User:JosebaAbaitua/sandbox/References/DHum2122/FRANCISCO GALLARRETA, Andoni de

Independent Greece
When independent Greece gained control of Athens in 1832, the visible section of the minaret was demolished; only its base and spiral staircase up to the level of the architrave remain intact. Soon all the medieval and Ottoman buildings on the Acropolis were destroyed. However, the image of the small mosque within the Parthenon's cella has been preserved in Joly de Lotbinière's photograph, published in Lerebours's Excursions Daguerriennes in 1842: the first photograph of the Acropolis. The area became a historical precinct controlled by the Greek government. In the later 19th century, the Parthenon was widely considered by Americans and Europeans to be the pinnacle of human architectural achievement, and became a popular destination and subject of artists, including Frederic Edwin Church and Sanford Robinson Gifford. Today it attracts millions of tourists every year, who travel up the path at the western end of the Acropolis, through the restored Propylaea, and up the Panathenaic Way to the Parthenon, which is surrounded by a low fence to prevent damage.

Frieze
Phidias Showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his Friends, 1868 painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema The most characteristic feature in the architecture and decoration of the temple is the Ionic frieze running around the exterior of the cella walls. The bas-relief frieze was carved in situ and is dated to 442 BC-438 BC.

One interpretation is that it depicts an idealized version of the Panathenaic procession from the Dipylon Gate in the Kerameikos to the Acropolis. In this procession held every year, with a special procession taking place every four years, Athenians and foreigners participated in honoring the goddess Athena by offering her sacrifices and a new peplos dress, woven by selected noble Athenian girls called ergastines. The procession is more crowded (appearing to slow in pace) as it nears the gods on the eastern side of the temple.

Joan Breton Connelly offers a mythological interpretation for the frieze, one that is in harmony with the rest of the temple's sculptural program which shows Athenian genealogy through a series of succession myths set in the remote past. She identifies the central panel above the door of the Parthenon as the pre-battle sacrifice of the daughter of the king Erechtheus, a sacrifice that ensured Athenian victory over Eumolpos and his Thracian army. The great procession marching toward the east end of the Parthenon shows the post-battle thanksgiving sacrifice of cattle and sheep, honey and water, followed by the triumphant army of Erechtheus returning from their victory. This represents the first Panathenaia set in mythical times, the model on which historic Panathenaic processions were based.