Still further damage to the sculptures was done by Morosini's unsuccessful attempt to lower from the west pediment the chariot of Athena. Later a small mosque was constructed in the midst of the ruins; but nothing except gradual damage is to be recorded during the succeeding century except the visits of various travel lers, notably of James Stuart (1713-88) and Nicholas Revett (172o-1804), whose splendid drawings are the best record of the sculpture as it existed in Athens. In 180i Lord Elgin obtained a firman authorizing him to make casts and drawings, and to pull down extant buildings where necessary, and to remove sculpture from them. He caused all the remains of the sculpture that was found on the ground or in Turkish houses, and a certain amount— notably the metopes—that was still on the temple, to be trans ported to England. The Elgin marbles were bought by the British Government in 1816, and are now in the British Museum. Certain other sculptures from the Parthenon are in the Louvre, Copenhagen or elsewhere, and much is still in Athens.
The most accurate measurements of the temple, showing the exactness of its construction and the subtlety of the curvature of all its lines, were made by F. C. Penrose.
The perfection of the proportions and details of the parthenon has so impressed modern critics that many attempts, frequently fantastic, have been made to discover in it some geometric or mathematical system of related sizes that could thus furnish some infallible rule of beauty. The fact that so many different systems have been found to apply is a sufficient criticism of each of them. The most elaborate is the extremely ingenious analysis of Robert W. Gardner, who claims to have discovered that all dimensions are based on sides of squares with related areas; the same system accounting not only for the Parthenon and its details, but also for its position, the placing of many monuments in Athens, the walls from Athens to Piraeus and the layout of Piraeus itself. It seems, however, more probable that the situation of a good harbour and the requirements of military defense controlled these matters, rather than any esoteric mathematical system.