Its hard not to be in awe, I mean thier methods and even the tools used were so advanced even the masons today didnt have some of them. and to use the optical illusion effect to make everything look straight when it wasnt just added that much more complexity to something that had it not been attacked would probably still be standing almost fully intact today. I dare any engineering firm on the planet to claim that title for anything they build today :)

Yeah, these people were incredible. But it seems like the Parthenon got barely a year of decent use before warfare and abuse began to bombard it. We don't really live in an age of this kind of creation. We're encouraged to buy and consume, not create, not collaborate. We compete for trips to Bermuda in the office. What will be our legacy? Infomercials and aluminum siding and Harry Potter and tons of tiny electronic devices built for quick obsolescence foe the widest profit margin...Sorry, I'm in a bit of a mood. :)

I'm a bit confused about this. While the Parthenon's architecture is commonly copied as they mentioned, the builders of the French parliament building, etc. had to have conjured up plans that imitated the look, but not entirely the engineering of the Parthenon. But until they started taking the Parthenon apart, no one knew exactly how it was built--no one has ever found any blueprints. So these newer buildings that copy the design must be based on something pretty different, or maybe even expeditious. That's cool--I don't know anything about building stuff, but there is surely more than one way to skin a cat. Why do it, curt33? Well, IMHO while it's a huge and arduous undertaking to dismantle, create new pieces fitted with / onto the old ones, and then put the entire thing back together, it's being done so that people can unlock all the secrets of how the ancients built the thing. It is pretty nuts to go through all this, but I think it's worth it not only so they can learn about ancient methods, but also because--well, where are they going to build a Parthenon replica? Next door to the old one? Or in place of the old one? I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't want to be the one making the decision to raze a 2500 year old treasure to the ground. JMO.

Say what? The Parthenon was built in the days of Pericles. Inspired by his powerful orations in the assemblies, democracy flowered in Athens during that time.The republic was a Roman institution, not Greek.