Historical Consciousness and the Uses of the Past: The Nineteenth-Century Parthenon Replicas

The idea of making a replica of an ancient building such as the Parthenon involves a complex set of emotions, historical thought processes and usages of memory. This article explores the historical process and the politics of memory involved in building replicas of the Parthenon through a set of nineteenth-century examples that illustrate crucial changes in the approaches to history. These processes are juxtaposed and compared with the restoration works on the original Parthenon itself. In doing so, it maintains that the aspects of historical consciousness that the reconstructions both relied upon and sought to manipulate should be seen through the lens of the uses of the past. Arguing against a simplistic notion of the replicas of Parthenon being simply manifestations of the nationalism and classicism of the day, it maintains that they should be seen as works of historical self-definition and the generation of meanings through historical identification.