An explosion wrecked the Parthenon during a siege
On this day · 26 September 1687
On September 26, 1687, a Venetian shell ignited gunpowder stored in the Parthenon, shattering a temple that had stood for over 2,000 years.
On the night of September 26, 1687, during the Venetian siege of the Acropolis, a single mortar shell did what two millennia had not. The Ottoman garrison had stored its gunpowder inside the Parthenon, treating the marble temple as a fortress. A round fired by the forces of Francesco Morosini found it.
The blast tore the roof off, blew out the long colonnaded sides, and reduced much of the building to rubble. An estimated 300 people died, and a fire smoldered for two days. The temple—Greek shrine, then church, then mosque—was left in the skeletal state visitors still see today.
One shell ended what had survived since the age of Pericles.
Morosini compounded the loss soon after: trying to haul off sculptures from the west pediment as spoils, his crews dropped and smashed them. The Parthenon would never again be whole, and the explosion remains the single most destructive moment in its long life.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
