific
part of the churches called the Holy of Holy, during

(32:24):
certain religious holidays, this replica has taken out and paraded
around the church for all to see. The most known
religious holiday where this occurs as tim Kett, which celebrates
the baptism of Jesus three. I'm sure you came across
this in your research, but a lot of Ethiopian names
are directly tied to Christianity. Loalibella's first name Gebra Mescal,
literally means servant of the Cross when translated into English,

(32:47):
his wife's name Mescal Cibra means respect of the Cross,
and his son's name yet Barak means let it be blessed.
This Ethiopian tradition of having deeply religious names continues to
this day evident and the fact that my name is Jerusalem,
thank you for all that you do, wishing you both
the happy New Year, Jerusalem. Thank you so much, Jerusalem
for this email. I really enjoyed reading it from somebody

(33:10):
that had so many personal connections to it. And I
actually don't recall if I came across it in my
research that a lot of Ethiopian names um are directly
tied to Christianity. I don't know if that would have
jumped out at me if I had, because like my
own immediate and extended family includes like Matthew, Mark, Luke,

(33:30):
and John, like we have a lot of Bible names
in my family like Um. It's it's not it's not
naming uh that that would really necessarily seem unusual to me,
but it is really cool to see how how that
is used in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. So thank you again
Jerusalem for that note and that other information. If you

(33:52):
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(34:17):
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