>> The marbles that were bought, preventing them from being ground up to be made into cement - which was happening. Are you saying the Parthenon friezes were b

>> The marbles that were bought, preventing them from being ground up to be made into cement - which was happening. Are you saying the Parthenon friezes were being ground into cement? That's interesting, I had never heard of that. What I had heard was that the Parthenon sustained most of its destruction during the Ottoman occupation, during fighting with Venetians: Prior damage to the marbles was sustained during successive wars, and it was during such conflicts that the Parthenon and its artwork sustained, by far, the most extensive damage. In particular, an explosion ignited by Venetian gun and cannon-fire bombardment in 1687, whilst the Parthenon was used as a munitions store during the Ottoman rule, destroyed or damaged many pieces of Parthenon art, including some of that later removed by Elgin.[64] It was this explosion that sent the marble roof, most of the cella walls, 14 columns from the north and south peristyles, and carved metopes and frieze blocks flying and crashing to the ground, destroying much of the artwork. Further damage to the Parthenon's artwork occurred when the Venetian general Francesco Morosini looted the site of its larger sculptures. The tackle he was using to remove the sculptures proved to be faulty and snapped, dropping an over-life-sized sculpture of Poseidon and the horses of Athena's chariot from the west pediment on to the rock of the Acropolis 40 feet (12 m) below.[65] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles#Morosini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles#Morosini I had also heard that the Ottomans had been taking the lead from columns to make into bullets, which caused the besieging Greeks to send them their own to avoid the destruction: During the first siege the besieged Ottoman forces attempted to melt the lead in the columns to cast bullets, even prompting the Greeks to offer their own bullets to the Ottomans in order to minimize damage.[67] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles#War_of_Independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles#War_of_Independe... So are you saying the occupying Ottomans, or the Venetians maybe, were grounding the Parthenon friezes to cement and Elgin stole them to preserve them?