The great destruction of the western pediment since it was seen by
Carrey may have been partly due to the explosion during the siege, but
was chiefly the work of the Venetian General Morosini. After taking
the Acropolis he tried to lower the horses of the car of Athenè, but
the tackle he used broke, and this matchless group fell to the ground.
If the fragments had been then collected and put together, much of
this beautiful design might have been saved, but they remained on the
spot where they fell till after the establishment of the Greek kingdom
at Athens (1833), when such of them as were extant were gathered up
and placed in a magazine on the Acropolis. They were subsequently
moulded, and casts of them are now exhibited in the Elgin Room.
Between the time of Morosini and the middle of the last century, when
Dalton drew the western pediment, the work of destruction had been
carried much further. In the right wing of the composition the figures
N, O, Q, S, T, and in the left wing only four figures, A, B, C, and
F(?) are shown in position on the pediment in Dalton's Plate. In the
intervening middle space, two torsos are lying on the floor of the
pediment. One of these is probably the Poseidon; the other may be the
figure marked H. On the ground below the pediment lies the body of a
draped figure, perhaps Athenè, and a fragment which may belong to the
Poseidon.
All that remained in position in the western pediment when Lord
Elgin's agents came to Athens were the figures B and C in the north
angle, and in the south angle the lower part of the reclining female
figure W. The figures are still in position, and the west end of the
Parthenon was therefore not touched by Lord Elgin. The River-god A
and the torsos H, L, M, O were found under the north-west angle of the
pediment, after taking down a Turkish house built against the columns.
The lower part of a female figure Q may also have been found on this
spot.
After the Acropolis passed into the possession of the Greek
government, the ground round the Parthenon was partly cleared of its
ruins, and this led to the discovery, in 1835, of the crouching male
figure V and of many fragments, among which are remains of the
horses lowered by Morosini. The sculptures removed by Lord Elgin are
exhibited in combination with casts of the remains now at Athens. The
description that follows begins from the left or northern angle of the
pediment.
[Sidenote: =304 A.=]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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