Professor Nikos Stampolidis, general director of the Acropolis Museum, stands among the breath-taking sculptures in the museum’s Parthenon gallery and points through a glass wall to the Parthenon itself. He draws attention to the temple’s 17 columns, and how they are replicated precisely by 17 pillars that run in parallel through the gallery. He notes how the magnificent, sculpted frieze that lines the gallery’s interior walls is precisely the same distance from these pillars as they were from the columns when they adorned the temple.    The Parthenon dominates the ancient acropolis of Athens, it has crowned the city for more than…

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