Panoramic views using QuicktimeVR or the various Java based viewers available realy help people to get an understanding of how different parts of a site connect together if they have not been there. giving you the impression that you are really there & looking around it.
Some time ago I created a number of panoramic views of the Parthenon, but have not yet had time to add the to this site. Hellas.net has recently added a page with 9 different panoramic views of the Acropolis. Particularly if you have never had the chance to visit Athens, it will give you a much clearer idea of what it feels like to stand on the Acropolis. There are also a lot of other panoramas of Athens & other parts of Greece on the site.

The Towards an Archaeology of Iconoclasm blog has an interesting piece about the iconoclasm at the Parthenon during the early Christian period.
It is an interesting period in the Parthenon’s history, but often forgotten, sandwiched between the creation & early life of the building as a temple, & then its later life as a mosque under the Ottomans.

The current restoration of the Acropolis has now been underway for 30 years, but there is still a huge amount left to complete. The fact remains though, that although €70M is a large amount, it is no more than is spent on the construction of many luxury hotels nowadays for instance, yet the Hellenic government is very reluctant to give the project the funding that it requires. Yet the importance of the project can not be under estimated; not only is it one of the largest scale, most technically complex & most technologically advanced restoration projects anywhere in the world, but the Acropolis itself is the symbol that everyone identifies with Greece.
Tourists complain about the scaffolding, but it is far less obtrusive than the scaffolding in the interior of Aya Sofia for instance. Perhaps in their photos, the building will not look as pristine as they wanted to imagine it, but without the restoration it would not be there at all.

From:
The Guardian

Repair of Acropolis started in 1975 – now it needs 20 more years and £47m
Helena Smith in Athens
Friday June 10, 2005
The Guardian

It is meant to be the highlight of any trip to Greece: climbing the “holy rock” in Athens to see the marvels of the ancient Acropolis. But visiting the place that Le Corbusier, the pioneer of architectural modernism, called the most “ruthlessly flawless” monument in the world is not what it used to be.

Parts of the Acropolis have been dismantled. Other areas are shrouded in scaffolding and overshadowed by a crane.
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For as long as I have been visiting Athens, the Parthenon & many other parts of the Acropolis have been covered in scaffolding as part of the extensive restoration works. Greece has appealed for private funds to accelerate the restorations, although in some ways it is not as simple as this, as there is a limit to how many people can work on the site & is generally impossible to use any sort of heavy machinery there.
Anyway, the Parthenon could be free of scaffolding as early as 2006, based on the EU funding that they were guaranteed for the project last week.

From:
Yahoo news

Acropolis to be free of scaffolding by 2006, restoration experts say
Tue May 17,11:52 AM ET
ATHENS (AFP) – Ongoing restoration work on the Acropolis will be completed on schedule, and all scaffolding currently encumbering the ancient citadel will be removed by 2006, Greek archaeologists supervising the project have said.

“The Acropolis works…are proceeding rapidly,” Acropolis Restoration Service (YSMA) director Maria Ioannidou told an annual conference on the project’s progress Monday.
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The requests made by the Greek government for additional funding for the Acropolis restoration project have been granted.

From:
Kathimerini

EU shot in the arm for Acropolis

An extra 5 million euros will be provided for the Acropolis conservation works, bringing the total of European Union and national funding for the mammoth project up to 12 million euros over the next two years, the government said yesterday.

While announcing the extra funding, a Culture Ministry release urged state archaeologists and conservators handling the works — which started in 1975 and are not expected to finish before 2020 — to step up their pace and improve the project’s organization.
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In a change to the longstanding previous policy of trying to fund the entirety of the Acropolis restoration themselves, the Greek Government is now suggesting that private sponsors could also contribute money towards the restoration works. Quite possibly part of the cutbacks on spending that are facing many of the Greek government departments at present.

From:
Kathimerini

Friday April 29, 2005
Sponsors may be invited to pay for Acropolis works
Government says project will take another 16 years, 70 million euros

Dismayed by spiraling costs and a seemingly open-ended completion schedule for conservation works on Greece’s most iconic archaeological site, the government is thinking of seeking private sponsorship to expedite the Acropolis project.
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For most Greeks the Acropolis is seen as not just a national treasure in the way that we might perceive Stonehenge, but more like a religious monument who’s dignity is to be protected.

From:
Kathimeni

Acropolis advert gets green light

After four weeks of agonizing over the rights and wrongs of letting the Acropolis feature in a corporate advertising campaign, Greece’s top board of antiquities has OK’d the drive, charging a multinational electronics giant 7,043 euros for the service.

In a meeting late on Tuesday, the Culture Ministry’s Central Archaeological Council (KAS) gave the green light to the Greek branch of Philips to use images of the ancient citadel in print and TV adverts to be launched globally later this year.

The company provided equipment for the new lighting scheme adopted for the Acropolis ahead of the Olympics and has offered to do the same again, free of charge, for a monument of the ministry’s choice. This swayed several KAS members. Others, such as professor of architecture Haralambos Bouras, argued that Philips “is not a barbarous firm.”

But the director of the Athens Byzantine Museum, Dimitrios Constantios, voted against the campaign, claiming a favorable decision “will associate this major monument with advertising.”

KAS first discussed the controversial matter last month but postponed a ruling until, among others, ministry archaeologists could draw up a list of which monuments should not be used for such purposes. No mention was made of this list on Tuesday.

Not really that relevant, except inasmuch as it highlights how seriously Greece treats the protection of its antiquities nowadays

From:
Victoria Times Colonist

Spring break in a Greek jail
Picking up a rock at Parthenon puts Duncan teen on wrong side of law

It’s unlikely Madelaine Gierc’s classmates will be able to top her stories about what she did during spring break.

The 16-year-old Grade 11 student from Duncan spent two nights in Athens police cells this week after being arrested for allegedly removing a piece of marble from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon, the marble temple perched on the Acropolis overlooking Athens. Read the rest of this entry »

A woman in Sweden read about the Swedish committee for the return of the Parthenon Marbles & has as a result decided to return a fragment taken from the Acropolis that she inherited from her father.

From:
Kathimerini

Wednesday February 9, 2005
Swedes to return bit of history

STOCKHOLM (AP) – A marble fragment removed over 100 years ago from an ancient temple in Athens will be donated to the new Acropolis museum under the citadel, a spokeswoman for a Swedish museum said yesterday.

The marble piece from the Erechtheion has been kept at the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, where it was sent for analysis and examination last year.
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A new book has been released by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. about the sculptures on the Parthenon & his own personal interpretation of them. I have not yet read this book, but have read one of his previous books “Athena & Eden” & found that while the initial research appeared to be clearly structured & thought out, as it moved towards his conclusions it is clear fairly poor historical assumptions were being used to try & prop up the authors own extreme creationist ideology.
If anyone is going to read this book I would suggest that they also purchase a number of other books on the Parthenon Sculptures & their meaning / interpretation to gain a more balanced (& accepted by archaeologists) perspective on the topic. After all, given the same set of facts to start with, many others have looked at these facts, but few others have ended up with an interpretation even approaching the theories that are expounded by this author.

From:
artdaily.com

Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Kain (Cain) Depicted Killing Abel on the Parthenon?
ANNAPOLIS, MD.- Did ancient Greek artists depict Kain (Cain) killing Abel on their most glorious temple, the Parthenon? Yes, according to Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr., author of “The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History in Marble,” new from Solving Light Books.

Johnson’s book relates that the story of Kain killing Abel appeared on four square sculpted panels in the center of the south side of the Parthenon. While these were destroyed in the explosion of 1687, accurate drawings of them from 1674 by French artist, Jacques Carrey, survive. On the first panel, according to the book, Kain and Abel talk. On the second, Kain argues with his own wife over a sacrifice. On the third, Kain startles Abel in the field. On the fourth, Kain kills Abel.
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He might have accepted that the Acropolis Museum is now going to be built, despite his earlier opposition to the project. However, Petros Tatoulis the Deputy Culture Minister is still unhappy with the amount that is being spent on the restoration of the Acropolis monuments.

From:
Kathimerini

Saturday December 11, 2004
Tatoulis balks at Acropolis costs

Confirming reports of funding cuts for the Acropolis conservation and restoration work, the Culture Ministry said yesterday that budgeting for the marathon project had to be “rationalized” and rendered “credible.”

Deputy Culture Minister Petros Tatoulis, who is on a visit to Albania, said he was unhappy with the planning and budgeting by archaeologists and architects leading the massive project — which started in 1975.
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The colossal task of restoring the Acropolis can be split down into a number of smaller projects focussing on the individual buildings within the site. Dr Tassos Tanoulas who is in charge of the restoration of the Propylaea (the gateway building through which you pass to enter the Acropolis) is speaking in London about the part of the restoration work that he has overseen.

From:
Kathimerini

Saturday November 20, 2004
King’s College London to host lecture on history and restoration of the Propylaea by Dr Tassos Tanoulas

This Monday, November 22 at 7 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Strand Campus of King’s College London, the Greek Archaeological Committee (UK), with its president Matti Egon, a founding member, and her husband Nicholas, is presenting a lecture by Dr Tassos Tanoulas, the architect in charge of the project of restoring the Propylaea, which the Culture Ministry began in 1982.
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