Parthenon Reaction Paper #3 The Greatness of the Greeks During the movie that we watched in class, I learned many things that I previously never knew and though were possible during the Greek classical age. The Parthenon was greater than just an amazing piece of architecture. The Greeks dedicated this monument to their Greek goddess Athena. I was surprised to learn while watching the video that they did not have plans to go off of but yet made the structure of the Parthenon so complex that experts today are having trouble dissecting their greatness.
For the Greeks to produce something like that in 447 BC is surreal and to finish it in 9 years while it is expected for experts today with all the tools they need to finish the project in 40 years. Some things don’t make sense, like how could they be ahead of our time when we seem to know so much more than those living back in the Greek classical age?
Not only do I feel that we know more about architecture but I am also convinced that the tools and machinery that we have now are so much better and more reliable that we should be able to build something like that better and in less time. That however is not the case; the Greeks somehow were more efficient than we are now which is hard to believe. While I was watching the video I learned that the beams supporting the building are not straight even though they appear to be.
The video brought up that there were slight curves in every beam that made each one unique which I thought was interesting since that’s advanced engineering. I don’t want make an assumption that Greek technology was greater than ours because it’s not, but I can’t deny the fact they built something that we struggle figuring out its plans so I give them a round of applause for the accomplishment of the Parthenon.
One of the reasons I believe they were more efficient than modern day workers is because they bred workers and would always be doing something while today’s workers wait for instruction instead of taking it upon themselves to do something. They also had more of an incentive since to build it since they were building it for their Greek goddess Athena. Perhaps the Greeks weren’t as far behind our generation as we might assume, we have found that their math was incredible for a couple of hundred years before Christ.
They were also very good a finding little tricks like scaling down the columns to 1/16 in order to get the curve they needed. They thought more logical while we rely more on computers which brings up the point that even without the machinery we have they could still find ways to lift the heavy columns and insert certain tricky elements of the Parthenon. Overall, the Greeks were an extraordinary group of individuals who were ahead of their time, in fact some may argue that in some ways they were ahead of our own generation.
