14 DAY TRIAL // Attending this year's meeting of the Classical Association of Canada, a team of archaeologists talked about how, in ancient times, the Parthenon might have served as the city of Athens' treasury.
The researchers, among them specialist Spencer Pope at the McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, think that the ancient temple's attic would have been the perfect place for ancient Athens to hide its cash reserves.
No, it's not that the Parthenon was protected by security alarms. The building was, however, a sacred place dedicated to the goddess Athena and so nobody would have dared rob it for fear that they might upset the deity.
“Thefts from the temple would have been considered thefts from the goddess herself,” McMaster University archaeologist Spencer Pope and fellow researchers explain.
We're talking mountains of cash
These days, the Parthenon in Athens looks nothing like its former self. Mind you, the millennia-old temple doesn't even have an attic any longer.
Greek history enthusiast Spencer Pope and colleagues, however, believe that, in its heydays, the Parthenon was topped by a seriously oversized garret whose surface area was about three times greater than that of a modern tennis court.
This attic was most likely used to store the city's cash reserves, the archaeologists say. Sometimes, the mountains of coins in it would weigh hundreds of tons. “The famous Greek temple may have housed millions of coins, functioning as a sort of Fort Knox for the wealthy city-state,” the researchers argue. “Such reserves could have, at times, reached a weight of 260 metric tons,” they add.
Well, what happened to the money?
It's pretty obvious that, at least these days, there is no cash whatsoever hidden anywhere in or at least someplace near the Parthenon. Not even one measly coin.
Spencer Pope and his team suspect that, as impressive as the temple's riches once were, the Greeks eventually spent all the money on erecting statues and buildings, and on fighting rival Sparta.
