Tales of the Elgin Marbles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ambassador

Thomas Bruce, a Scottish nobleman, was the 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine. His official title was "Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Porte." Serving in this capacity from 1799-1803, it is said that he was able to fulfill a difficult mission during the Napoleonic Wars, according to Christopher Hitchens in "The Elgin Marbles: Should They Be Returned to Greece?".

Answer: Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire captured Athens in 1458, and held most of the low lying area and islands by 1500; the mountainous interior remained a haven for Greeks who resisted foreign control. In the seventeenth century, the Ottomans fortified themselves on the Acropolis and held out, eventually unsuccessfully, there during an eight day siege by the Venetians.

It was during the siege that the Parthenon, which was being used to store gunpowder, was severely damaged. After taking control of the Acropolis, the Venetians tried unsuccessfully to remove some of the larger statues, but they were damaged in the process. Approximately a year later, after the Venetians were expelled, the Turks turned the Acropolis into a fort, and the remains of the Parthenon were turned into a small mosque.

Answer: True

Sources report that before leaving for Greece, Lord Elgin had asked British officials if they would be interested in casts and sketches of the sculpture that adorned the Parthenon; the response was "No"! Nevertheless, a foreman named Giovanni Lusieri was hired to supervise the project. Lord Elgin acquired a firman, or permit from the Ottoman sultan.

The exact terms of the firman are still debated today as the original copy has never been found; a copy that was translated into Italian still exists, but opinions differ as to whether the document actually gave permission to remove the valuable sculptures.

It appears that permission was given to erect scaffolding so that drawings and casts could be made; it is unclear whether permission was given to remove and ship items.

However, Lord Elgin did just that! It estimated that the excavation of the items cost around £70,000; one of the ships carrying the artifacts to England met with a mishap at sea, and retrieving those items was also costly.

At first the artifacts decorated Lord Elgin's home; eventually they were sold for less than half of the cost of removing and transporting them.

Answer: Phidias

Many of the buildings of the Acropolis were built during the Golden Age when the great statesman, Pericles, was the leader of Athens. His friend, Phidias, was the director and overseer of the projects; Phidias is also given credit as the author of the frieze, although it is agreed that given the time in which the frieze was created, Phidias would have been assisted by others. Consisting of 378 figures and 245 animals, the frieze was 524 feet long.

It depicts the people of Athens, cavalry, elders, musicians, and a host of people in various capacities, in solemn procession during the Panathenaic Festival.

There was an annual celebration called the Lesser Panathenaea to honor Athena, the patron deity of the city. Every fourth year a larger celebration, which included the Panathenaic Games, would be held as part of the religious festival called the Great Panathenaea.

Answer: Erechtheion

Built between 421 and 406 BC, the temple called the Erechtheion (or Erechtheum) also adorned the Acropolis. Dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon,, the temple had an outer porch on one side, the "Porch of Maidens", with six caryatids as supporting columns.

In 1801 Lord Elgin had one of the caryatids removed. She is described as wearing "a peplos, a simple tunic pinned on each shoulder. Her hair is braided and falls in a thick rope down her back. She probably held a sacrificial vessel in one of the missing hands".

There is a legend that the other maidens could be heard wailing for their sister at night. When the attempt to remove a second caryatid was unsuccessful, it was left ruined on the Acropolis. Today it is restored, and together with its four sisters, it is displayed in the Acropolis Museum.

Interestingly, the caryatid removed by Lord Elgin is said to be in better condition today than her sisters, who suffered damage from weather and pollution.

Answer: Centaurs

The Parthenon was decorated with ninety-two metopes, which portrayed a mythical battle between the Lapiths, residents of a near-by Greek tribe, and the Centaurs. It is told that the Lapiths made a mistake by inviting the Centaurs to a wedding feast and giving them wine. After making some inappropriate advances on the tribe's women, the Centaurs were defeated.

A metope is used in classical architecture to fill in the space between two triglyps in a Doric frieze.

Answer: Treasury of Atreus

Constructed approximately 1250 BC during the Bronze Age, the Treasury of Atreus is an example of a "tholoi", or beehive tomb. It is believed to have contained the graves of a king and his family. Although Heinrich Schliemann named it the Treasury of Atreus, and believed he found the death mask of Agamemnon there, it has been dated to an time earlier that either Atreus or Agamemnon are believed to have lived.

It is interesting that while Lord Elgin had part of the architrave above the door and segments of the columns removed in the early 1800s, the grave itself was not discovered until 1879.

Answer: Selene

Because the Parthenon was dedicated to the goddess Athena, events in her life, such as her birth mature from the head of Zeus, were chronicled in the marble. Known as the "Head of the Horse of Selene's Chariot", this horse was part of a large group of horses which pulled the moon goddess Selene's chariot.

The chariot represented the moon, and the horses pulled it across the sky at night; at dawn, which was when Athena was born, they would pull the moon into the sea. This sculpture was at the right end of the Parthenon pediment while a sculpture depicting Helios pulling the sun out of the sea was on the left side.

Answer: Lord Byron

It should not be surprising that Lord Byron denounced the removal of the precious artifacts, considering that he was known for supporting national causes. Eventually he joined the fight in the Greek War of Independence; today many in Greece consider him to be a national hero. Because he died there on April 19, 1824, the date has been designated as a day of celebration in Greece. He paid for the refitting of the Greek navy and partially funded and trained the Greek army.

It is written that Lord Byron regarded the removal of the artifacts as an act of vandalism and wrote the poem, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", to state his point of view regarding the action.
"Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!"

Lord Byron was not the only Englishman who protested the removal of the artifacts, however. In 1816 Parliament voted 82-30 to purchase them from Lord Elgin.

Answer: Napoleon

In 1803 when Lord Elgin and his family were returning to England, his ship was captured by Napoleon. They were kept prisoner for three years, during which time Napoleon suggested that they could win their freedom in exchange for the Parthenon Marbles. Ludwig of Bavaria also visited London in hopes of buying the beautiful artifacts.

While the British Museum holds the largest collection of Parthenon Marbles, it is not the only museum in the world to house treasures from the Acropolis.