In the first siege of the Acropolis (1821), the Greek besiegers gave lead bullets to the Turks, so that they would stop destroying the ancient monuments!
Between 1458-1640 the surface of the Acropolis was covered by many houses, where the ottoman families, the garrison and the commander resided. Due to its importance as a military fortress, the entrance to the Acropolis was denied to all christians unless they had a special license. The Parthenon as a mosque aroused the admiration of visitors as except for minor modifications needed for muslim worship, it still stood in a fairly good condition.
General view of the Acropolis during the first years of Ottoman occupation. The Parthenon is converted into a mosque and the whole surface is covered by houses. By www.ancientathens3d.com
Athens at the beginning of the 19th century did not look at all like a typical urban center of the time like Tripoli or Nafplio. The Turks as a whole were not more than 600 in a total of 11,000 while the Greek inhabitants lived around Acropolis under the pressure of the Turks of the area who lived among them armed. The area around the Acropolis also had a weak wall, which in combination with the Turkish military presence could repel any possible attack. The wall started from the conservatory of Herodus Atticus, passed through the gate of Hadrian, continued along the current Amalia Avenue and included the current areas of Psyrri and Thissio in a total area of 11,000 sq.m.
The First Siege of the Acropolis in 1821–1822 involved the siege of the Acropolis of Athens by the Greek revolutionary forces, during the early stages of the Greek War of Independence.
Following the outbreak of the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Empire in March 1821, Athens fell into Greek hands on 28 April without a fight. Its garrison and Muslim inhabitants, along with the Greek population's leaders as hostages, retired to the Acropolis, which served as the garrison commander's residence. The initial Greek force, some 600 Athenians led by Meletios Vasileiou, was soon augmented by volunteers from Aegina, Hydra, Cephallonia and Kea to ca. 3,000, and maintained a loose siege of the fortified hill. A handful of Ottoman soldiers managed to break through the siege, and went to Karystos in Euboea to request the aid of the local governor, Omar Bey, and of the general Omer Vrioni. The two Ottoman leaders united their forces and descended on Attica. The Greek rebels scattered before them, and the Ottoman forces entered Athens on 20 July. Vrioni remained in Attica to pursue the Greek forces, while Omar of Karystos returned to his home province. After Vrioni's departure, however, the siege recommenced. In spring 1822, the Greek forces were reinforced with artillery commanded by French Philhellenes, under Olivier Voutier, who began a bombardment of the fortress. The Ottoman garrison surrendered on 9 June 1822.
Great destruction occurred in the temple (nave walls and columns) during this siege. A destruction that could have been infinitely greater, if not for the intervention of the fighter of 1821 and antiquarian Kyriakos Pittakis. Later, Pittakis, although he had not studied archeology, was to take responsibility for the antiquities from the newly formed Greek state.
As the walls of the monuments have not survived to this day, the unsuspecting visitor can imagine that the ancient public buildings had only columns. It is not like that at all. All the monuments had walls and between them the Parthenon, in which the marble walls of the nave (of the interior, that is, where the cult statue was kept) were equally impressive.
Kyriakos Pittakis
After Greek independence, he became Greece's first General Keeper of Antiquities. From 1837 to 1840, Pittakis supervised the reassembly of the Erechtheion. He campaigned to collect epigraphical material in Athens, gathering inscriptions in the church of Megali Panagia, the Theseum, the Stoa of Hadrian and the Tower of the Winds. Such preservationary efforts have been considered significant contributions to Greek archaeology. He also carried out the first excavations at Mycenae in 1841. He also restored the Lion Gate.
The wall of the nave was partly blown up by the eruption that followed the bombardment of Morosini (1687) but suffered even greater damage during the siege of the Acropolis in 1822, when the Turks broke the ancient stones to remove the pencil.
"The section that was kept intact until 1822 was dismantled within a month to get the lead and the stones remained there. Nobody wanted the stones, they wanted the lead", said academician Manolis Korres, and chairman of the Acropolis Monuments Preservation Committee, at a meeting of the Central Archaeological Council.
Athens, painting by Dodwell
Pittakis played a special role in preventing their further destruction, as he stated in a solemn speech at the Academy of Athens. According to Manolis Korre, the amateur archaeologist and later curator of Antiquities of the newly formed Greek state, expressed to Odysseus Androutsos the pious desire to be given bullets to stop the destruction of the monument. Something that happened. The incident, which we know from the literature, is reinforced by studies and research on the Parthenon, where the dissolved stones were found and the binder was missing.
"The Turks severely destroyed 500 stones. They left five hundred "injured" behind because they were in a hurry. They could have destroyed 50 and the 450 could have been '' healthy ''," the academic added. Of the 500, 200 were dismantled for various uses and construction works.
Emmanouil Korres (Greek: Εμμανουήλ Κορρές, born 1948) is a major Greek restoration architect, civil engineer and professor of architectural history at postgraduate studies at the National Technical University of Athens. Currently he is head of the Acropolis Restoration Service (YSMA) and a casual member of the Academy of Athens since 2017.
The famous Greek archaeologist who discovered The Royal Macedonian Tombs at Vergina, Manolis Andronikos, has written about the incident in his book "History and poetry":
"During the siege of the Acropolis of Athens by the Greeks, in the very first months of the Revolution of 1821, the danger of destruction for the monuments of the Acropolis was great. That is why the Provisional Administration asked Colonel Voutier, the commander of the Greek artillery, to respect the ancient monuments, during his attack against the Turks, who were enclosed inside the Acropolis. And yet this energy, so characteristic of the ethos of the Greek revolutionaries, is overcome by an unbelievable and yet true incident that is accidentally mentioned in the funeral of Kyriakos Pittakis. And this is related to the siege of the Acropolis. When the besiegers were informed that the Turks were chipping the ancient buildings to remove the lead that exists in the joints of the stones, after the suggestion of Pittakis, they sent them bullets to stop the destruction!”
Manolis Andronikos made one of the most important excavations in the history of archeology. On November 8, 1977 he discovers the tomb of the Macedonian king Philip II
The Greek fighters of the Greek War of Independence had an emotional bond and did what they could to protect antiquities all over Ottoman-occupied Greece. Although they knew a little about history, only the grandiosity and beauty of these monuments would mobilize those ordinary people who felt proud of their glorious ancestors.
Athens, painting by Edward Dodwell.
