From riches to ruins: Ancient Greeks ‘stored millions in cash’ in Parthenon attic
While Greece has become the first developed nation to default on its international obligations, archaeologists believe they have discovered the place where ancient Greeks may have once kept millions in silver and gold.
A team of researchers managed to recreate the attic inside one of the world’s greatest cultural monuments in Athens. Although historical records do not reveal where exactly the coins were stored on the ancient landmark, the Acropolis of Athens, researchers believe that the Greeks kept their coin wealth in the Parthenon’s attic. It has long been destroyed, but according to the researchers its floor would have been the size of a swimming pool, 19 meters wide by 50 meters long and about 3 meters high at the center, Live Science reported. During the period when the building was dedicated to the goddess Athena, the Parthenon was used primarily as a treasury.
“The attic of the Parthenon is the only suitable space large enough to hold all of the coins in the treasury,” study researcher Spencer Pope, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, told Live Science. “While we cannot rule out the possibility that coins were distributed across numerous buildings, we should recall that the attic is the most secure space.”