The Acropolis in Athens is crumbling, say archaeologists

ALWAYS wanted to see the ancient Greek architectural wonder, the Acropolis of Athens? You better hurry — the huge rock is crumbling.

Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens

JUST when Greece thought it had come through the worst of the economic crisis, it was hit by a new blow — one of its most famous landmarks, the Acropolis, is crumbling.

Engineers have discovered that part of the huge flat-topped rock on which the ancient Parthenon sits in the centre of Athens is starting to give way, the Greek news agency ANA said.

The Parthenon is a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron.

Construction began in 447BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power.

Teams from the Central Archaeological Council found “instability over quite a wide area” of the Acropolis after investigating a rockfall in January in which a boulder of “considerable size” tumbled from the most visited site in the Greek capital.

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Landmark ... The Acropolis is the most visited site in the Greek capital. Pic: ELLA PELLEGRINI

Work to shore up the southern slope of the hill on which the 2,500-year-old temple complex sits will be necessary, the agency reported, blaming rainwater pipes from the old Acropolis museum.

Despite sharp cuts elsewhere, the restoration work on the site that has been going on since the 1970s has remained sacrosanct, a symbol of the country’s glorious past.

In the not so glorious present, Greece has had to endure six years of brutal recession, with unemployment soaring to 27 per cent.

And the Acropolis is not the only ancient world monument at risk of demise.

The oldest pyramid in Egypt — the Pyramid of Djoser — is being destroyed by the company hired to restore it, according to activists.

Restoration work ... Wooden scaffolding covers the Djoser Pyramid in Saqqara, Egypt, as new brick work is added at the base of the pyramid. Pic: AP Photo/Samuel McNeil

According to the Non-stop Robberies movement, the company hired by Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities to restore the pyramid, in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara, has broken preservation laws requiring that any new construction be less than 5 per cent of the preserved structure.

Instead the company — which has reportedly never worked on a preservation project before — built a number of new walls and structures that passed the limit.

The company, called Shurbagy, has been working for nine years and has not been successful in any of the six projects it has worked on, the movement’s Amir Gamal told the Egypt Independent last month.

“The company has never restored any archaeological site. All projects it had were to create modern construction at archaeological sites,” Gamal said.