揭秘眾神之顛

The Acropolis A mighty hilltop wonder over 2,000 years old The sheer scale of these temples is almost unimaginable How did the ancient Greeks construct these extraordinary buildings? It's really fascinating and it's a huge puzzle What long-lost rituals were they used for? And how have they survived while other ancient buildings have crumbled away? The only way to solve these mysteries is to blow this temple complex apart Exploring its structure stone by stone will help us unearth the astonishing engineering secrets hidden inside this ancient wonder Perched high on a massive rock overlooking the city of Athens stands a landmark of Western civilization The Acropolis Here, 2,400 years ago the Greeks built an extraordinary complex of temples where they could worship their gods Now, as restorers dismantle and rebuild it The Acropolis is revealing its hidden secrets New clues are emerging from the restoration of its two largest buildings The world-famous Parthenon and the imposing entrance gateway known as the Provelea The Parthenon was the greatest temple of its age A wonder of the ancient world From 22,000 tons of precious marble Greek stone masons assembled a building of exquisite perfection Its 13,000 individual stones fitted together so precisely The joints were watertight Its 58 towering columns could withstand earthquakes It's an extraordinary structure But how exactly did the ancient Greeks construct it? The secret to the Parthenon's perfection begins with its special building material Marble Its largest blocks are massive Weighing in at 10 tons each But no marble existed in Athens So how did the ancient Greeks find and transport these enormous pieces of marble to this dizzying hilltop site? The answer lies at Pentelecon Over 10 miles from the city Historian Edith Hall has come here to piece together this ancient mystery This is the very birthplace of the Parthenon These great rock faces where they cut down the marble And took it all the way to Athens to build the Acropolis And everywhere you look There's just glittering white marble Just stones of every size I mean look at this one Just pick it up off the floor You can actually see how incredibly gleaming white it is And there's sparkly bits that You can see once it's polished up And smoothed down and chiseled It would actually gleam in the sunshine It's actually incandescent Although Edith is surrounded by marble At the ancient quarry Most of it is in small pieces In ancient times Craftsmen would have struggled to find The enormous blocks needed to build the Parthenon Today workers at this modern quarry On Mount Pentelecon face the same challenge The blocks from here are considered special They're highly prized Because of their quality, their whiteness They are from the same seam of marble As the ancient quarry And are used for the Acropolis restoration It's exactly the same marble The ancient used to make the constructions In Parthenon It's not exactly the same place As the ancient did But it's exactly the same marble Even with modern machinery Extracting large blocks is difficult The rock is full of natural fissures Tiny cracks that cause the marble to break Diamond-coated wire saws Slice through the stone with ease But once Sotiris extracts the blocks They often break up into smaller pieces Big blocks are needed for Parthenon One, two, maybe three Marble blocks of the appropriate size and strength Can be found every year For the ancient Greeks Who only had hand tools It would have taken years To extract all the large 10-ton stones Needed to build the Parthenon And once they had found their stones They faced an even greater challenge How did they transport These enormously heavy precious blocks Over 10 miles Then raise them to the work site At the top of the hill At the ancient quarry Edith thinks she has found a clue Where I'm standing now Is actually the road that was made To transport all those slabs From the quarry all the way downhill To Athens and to the Acropolis itself It's downhill all the way It's quite a steep gradient But it's regular and smooth And the road is straight As they could possibly make it So that the journey was as short as possible Because it was an incredibly hard labour For all of them Workers used mules To pull the stones on carts Down from the mountain To the city of Athens But then came the biggest challenge Raising the marble up to the Acropolis The rock rises nearly 230 feet above the city There was no way the Greeks Could pull the massive blocks Directly up this precipice So how did they haul them to the top Hiding unnoticed by the thousands of tourists Who passed this way lies the answer They built a very smooth stone ramp With quite a slow gradient It's only about 10 degrees Today there are only a few stones left here But it's clear from their angle That they are part of a massive ramp That once extended From the bottom of the hill to the top So how did the Greeks use this ramp Archaeologists suspect They created the perfect system At the bottom of the ramp Builders positioned a cart With huge wheels To support the colossal weight Of the marble blocks They anchored a massive wooden pulley A heavy rope ran around it And down to the cart at the bottom They connected the rope To a second cart at the top Then filled this with rubble from the site To turn it into a counterweight As the rubble cart rolled downhill It pulled the marble blocks up the ramp An ingenious cable car Running right up to the Acropolis It took a huge effort To transport 22,000 tons of stone To the top of this hill So why did they choose The most difficult place in the whole city To build these sacred temples And what was their purpose The ancient Greeks Could have built these sacred temples Anywhere in the city Why here And what did they use them for Acropolis means the high place Or the summit of the city It's where they used to put their treasures It was originally their seat of government And it was certainly the place Where they were going to worship the gods On the Acropolis The Athenians felt closer to their gods in the sky Although they worshipped many gods The main temples on this site Were dedicated to just one Athena Athena was one of the oldest Greek gods She's the goddess of cities, of civilization And she's very, very often found worship Where there's a high, rocky citadel Where people tended to form big urban communities That's why the city is called Athens It's the city of Athena Athena was known as the virgin goddess And so the people named this building From the Greek word for virgin, the Parthenon Historical accounts reveal This was once a shining temple Inside, a nearly 40-foot tall statue Of the goddess Athena In her hand, a human-sized figure of Nike The goddess of victory Around her rises an exquisite building Created so the people of Athens Could properly worship the goddess They believed would protect their city And make it impregnable Recently, archaeologists here Have made an amazing discovery It's something very rare The remains of a strange structure Lie hidden beneath the Parthenon Could it be that the building we see today Is not the original? Out of sight, beneath the floor Of the marble Parthenon Lies tens of thousands Of mysterious limestone blocks The blocks plunge 22 layers deep on one side They form a massive wedge-shaped foundation That hugs the slope of the Acropolis Hill Investigations reveal That some of these blocks Are over 100 years older Than the Parthenon that sits on top of them A sign that another building Stood here long before the monument We see today So what was this mysterious structure And what happened to it? Archaeologist Elisavet Siumpara Is working to unravel the mystery Costa, what do you see? Tell me She and her team Are tackling a huge Three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle Thousands of stones Lie scattered within the walls of the Acropolis Not all of these stones are marble Some are limestone Fragments of ancient buildings That existed before the Parthenon Elisavet is hunting for pieces Of these ancient stones That join together It's a monumental task It's a project That is going over 30 years We have already Documented around 23,000 blocks Mainly we are looking to identify Where all these stones are coming from Yeah, it's a huge puzzle It's a puzzle With an extraordinary prize If they can join enough pieces They can figure out What the original buildings look like We have a roof tile most probable It's something very rare We give them a number Their ID number And we document everything Under this ID number Their measurements What they are From which monument If we are able to tell And we bring everything In the computer And reconstruct How this building was looking like After years of work The team has made a major discovery From the small fragments That the archaeologists have collected They've pieced together The dimensions Of a mysterious building They've worked out From the decorated blocks That it was a temple With a magnificent entrance At its front Sides 160 feet long And weighing thousands of tons It stood proud On a foundation of limestone blocks That still sits deep Under the Parthenon we know Right to this very day Amazingly This ancient temple Was another Parthenon Built long before The one we see today But what happened to it? In her search for answers Edith thinks she's found a clue In these statues These are the remains Of the sculptures On the Temple of Athena That preceded the Parthenon That we now can see And they're really amazing The statues date from a time Just before Athens emerged As the world's first democracy It's very elemental It's much more primitive Than what we see On the Parthenon that survived Exactly why the temple was destroyed Is a mystery But it's possible That the Greeks considered it old And its mythological sculptures Out of fashion with their beliefs Maybe something about The mythology on it Wasn't exactly right What we do know though Is it was a very important Stepping stone Towards the erection Of the great temple That we really identify It's the Parthenon The first Parthenon Showed the people of Athens They could construct a stone temple High above the city But the next generation Was determined to build Something bigger and better Their achievement Constructing the ancient Greek Acropolis We see today Was truly extraordinary From their work on the ancient stones The team restoring the Acropolis Is convinced that these were Some of the finest buildings Ever constructed Vassiliki Eleftheriou Is the director Of the Acropolis restoration They have to move this block now The final position is here Today her team Is installing an ancient block That makes up the entrance gateway The Propylaia The restoration here Reveals new evidence That the ancient craftsmen Worked with extreme precision They left markings in the stone That Vassiliki can still use As a guide We can see the traces The lines of the ancient position And now we put again According to this line It's a challenge To match the craftsmanship Of the ancient builders Even with modern tools All of the technicians today Admire the ancient technicians They knew secrets That we don't know Even after 2,400 years The ancient Greek block Still fits into position To build the Acropolis The Greeks had to repeat This precision over and over again So how did they do it Ancient masons carved 13,000 perfectly rectangular Blocks of marble They assembled the blocks Into 40-foot high walls Outside they stacked Over 600 massive marble drums To form 58 towering columns Over 3 stories tall On top they laid stones Weighing up to 10 tons How could the ancient Greeks Lift such massive weights And place them With such surgical precision On the entrance gateway To the Acropolis Known as the Propylaia The restoration team Is grappling with the same problem That challenged the ancient Greeks Architect Konstantinos Karanasos And his team They must raise An original drum of marble To the top of one of the columns The plan is to put the drum At its original position Lifting this 2,400-year-old Piece of marble Requires extreme caution It's very difficult Because we have to be very careful To not make damages It's very responsible Raising the stone Reveals a problem The straps wrap Right underneath the drum Their position makes it impossible To lay the drum Directly onto the column So what did the ancient Greeks do That this modern team is not? One original stone Among thousands on the Acropolis Holds the key It looks completely different To a finished column drum But Edith thinks It solves an engineering mystery This is very exciting This is actually a column drum To make one of the columns Of the temples But in the state It would have arrived at From the quarry At the quarry It was made into the circle Circular shape But these big bosses Were left on So what could these knots Have been used for? The Greeks had big wooden cranes That could winch 10-ton marble pieces Over three stories high They left the drums uncarved Except for the protrusions Called bosses The lifting ropes Gripped to the bosses And released with ease They stacked up 11 drums To build a column Then the masons Carved the flutes In perfect alignment To make sure That all the columns Of the Parthenon Looked exactly the same Without these bosses The only way Constantinos and the team Can lower the drum into place Is to use modern equipment They tie the ropes tight Around the sides of the drum But keeping the stone level Is no simple task They try to lift it horizontally Because it has to be positioned Horizontally to the other drum It takes the team two days To place the drum safely Into its original position And take the entrance gateway A step closer to completion The buildings on the Acropolis Are over 2,400 years old Greece is still one of the most Seismically active areas in the world With few other structures Lasting so long So what's the secret? How have these ancient temples survived? Perched high above the city of Athens The ancient temples of the Acropolis Including the majestic Parthenon Are an engineering mystery They stand in one of the most Seismically active countries in the world Recent earthquakes have demolished Modern buildings in the city So how have these ancient temples Survived for over 2,000 years? Seismologist Yanis Kalageris Monitors seismic activity on the Acropolis This is a typical installation site Of the accelerographic array Of the Acropolis Here you can see the accelerograph This accelerograph One of ten positioned across the site Measures how much the ground shakes We are now connected To five instruments When he looks back at the data Yanis discovers that during earthquakes Something strange happens here At the Parthenon This is a typical record Of a small earthquake, local earthquake The recording shows that The foundations of the Parthenon Shake less than the ground In the surrounding city But why is this happening? What is special about this place? The difference is Because of the local characteristics By the geology of the site The rock itself is solid But the city around it Is built on loose soil That vibrates strongly in an earthquake The Parthenon is built on limestone It's more stiff, more rigid It appears that the Parthenon's foundations Built directly on solid rock Have helped it survive But this alone doesn't explain How these temples have stood firm Against earthquakes The biggest clue To what makes these structures so special Hides inside their stones Blow the Parthenon apart And you won't find an ounce of mortar To bond the marble together Instead, there are mysterious slots In the blocks And inside them, iron clamps In between the column drums There are wooden wedges and pins These pieces of iron and wood Help protect the temple from earthquakes But how do they do it? Civil engineer Zanis Kantaias Works with the restoration team He thinks the ancient Greeks Did something clever When they installed these connecting pieces The clamps were placed in sockets That were carefully carved On the top side of the blocks He's noticed that ancient builders Deliberately cut the holes Larger than the clamps The gap between the clamp And the sockets Was covered with lead Which was melted And poured inside the socket You can still see here Part of the lead saved The lead seals the iron clamps from the air And stops them from rusting But it also plays a critical role In an earthquake Lead, since it is a much softer material Would absorb part of the stresses During an earthquake The soft, flexible lead Allows the marble blocks to move While the clamps stop the walls From falling down Of course it worked very well The lifetime of the monument Is a great proof of it The system that protects the columns Is even smarter When they pulled the columns apart Archaeologists found pieces of wood 2,400 years old And amazingly well preserved The segments are called Empolia and polos Column drums were connected to each other By a set of 3 wooden components 2 empolia and 1 polos The polos would be placed Inside the hole of the 2 empolia And this would be The connection of the drums The way the wood pieces work Is ingenious Without them A big quake could shake The columns out of alignment Until they collapse But the empolia prevent this They sit right in the middle of the drums And act like soft wooden joints Their special shape Lets columns wobble in a quake But always keeps the drums in line That means they don't collapse So when the earth stops shaking The Parthenon lives to see another day Archaeologists even have found Proof the concept works We're lucky enough To have an example Of how a lateral displacement Between 2 drums This has a result In the shape of the polos The polos was sheared Has stayed in this condition And preserved extremely well The wood held the stones together It twisted but didn't break The ancient Greek way of building Was so good That the team restoring the Acropolis Still uses the same techniques Where ancient stones are missing The team replaces them with new marble Today the restorers are laying A new marble block On the wall of the cellar The Temple Sanctuary Architect Rosalia Christodolopoulou Monitors the operation We are going to have a trial position Of this marble To join the blocks The ancient Greeks used dowels made of iron Today restorers use titanium Because it won't rust And instead of coating the dowel in lead They cement it in place Every stone has one dowel To strengthen the stone Against an earthquake The mortar is a special weak mix In an earthquake it will crumble Allowing the blocks to move Just like the lead did After months of preparing the stone It takes the team just 10 minutes To place it in its final position They hope that by copying The tried and tested ancient methods It will sit in this same spot for centuries Thanks to ingenious anti-earthquake devices The Parthenon still stands Two and a half thousand years After it was built Now modern researchers Are able to study its walls close up They've discovered new evidence To solve a persistent mystery What did this iconic building Really look like To construct the amazing Acropolis Greek builders had to transport Vast amounts of marble to this site Lift thousands of blocks onto its walls And carve dozens of exquisite columns But what they did next Is shrouded in mystery How did they complete these buildings And what did they originally look like Chemical engineer Eleni Agelikopoulou Is scouring the Parthenon for evidence She has just a few clues But one of the best Is hidden in this tower It's part of a mosque Built inside the Parthenon In the 16th century It's possible to see Part of the older Greek temple Through this gap in the wall In this area Some blocks of the tower were removed And we can see very clearly The fine carving that were used To decorate this area With the eggs and the dirt If we look more closely We can see very clearly Some traces of blue-green color here So it seems that there is A decorative pattern that is repeated The ancient Greeks it seems Didn't leave the marble bare But colored it with bright paint If so, how much of the building was painted The scaffolding on the Parthenon Allows researchers to access places They wouldn't normally see They've discovered more traces Of ancient paint On the corner of the west pediment In this area We can clearly see the red color And there is a pattern Of heart-shaped leaves here And in between them Traces of red color That has the shape of hearts This is a typical decoration Nearby, Eleni has discovered A faint clue to how an ancient artist Prepared the marble In this area of the corner block We can see clearly The decoration pattern here And if we look more closely We can distinguish The incisions that were used To do the pattern And then on top of it To apply the pigments During the classical period Combining these discoveries With ancient descriptions Of the Parthenon Archaeologists are able to recreate What the temple originally looked like Two and a half thousand years ago The Parthenon would have been An imposing site Inside its inner sanctuary Was a stunning display Of shining marble and rich color The cloak and armor of Athena Forged from over a ton of dazzling gold And her limbs carved In gleaming white ivory Paint in vivid colors Adorn the ceiling And at the entrance Elaborate carvings Showed scenes from Greek myths In such glorious color It's hard to imagine it today But despite all the evidence of color A mystery remains The surface of marble Is hard and glossy Paint doesn't easily adhere to it So how did the Greeks Get their paint to stick? Euphrosyne Doxytis Investigates ancient methods of painting She thinks the secret was wax You have the beeswax It's very pure And it smells beautiful And you melt it with a gum From the mastic tree And it's a resin To make the special paint Euphrosyne melts the gum With beeswax Then adds a pigment To give it color Next she marks out the pattern I think for sure The stencil was used for the drawing And this is very hard to carve This is like the Parthenon marble Precision is very important It leaves a very nice groove Which helps you be able To control the wax Euphrosyne must work fast As the wax cools It solidifies Ready here And I'm trying to very quickly Apply it in the stencil The heat helps Bind the paint to the marble Burning it in Makes it bond so well Because it excludes the humidity It makes the wax seal the marble And become one body with it Using this technique To paint the Parthenon Would have required great skill The painters had to be Even better than the sculptors Especially on the Parthenon You didn't go near the place If you weren't a very, very top craftsman The finished paint work On Athena's great temple Would have been outstanding Most of the paint on the Parthenon Has faded away Can archaeologists solve The mysteries of the underlying stone Before they are undetectable? Centuries of attack Have left the marble vulnerable In the 17th century Cannonballs blasted out these craters But that was a minor incident Compared to the temple's Long history of destruction In 267 A.D. Invaders burned down the roof Through the centuries The statue of Athena Over a ton of ivory and gold Has disappeared Then Christians Turned the Parthenon into a church And ripped the statues To pagan gods off the walls In 1687 A gunpowder explosion Blew the heart out of the building Even today The buildings on the Acropolis Are still under threat Conservator Anastasia Panu Leads the battle to save them As you can see The situation is very bad We have decay From atmospheric factors Biological factors We have a detachment Actually of the fragments So we lose the marble An escalating problem Comes from inside the stones themselves When engineers Last restored the building 90 years ago They inserted new iron clamps To hold the blocks together But they coated them In poor quality lead As the clamps have rusted They have expanded Cracking the ancient marble It actually makes cracks And then fractures the marble And sometimes A big piece of marble Detached from the main blocks Due to the iron clamps So far the team Has removed over 900 iron clamps From the Parthenon And replaced them With clamps made of titanium A metal that won't corrode Where essential pieces Of the original marble are missing The restoration team Must replace them Carving the missing half Of the marble block Takes tremendous skill A stone mason Must carefully copy A plaster cast replica Of the missing piece He uses this measuring tool To identify areas of stone That need to be removed Next comes the detailed work That ensures a tight fit The mason paints The old block in mud He then pushes The two stones together Dots of mud on the new stone Identify areas He needs to chisel away The final piece Will be a perfect fit Right now The new white marble On the Parthenon stands out But over time It will fade To blend with the old The new marble On this temple Restored 35 years ago Has already started to fade It will eventually Match the original Two and a half thousand years After it was built The Acropolis Is still giving up its secrets Helping us unravel The mysteries of the ancient Greeks The more we discover The more amazing This ancient citadel becomes Its hero structure The mighty Parthenon Built to worship an ancient goddess Is the crowning achievement Of one of the world's Greatest civilizations It remains one of the most Awe-inspiring ancient wonders Ever built