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To save the temple, the Greek government called upon Architect Korres, a native of Athens and a specialist in ancient monuments, who since 1977 has participated in the restoration of the nearby Erechtheum. That project is nearly completed; the scaffolding of the Erechtheum is scheduled for removal in 1984. At this temple engineers also encountered irons rusting within marble. After tearing down the Erechtheum's walls, they replaced the rods with rustproof titanium, a strong, lightweight metal commonly used in airplane engines and earth-orbiting craft.
Five caryatids of the Erechtheum, which support carvings that acid rains have obliterated, were replaced temporarily with plaster likenesses. The original caryatids have been taken to the Acropolis Museum, where they will be placed in a glass chamber filled with nitrogen, a gas that acts as a preservative.
Restoration of the Parthenon will prove a more difficult task: the 24,000-sq.-ft. building is more devastated and considerably larger than the 3,000-sq.-ft. Erechtheum. Thousands of the Parthenon's stones have toppled to the ground. After being carefully numbered and, in some cases, fitted to new pieces of Pentelic marble, the stones will be raised and stacked into position on the temple's walls. Enough old stones exist to rebuild much of the wall of the Parthenon's rectangular interior chamber, or cella.
To move the marble stones, some of which weigh as much as twelve tons, Korres plans to use a French-built arch crane with dangling giant forceps. When work begins (perhaps as soon as December), the crane's silhouette will stretch skyward from the Acropolis, dwarfing the monuments. Its first task: setting straight a carved column at the temple's southeast corner, which has tilted precariously since a 1981 earthquake moved its base by more than one inch. When the crane is idle, its upper portions will fold down, out of sight of the residents and visitors in the city below.
After hearing Korres' proposal earlier this month, the international gathering of historians, engineers and scientists gave high marks to his plan, although some seismologists urged that more study be given to earthquake protection. As Engineer N.N. Ambraseys of the University of London observed, "I have heard that an earthquake is an act of God. But what is today an act of God might tomorrow be an act of criminal neglect." Athenian Engineer Costas Zambas argued against structural changes, saying, "We must respect the Parthenon's construction as it was made in the first place, even if by modern calculations this would make it vulnerable. Its resistance has been proved."
The restoration, Architect Korres insisted, should not try to return the temple to mint condition. As he put it, "Acts of vandalism and the decline of the original architectural system all form part of the history of the building. We are obliged to accept that the perfect lines and surfaces have been lost forever and that the monument has a new character—that of a ruin."