View of the Acropolis with the Frankish Tower

Datebefore 1874

MediumAlbumen print

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. William Knight Zewadski

Object number1991.012.537B

Label TextWhen the Acropolis became an archaeological site in 1834, the process of excavation began that would reduce the ground surrounding the monuments to bedrock by the end of the century. The rubble lying on the southern flank is the result of the zealous removal of all the buildings, like the houses of Turkish soldiers, which had accumulated since the site had ceased to be a pagan sanctuary in the sixth century AD. All extraneous material was poured over the retaining wall to the south of the Parthenon. This was finally removed around 1874 to be used as landfill elsewhere in the modern city.

The Frankish Tower still stood at this time, but was considered by many to be, as one scholar put it, "an eyesore to the better educated public." Others, however, decried its demolition in 1875 as, one critic called it, "the wanton barbarism of classical exclusiveness" which did not value the entire history of the Acropolis, but only "two or three favorite ages."

Exhibition HistoryThe Camera and Antiquity, Michael C. Carlos Museum, June 22 - October 24, 1993
The Eye of Greece: Athens in Nineteenth-Century Photographs, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 25 - November 24, 2004
In Search of Noble Marbles: The Earliest Travelers to Greece, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 14 - April 9, 2017

ProvenanceEx coll. William Knight Zewadski, United States.

Status

Not on view

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