Joan Breton Connelly

While I think this book deserves five stars for the thinking and work that went into it, I'm giving it four stars as it was rather a slog to read, with the author taking great pains to slowly and methodically build up the support for her main conclusion. The book also used endnotes, which I hate, rather than footnotes, making it difficult to read as you have to keep flipping back and forth in the book to see the support for various claims. But if you can bear with its, and can deal with endnotes, it will reward you with a new (and well-supported) way of thinking about the ancient Greeks and their world.… (more)

This was one of the best nonfictions I've read in awhile!!! I was reading slowly to retain anything. The information was fascinating and the author's style not complicated. Supplementary material and both b&w and color illustrations were outstanding.

It described Athens in antiquity: geography, topography, natural surroundings, why this particular location of Acropolis chosen. The Acropolis was a sacred space. To ancient Greeks mythology = history; religion was not separate. An aside: ancient Greeks had a Deluge myth like that of Sumerians and Hebrews; their "Noah" and wife were Deukalion and Pyrrha.

I learned a new word, only who knows when I'll use it: Catasterization [change into constellations] of some mythological figures, e.g., Drako, Hydra by some of the gods. Persians in the Greco-Persian War destroyed much of the pre-Periklean Acropolis temples. Perikles began a massive rebuilding project, including the Parthenon and Erechtheon. Then followed an extensive description. The Parthenon friezes all around the upper wall and pediments were a retelling of the Erechtheus myth and the sacrifice of his virgin daughter [perhaps named Pandora--a different girl from the one who opened the box] for the good of the city. Erechtheus was considered the primordial father of Athens. Her sisters also died. The author feels the Parthenon ["place of the maidens"] is in honor of these young ladies, in spite of a statue of Athena. These buildings memorialized dead heroes--the dead shaped sacred spaces. Reason for the name Parthenon is not so much Athena as the virgin daughter of Erechtheus, who was sacrificed for good of the city. Explanation of Panathenaion and that of Hyakinthia follow. I've always wondered about the latter when I was reading about Sparta. The author mentions influences from those days on several modern customs. The book closes with the polychromy controversies, repair and cleaning efforts, some not so successful; modern ones are trying to undo old efforts and restoring with more modern methods. The author hopes the Elgin Marbles [60% of the frieze taken to the British Museum and other European countries] will be returned since the Greeks built a spanking new Acropolis Museum in 2009.

Most highly recommended for anyone who is interested in archaeology, mythology, or antiquities.… (more)