Recent archaeology, using regular and modern technology, sheds new light on the Acropolis, the 'citadel' crowning jewel of Ancient Athens, and especially its best-known site, the patron goddess's Parthenon ('virgin') temple. It's actually built over the remnants if older temple site, dwarfing its 'shabby' predecessor. It required staggering costs and efforts, with ingenuity, just getting the marble up from a 'nearby' quarry required an impressive ramp and pulley system. In earthquake-sensitive Greece, that it survived tremors unlike most younger buildings is testimony to a luck-safer geological position but also largely thanks to the use of no mortar, just indestructible metal clamps. It was of blinding exuberance, brightly painted in colorful patterns and elaborate mythical scene decoration fixated with bees wax and resin, with a huge statue of over a ton of gold and masses of ivory. The research is used to rely on or match original techniques now restoration is needed after over 2500 years of exposure to fire, pillaging, religious reuse, hits by canon balls, powder explosion and erosion -mostly by modern pollution- plus the results of poor restoration with inept materials .
