ATHENS GETS A SECOND ACROPOLIS MADE OF LEGO BY AN AUSTRALIAN

ATHENS is getting a second Acropolis ... all the way from Australia.

Already famous in its own right, the LEGO ACROPOLIS OF SYDNEY is being loaned to the Acropolis Museum in Athens after having been on exhibit at the Nicholson Museum at Sydney University for two years. 

Built by Lego-certified professional Ryan McNaught, the Lego Acropolis contains more than 120,000 bricks and took about 300 hours to build.

The buildings, including The Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the smaller Erechtheion temple and the Propylaia, the monumental gateway, are made from gleaming white bricks.

''The model is as close to the real Acropolis as I could make it,'' he says. ''It's not an architectural scale model; it's more of a representation. The hardest parts were working out how to do all the diagonal lines.''

The Nicholson Museum, in Sydney University's quadrangle, is Australia's largest museum of antiquities and fast developing a reputation as one of the most innovative museums of its type for its integration of the ancient and contemporary world. 

Although the Acropolis is gone, the Colosseum is still in Sydney ... made entirely of Lego bricks.

The departure of the Acropolis makes room for a Lego Pompeii.