An archaeology of disability
On Friday 21 January at 11:00 am, the installation ‘An archaeology of disability‘, supported by the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University and presented at the Venice Biennale 2021, will be inaugurated.
Athenian monuments:
The Installation
This installation presents experiments in the reconstruction of the Acropolis in Athens undertaken by a classical archaeologist and historian of architecture, a historian of classical art, and a physically disabled historian of architecture. Our reconstructions recover ideas about bodies and impairment at one of the most canonical and notoriously inaccessible historic architectural sites.
We explore what it means to reconstruct lost elements of the Acropolis through the lens of disability and impairment. This approach contrasts with the pursuit of “accessible heritage” where the preservation of the historic past is complemented with modifications for accessibility.
Our alternative to accessible heritage is an “archaeology of disability:” We recover artifacts relevant to the experience of impairment and in languages and forms developed by and for disabled people.
The elements we reconstruct are from a range of scales: An enormous 5th Century BCE ramp that connected the Agora to the Acropolis; a series of paintings from the picture gallery at the entrance to the Acropolis that depicted bodies, gods, and violence; and an ancient seat, made of stone, that offered rest after climbing the ramp.
These elements vanished long ago, and none have any precisely known visual or material quality. Thus, we use contemporary ideas about impairment and access to reconstruct them into a variety of forms as valid as any other.
The ramp is reconstructed in visual and tactile forms as part of a larger narrative on accessing the Acropolis. The stone seat is reconstructed in indeterminate physical forms suitable for a variety of people. The paintings, known only through textual descriptions, are reconstructed in sign and audio language.
Collectively, these artifacts demonstrate how disability might shift the given form of monuments. Our approach can be continued with more extensive histories of this and other sites. Such work uses human difference as a way to complicate fixed images of historic spaces and their times.
1. The temple of Athena Nike
The casts reproduce portions of the temple’s balustrade dedicated to Athena Níke (Victory) on the Acropolis in Athens. The temple was built between 430-420 BCE by the architect Kallikrates.
The Ionic temple has four columns on both its front and rear sections. Due to the temple’s small size, the entrance wall was replaced by a bronze gate situated between pillars. An Ionic frieze, representing episodes of the Persian Wars, ran along the upper exterior walls. Around 410 BCE, the temple was equipped with an elegant balustrade made of Pentelic marble, decorated by Nikai (Victories) sacrificing and raising trophies in front of Athena, the goddess of the city. In the image of a Nike adjusting her sandal, the solid volumes of her body and the wet-looking folds of her garment suggest that the relief was executed by an artist trained under Phidias at the Parthenon. The temple’s decorative program highlighted both Athens’ ambitions and its past victories at a time of crisis during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta (431-404 BCE).
2. Kritios boy
The casts reproduce portions of the temple’s balustrade dedicated to Athena Níke (Victory) on the Acropolis in Athens. The temple was built between 430-420 BCE by the architect Kallikrates.
The Ionic temple has four columns on both its front and rear sections. Due to the temple’s small size, the entrance wall was replaced by a bronze gate situated between pillars. An Ionic frieze, representing episodes of the Persian Wars, ran along the upper exterior walls. Around 410 BCE, the temple was equipped with an elegant balustrade made of Pentelic marble, decorated by Nikai (Victories) sacrificing and raising trophies in front of Athena, the goddess of the city. In the image of a Nike adjusting her sandal, the solid volumes of her body and the wet-looking folds of her garment suggest that the relief was executed by an artist trained under Phidias at the Parthenon. The temple’s decorative program highlighted both Athens’ ambitions and its past victories at a time of crisis during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta (431-404 BCE).
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3. The Tyrant slayers
The plaster cast reproduces a Roman marble copy of a lost Greek bronze group known as The Tyrant Slayers. The statue represents two men: the older and bearded Harmodios and the younger Aristogeiton, who had attempted to murder Hippias, the tyrant of Athens. Instead, they succeeded in killing his brother, Hipparchus. Harmodios died during the clash and Aristogeiton was killed shortly after.
After the expulsion of Hippias (510 BCE), Athens honored the heroes by commissioning two bronze statues from the artist Antenor. This group was placed in the agora, where it remained until 480 BCE when it was looted by the Persians. At the end of the Persian Wars, the Athenians entrusted the artists Kritios and Nesiotes with the execution of a new bronze group (477-476 BCE). According to ancient literary sources, the earlier group by Antenor was returned to Athens upon the fall of the Persian Empire.
4. The Acropolis
The Acropolis (upper city) of Athens was the religious heart of the city. In 480 BCE, the Persians stormed Athens, thus destroying large parts of the city including the monuments on the Acropolis. At the end of the Persian Wars, the Athenians initiated a restoration program aimed at showcasing both the political and economic power of the city. The objects and artworks “polluted” by the enemy were buried on the Acropolis, prior to building new temples. Pericles, the protagonist of Athenian political life around the mid-fifth century, played a key role in the reconstruction of the Acropolis. He entrusted the direction of the works to the sculptor Phidias, who served as episkopos (superintendent).
The Acropolis was accessed by the Propylaea (from the Greek pro, “in front”, and pyle, “gate”). This complex was built on several levels between 438 and 432 BCE by the architect Mnesikles.
The small temple of Athena Nike (Victory), built between 430 and 421 BCE, was visible from the stairwell that led to the Acropolis.
The Parthenon, dedicated to Athena Parthenos (Virgin), was the first temple to be built between 447 and 438 BCE by the architects Iktinos, Kallikrates, and Mnesikles. Its sculptural decoration, produced by Phidias, was completed in 432 BCE.
The turmoil of the Peloponnesian War against Sparta slowed the construction of the Erechtheion in the northern portion of the plateau, which was built between 421 and 404 BCE with long interruptions. The unusual plan of this temple is a result of the desire to locate there the worship of several deities, such as Poseidon, Erechtheus, Zeus, and Athena. The famous Caryatids Porch embellishes the southern side of the building, deriving its name from the six statues of maidens (korai), called Caryatids, that support the lintel.
5. The Parthenon
The Parthenon (the temple of Athena Parthenos, “Virgin”) was built between 447 and 438 BCE and is the largest religious building on the Acropolis. The Parthenon has eight Doric columns on its short sides and seventeen on its long sides, while six additional columns frame the pronaos (vestibule). In the main room on the eastern portion, a double row of Doric columns divided the space into three naves. In the center stood the colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena, made of ivory and gold plaques on a wooden frame, created by Phidias. The smaller, western room featured four Ionic columns. There, the sacred furnishings of the temple were stored and preserved. According to other scholars, it was in this room that a group of virgins (parthenoi) made the peplos (a garment) to be offered to Athena during the Panathenaic festival.
The plaster casts on show here reproduce part of the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. The statues of the seated goddesses Demeter and Kore, represented attending Athena’s birth, belonged to the Eastern pediment. The statues of the western pediment represented, instead, the quarrel between Athena and Poseidon for the command of Attica (the region of Athens). A Doric frieze, divided into figural metopes and triglyphs (elements with vertical grooves), ran along the upper exterior walls. On the four sides of the building, the metopes depicted scenes from several battles against chaos and savagery: the fights against the Giants (Gigantomachy), the mythical human and equine hybrids known as Centaurs (Centauromachy), the wild warrior women known as Amazons (Amazonomachy), and the destruction of Troy. An Ionic frieze on the external walls of the cella represented the procession during the Panathenaea festival. The plaster casts on display reproduce some moments of this procession: young men carrying water vessels (a type of vase called hydria), worshippers leading animals for sacrifice, horsemen, and girls walking in pairs. The Parthenon had a long life after the Classical age. In the Middle Ages, it was used as a church. After the Ottoman conquest of Greece in the fifteenth century, the building became a mosque. In 1687, during a Venetian siege, mortar shells struck the building where explosives were stored, causing significant damage. In the early nineteenth century, Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to Constantinople, obtained permission to study the antiquities of the Acropolis and to remove the surviving sculptures. Lord Elgin had most of the Parthenon sculptures dismantled and transported to England. Since 1816, the “Elgin Marbles” have been held in the British Museum, although the Greek government has been claiming their restitution for several years.