British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Editor]: The sculptures of the Parthenon: Elgin room (Band 1) (London, 1880)

or Virgin Mary. After Athens had been taken by the
Turks in 1456, the Akropolis was made their citadel,
and the Christian church within the Parthenon became
a mosque. In 1674 drawings of the sculptures of the
Parthenon were made by Jacques Carrey, by direction of
the Marquis de Nointel, then French Ambassador at the
Porte. These drawings, which are preserved in the
Bibliotheque at Paris (Cabinet des Estampes), show what
was then extant of the two pedimental compositions, and
portions of the frieze and metopes. The central group
of the eastern pediment had then been destroyed, but
in other respects the Parthenon had not sustained much
injury. In 1687 Athens was taken by the Yenetians
under General Morosini, and in the course of the bom-
bardment of the Akropolis a shell falling into a powder
magazine in the Parthenon caused an explosion which
destroyed the roof and much of the building. The
model in the south-west angle of the Elgin Koom,
executed by Mr. E. C. Lucas, represents the temple after
this partial destruction. In 1688 Athens was restored
to the Turks, and from this date to the end of the
last century the sculptures of the Parthenon were ex-
posed to constant injury. Some of them were made
into lime, or built into walls by the Turkish garrison ;
others were mutilated by the travellers who from time to
time obtained admission to the Akropolis, and broke off
portable fragments of the sculptures. When Stuart visited
Athens in 1751-4, several fine portions of the frieze were
extant which had disappeared at the beginning of the
present century. In 1749 Dalton made some drawings
of the sculptures of the Parthenon, which were published
in 1751, but the remains on the Athenian Akropolis
excited little interest in England till the appearance of
Stuart's great work (Vol. I. in 1762; Vol. II. in 1790;
Vol. in. in 1794; and Vol. IV. in 1816).