Editing Parthenon (section)

===Islamic mosque===
[[File:Parthenon – 28 May 1838 – Skene James - 1838.jpg|thumb|Drawing of the Parthenon by [[James Skene]], 1838|upright=1.2]]
In 1456, [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] Turkish forces invaded Athens and laid siege to a [[Florence|Florentine]] army defending the Acropolis until June 1458, when it surrendered to the Turks.<ref>{{cite book |last=Babinger |first=Franz |title=Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1992 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PPxC6rO7vvsC&pg=PA159 |pages=159–160 |isbn=978-0-691-01078-6 |access-date=23 February 2016 |archive-date=28 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240628092247/https://books.google.com/books?id=PPxC6rO7vvsC&pg=PA159#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> The Turks may have briefly restored the Parthenon to the [[Greek Orthodox]] Christians for continued use as a church.<ref>{{cite web |last=Tomkinson |first=John L. |title=Ottoman Athens I: Early Ottoman Athens (1456–1689) |publisher=Anagnosis Books |url=http://www.anagnosis.gr/index.php?la=eng&pageID=216 |access-date=14 August 2012 |archive-date=29 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120729151054/http://www.anagnosis.gr/index.php?pageID=216&la=eng |url-status=dead}} "In 1466 the Parthenon was referred to as a church, so it seems likely that for some time at least, it continued to function as a cathedral, being restored to the use of the Greek archbishop."</ref> Some time before the end of the fifteenth century, the Parthenon became a [[Parthenon mosque|mosque]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Tomkinson |first=John L. |title=Ottoman Athens I: Early Ottoman Athens (1456–1689) |publisher=Anagnosis Books |url=http://www.anagnosis.gr/index.php?la=eng&pageID=216 |access-date=14 August 2012 |archive-date=29 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120729151054/http://www.anagnosis.gr/index.php?pageID=216&la=eng |url-status=dead}} "Some time later – we do not know exactly when – the Parthenon was itself converted into a mosque."</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=D'Ooge |first=Martin Luther |url=http://archive.org/details/acropolisofathen00dooguoft |title=The acropolis of Athens |date=1909 |publisher=New York: Macmillan |others=Robarts – University of Toronto |pages=317 |quote=The conversion of the Parthenon into a mosque is first mentioned by another anonymous writer, the ''Paris Anonymous'', whose manuscript dating from the latter half of the fifteenth century was discovered in the library of Paris in 1862.}}</ref>

The precise circumstances under which the Turks appropriated it for use as a mosque are unclear; one account states that [[Mehmed II]] ordered its conversion as punishment for an Athenian plot against Ottoman rule.<ref name = "Miller">{{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Walter |title=A History of the Akropolis of Athens |journal=The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts |volume=8 |issue=4 |year=1893 |pages=546–547 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3aMrAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA547 |doi=10.2307/495887 |jstor=495887 |access-date=23 February 2016 |archive-date=28 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240628092248/https://books.google.com/books?id=3aMrAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA547#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> The apse was repurposed into a [[mihrab]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hollis |first=Edward |url=http://archive.org/details/secretlivesofbui0000holl |title=The secret lives of buildings: from the ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in thirteen stories |date=2009 |publisher=Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8050-8785-7 |location=New York, New York |page=33}}</ref> the tower previously constructed during the Roman Catholic occupation of the Parthenon was extended upwards to become a minaret,<ref>{{cite book |last=Bruno |first=Vincent J. |title=The Parthenon |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |year=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kNItkhYRrc0C&pg=PA172 |isbn=978-0-393-31440-3 |page=172 |access-date=23 February 2016 |archive-date=28 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240628093156/https://books.google.com/books?id=kNItkhYRrc0C&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> a [[minbar]] was installed,<ref name=Freely70/> the Christian altar and iconostasis were removed, and the walls were whitewashed to cover icons of Christian saints and other Christian imagery.<ref>{{Cite book |last=D'Ooge |first=Martin Luther |url=http://archive.org/details/acropolisofathen00dooguoft |title=The acropolis of Athens |date=1909 |publisher=New York: Macmillan |others=Robarts – University of Toronto |page=317}}</ref>

Despite the alterations accompanying the Parthenon's conversion into a church and subsequently a mosque, its structure had remained basically intact.<ref name = "Rathus">{{cite book |last=Fichner-Rathus |first=Lois |title=Understanding Art |publisher=Cengage Learning |edition=10 |year=2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JPlYOG52w2UC&pg=PT324 |page=305 |isbn=978-1-111-83695-5 |access-date=23 February 2016 |archive-date=28 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240628093157/https://books.google.com/books?id=JPlYOG52w2UC&pg=PT324 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1667, the Turkish traveller [[Evliya Çelebi]] expressed marvel at the Parthenon's sculptures and figuratively described the building as "like some impregnable fortress not made by human agency".<ref>{{cite book |last=Stoneman |first=Richard |title=A Traveller's History of Athens |publisher=Interlink Books |year=2004 |url=https://archive.org/details/travellershistor00ston |url-access=registration |isbn=978-1-56656-533-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/travellershistor00ston/page/209 209]}}</ref> He composed a poetic supplication stating that, as "a work less of human hands than of Heaven itself, [it] should remain standing for all time".<ref name="Holt">{{cite journal |last=Holt |first=Frank L. |title=I, Marble Maiden |journal=[[Saudi Aramco World]] |volume=59 |number=6 |date=November–December 2008 |pages=36–41 |url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200806/i.marble.maiden.htm |access-date=3 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120801063702/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200806/i.marble.maiden.htm |archive-date=1 August 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The French artist [[Jacques Carrey]] in 1674 visited the Acropolis and sketched the Parthenon's sculptural decorations.<ref name="Bowie">T. Bowie, D. Thimme, ''The Carrey Drawings of the Parthenon Sculptures'', 1971.</ref> Early in 1687, an engineer named Plantier sketched the Parthenon for the Frenchman Graviers d'Ortières.<ref name = "Chatziaslani"/> These depictions, particularly Carrey's, provide important, and sometimes the only, evidence of the condition of the Parthenon and its various sculptures prior to the devastation it suffered in late 1687 and the subsequent looting of its art objects.<ref name="Bowie"/>