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In Greek culture, there is no greater achievement than the world-famous Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens. Though it has not been in use for many centuries, it still holds power over local residents and tourists alike.
Whether you are here for travel information, doing research, gathering facts, or simply just fascinated by this phenomenal monument, ParthenonTemple.com has all the information you need. We are the central place for Parthenon details on the web.
Nov
1
Article 3 – The Parthenon (1005 words)
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Parthenon – Athens, Greece
With the exception of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Parthenon of Athens has probably received more attention from archaeologists, historians, architects, painters and poets than any other structure on earth. Words and photographs however, can offer but slight tribute to this extraordinary creation. It is the supreme expression of the ancient Greek architectural genius. With its incomparable setting, the visual harmony deriving from its sacred geometry, and the enduring wisdom of its resident deity, the goddess Athena, the Parthenon exercises a profound and lasting effect upon the human soul. The current author has visited the Parthenon numerous times since he was a young boy and honors the site as having had a major influence on his style of photographic composition. The architectural form of the temple of Athena represents the quintessential marriage of simplicity and power, and the photographs in this book are an expression of gratitude for a lesson so wondrously taught.
Similar to many other holy places featured in this web site, the origins of the sacred use of the great limestone rock rising from the Attic plain are unknown to us. They were forgotten long before the writing of the first recorded histories of Athens. Neolithic remains discovered on the slopes of the Acropolis indicate a continuous settlement on the hill from at least 2800BC, well before the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures that later gave birth to the archaic Greek. In the Mycenaean period (1600-1100 BC) the summit was surrounded by a massive fortification wall, which protected the palace-temple of the Mycenaean priest-kings. The earliest known Hellenistic structures, dating from the 6th century BC, were two large temples dedicated to Athena, on hill top positions which had probably contained older shrines before them. In 480 BC the Persians destroyed these temples and in 447 BC (some sources say 438 BC) the Athenian leader Pericles initiated construction of the presently standing temple of Athena.
Built by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates under the supervision of the sculptor Phidias, the temple is generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order, the simplest of the three classical Greek architectural styles. The rectangular building (measured at the top step of its base to be 101.34 feet wide by 228.14 feet long) was constructed of brilliant white marble, surrounded by 46 great columns, roofed with tiles, and housed a nearly 40 foot tall statue of the goddess Athena. The statue, known as Athena Promachos, Athena the Champion, was made of wood, gold and ivory and could be seen from a distance of many miles.
While much of the structure remains intact, the Parthenon has suffered considerable damage over the centuries. In 296 BC the gold from the statue was removed by the tyrant Lachares to pay his army; in the 5th century AD the temple was converted into a Christian church; in 1460 it housed a Turkish mosque; in 1687 gun-powder stored by the Turks inside the temple exploded and destroyed the central area; and in 1801-1803 much of the remaining sculpture was sold by the Turks (who controlled Greece at the time) to the Englishman Lord Elgin, who roughly removed the sculptures and sold them to the British Museum. Today, the automobile exhausts, industrial pollution, and acid rain of Athens are rapidly destroying the few remaining sculptures of this once great work of art.
A substantial admission price is paid by the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the site each year. Little of this money however, is used for the preservation of the Parthenon but is instead wasted away by corrupt bureaucrats and government officials.
The name Parthenon refers to the worship of Athena Parthenos, the ‘Virgin Athena’ who issued fully grown from the head of her father Zeus. The maiden goddess and patroness of Athens, she represents the highest order of spiritual development and the gifts of intellect and understanding. Pure in body, mind and heart, Athena is the symbol of the universal human aspiration for wisdom. It was not only the character and statue of the goddess that symbolized these qualities however, but also the precise topographical location and astronomical orientation of her shrine, and the sacred geometry that infused the entire temple. Though a discussion of these matters is too long to offer in this section, let us read a few passages from Vincent Scully, one of the more enlightened scholars studying Greek sacred architecture.
“The historic Greeks partly inherited and partly developed an eye for certain surprisingly specific combinations of landscape features as expressive of particular holiness. This came about because of a religious tradition in which the land was not a picture but a true force which physically embodied the powers that ruled the world……All Greek architecture explores and praises the character of a god or group of gods in a specific place. That place is itself holy and, before the temple was built upon it, embodied the whole of the deity as a recognized natural force. With the coming of the temple, housing its image within it and itself developed as a sculptural embodiment of the god’s presence and character, the meaning becomes double, both of the deity in nature and the god as imagined by men. Therefore, the formal elements of any Greek sanctuary are, first, the specifically sacred landscape in which it is set and, second, the buildings that are placed within it…….We must now go further to recognize that, not only were certain landscapes indeed regarded by the Greeks as holy and as expressive of specific gods, or rather as embodiments of their presence, but also that the temples and the subsidiary buildings of their sanctuaries were so formed in themselves and so placed in relation to the landscape and to each other as to enhance, develop, complement, and sometimes even to contradict, the basic meaning that was felt in the land.”
Francis Penrose, a British archaeologist studying the Parthenon in 1891, suggested that the site is oriented towards the rising of the Pleiades in the constellation of Taurus.
Nov
1
The Parthenon at Athens
From Roy George
Contents
- ” 1 The Pre-Parthenon
- ” 2 The Project
- ” 3 The Plan
- ” 4 The Pediments
- ” 5 The Frieze
- ” 6 The Metopes
- ” 7 Inside
- ” 8 History
- ” 9 The Cult
- ” 10 Present State
The Pre-Parthenon
Slightly east of the center of the Acropolis a Doric peripteral temple was discovered under the remains of the Parthenon. This temple was built ca. 488 – 480 B.C.E. with 102.9 ft. x 252 ft. (31.39 m x 76.82 m). With 6 x 16 columns, double cella (inner sanctum) with a long cella at the east end and a smaller cella at the west end, with opisthodomos (the rear room) and pronaos (the antechamber), both with prostyle. The east cella has 2 rows of interior columns with 10 columns in each row. The west cella has 4 interior columns arranged in a square in the center.
This Temple was never completed and must not have past the lower column drums and cella courses. The construction must have been pulled down shortly after the Persians invasion of 480/79 B.C.E., to make way for a new marble Sanctuary dedicated to the Goddess Athena. Many components from this Temple were subsequently re-utilized.
The Project
In the time of Pericles all Athens was willing to contribute to the building and ornamentation of a great new Temple, in addition to a number of other monuments. Plutarch commented: The monuments were imposing in their unrivaled grandeur, beauty and grace; the artists vied with one another in the technical perfection of their work, but the most admirable thing was the speed of execution. Pericles entrusted the overall management of the project to the sculptor Phidias, who presided over everything especially the decor, for which he employed Athens’ greatest artists. The architects Ictinos and Callicrates were commissioned to draw up and execute the plans. Construction began in 447 B.C.E. and was completed nine years later, the last of the sculptures being set place in 432 B.C.E. Pericles and his architects decided from the start to build the new sanctuary on the foundations of the Pre-Parthenon; slightly south and east of the center of the Acropolis. Apart from the limestone foundations and the ceilings and wooden doors, the Temple was built entirely of marble, even its roof tiles. The stone came from the quarries of the Pentelic Mountains. Parian marble being reserved for the sculptures.
The Plan
The Parthenon rests on a plinth three steps high. The upper level of the plinth measures about 225 x 85 feet (30.88 m x 69.50 m). It is a Temple surrounded by a single row of columns. This peristyle consists of eight Doric columns on the west and east sides and seventeen along the north and south sides. The shafts consist of twelve fluted drums and are about 33 feet high (10.43 m), including the capitals, with diameters tapering from 6 feet 3 inches (1.92 m) at the base to 4 feet 9 inches (1.49 m) at the top. There is a perceptible bulge two fifths up each column; the Greeks knew the principle of the outward curvature of a column (entasis), which compensates for the optical effect that makes columns seem thinner in the middle when viewed from below. The corner columns are thicker, reducing the space between them and their neighbors: because they receive more sunlight, they would otherwise have appeared thinner than the rest. Finally, to give the impression of absolute perfection, the plinth gradually increased in height, by about 4 inches in the middle of the long sides and by about 3 inches at the center of the facades.
The Pediments
The theme of the east pediment is Zeus’ presentation of Athena to the Gods of Olympus. The west pediment portrays Athena’s strife with Poseidon for the land of Attica.
The Frieze
In the frieze the sculptor innovated by crowning a Doric ensemble with an Ionic frieze. The subject matter is the procession of the Panathenaic Games, celebrated each year on the occasion of Athena’s birthday.
The Metopes
Each metope featured a different scene, consisting of two figures in high relief. The metopes along the east side of the Temple represent the struggle between the Gods and the Giants; those of the west side, an Amazonomachy; those of the south side, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs; and those on the north side, scenes from the Trojan War. The theme common to all is the triumph of the Greeks and of their Gods over their human or mythical adversaries.
Inside
Inside, the Temple has a double cella (inner sanctum) with pronaos (the antechamber, with the only door into the cella) and opisthodomos (the rear room). The smaller west cella had 4 interior columns. Inside the east cella was a U-shaped colonnade of 9 columns and a pier on each long side, and 3 columns between the 2 piers on the short side. (Travlos reconstructs columns in place of the piers.) Toward the west end of the interior colonnade was a statue base for the cult statue of Athena Parthenos with a large shallow rectangle cut to create a reflecting pool in front of it. The Phidias’ statue was made of gold and ivory with polychrome details. The sculptor handed his work to a painter, whose job was to add the final touch of perfection and endow the statue with religious meaning. Bronze doors are postulated for both eastern and western cellas.
History
The Temple was opened to the public the moment it was finished, and was formally dedicated to the Goddess during the Panathenaic Games of 438 B.C.E.
The Classical Parthenon seems to have been damaged by fire but the exact date of the fire and subsequent repairs is debated, with suggestions ranging from 150 B.C.E. to 267 C.E. (during the invasion of the Herulians). In any case, repairs included the exact reconstruction of the colonnade of the eastern cella, a new statue base and repairs to the capitals on the columns of the western porch.
The Parthenon was converted to a Christian church ca. 600 C.E., and in 1687 a small mosque was built in the cella.
The Cult
It was only later that this great edifice housed a cult at all: it was built originally as a proud statement of civic strength rather than a place of worship.
Present State
The first restoration work was begun in 1834. Throughout the 19th century both Greeks and foreigners applied themselves to the work of restoration, but the Parthenon as we see it today was mostly reconstructed at the turn of the century. The intensive excavations on the Acropolis between 1885 and 1890 yielded many of the unique works of art now on view in the museum.
Between 1923 and 1933 Balanos rebuilt the north colonnade and part of the south colonnade. His efforts were something of a disaster, because he cut holes in the marble and inserted steel tenons that later rusted. Orlandos, his associate, was against the restoration of the south colonnade without a similar restoration of the walls of the cella. On Balanos’ death, in 1942, Orlandos took over the work, guided by the conviction that restoring the monument as closely as possible to its original form would allow visitors to appreciate its beauty properly.
The new work on the Parthenon began with the east facade, which was judged to be in most danger after the damage caused by the 1981 earthquake. From 1992 to 1993 a very delicate operation was performed on the west side of the cella. The ceiling beams and the blocks below the entablature of the opistodomos (the back chamber) were lowered to the ground, and the portion of the frieze hitherto in situ was taken to the museum.
By the year 2000, up to 50 percent of the side walls of the Parthenon have been restored. The calculation of the exact position of each block of marble has been made easier by the use of a specially devised computer program.
Nov
1
Article 5 – The Parthenon (1926 words)
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Parthenon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Contents
- ” 1 Parthenon Introduction
- ” 2 Design and construction
- ” 3 Decorations
- ” 4 Later history
- ” 5 Reconstruction
- ” 6 Treasury or temple?
Parthenon Introduction
The Parthenon is the best-known surviving building of Ancient Greece and is regarded as one of the world’s greatest cultural monuments. The building has stood atop the Acropolis of Athens for nearly 2,500 years and was built to give thanks to the Greek goddess Athena, the city’s patron goddess, for the salvation of Athens and Greece in the Persian Wars. The building was officially called the Temple of Athena the Virgin, and its popular name derives from the ancient Greek word parthenos, a young woman.
The Parthenon replaced an older building that had been destroyed by the Persians. As well as being a temple, the Parthenon was used as a treasury, and was the location of the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. Coordinates: 41°53?25?N, 12°29?33?E
Design and Contstruction
The Parthenon was built at the initiative of Pericles, the leading Athenian politician of the 5th century BC. It was built under the general supervision of the sculptor Phidias, who also had charge of the sculptural decoration. The architects were Iktinos and Kallikrates. Construction began in 447 BC, and the building was substantially completed by 438 BC, but work on the decorations continued until at least 433 BC. Some of the financial accounts for the Parthenon survive and show that the largest single expense was transporting the stone from Mount Pentelicus, about 16 kilometres from Athens, to the Acropolis. The funds were partly drawn from the treasury of the Delian League, which was moved from the Panhellenic sanctuary at Delos to the Acropolis In 454 BC.
Although the nearby Temple of Hephaestus is the most complete surviving example of a Doric order temple, the Parthenon, in its day, was regarded as the finest. The temple, wrote John Julius Norwich, “enjoys the reputation of being the most perfect Doric temple ever built. Even in antiquity, its architectural refinements were legendary, especially the subtle correspondence between the curvature of the stylobate, the taper of the naos walls and the entasis of the columns.” The stylobate is the platform on which the columns stand. It curves upwards slightly for optical reasons. Entasis refers to the slight swelling of the columns as they rise, to counter the optical effect of looking up at the temple. The effect of these subtle curves is to make the temple appear more symmetrical than it actually is.
Measured at the top step, the dimensions of the base of the Parthenon are 69.5 metres by 30.9 metres (228.0 x 101.4 ft). The cella was 29.8 metres long by 19.2 metres wide (97.8 x 63.0 ft), with internal Doric colonnades in two tiers, structurally necessary to support the roof. On the exterior, the Doric columns measure 1.9 metres (6.2 ft) in diameter and are 10.4 metres (34.1 ft) high. The corner columns are slightly larger in diameter. The stylobate has an upward curvature towards its centre of 60 millimetres (2.36 in) on the east and west ends, and of 110 millimetres (4.33 in) on the sides.
Decorations
The Parthenon was elaborately decorated with marble sculptures both internally and externally. They survive only in part, but there are good descriptions of most of those parts that have been lost. On the eastern pediment (the triangular area above the columns on the “front” and “back” of the temple) was a depiction of the birth of Athena. The western pediment showed Athena’s battle with Poseidon for possession of the land of Attica. Metopes ran along the outer frieze of all four sides of the temple, above the lines of columns and below the pediments. These showed, on the southern side the battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs, on the east the battle of the gods and the giants, and on the west the battle of the Greeks and the Amazons. It is not known what was depicted on the northern side: it may have been scenes from the Trojan War.
Internally, the cella was lined on three sides with a frieze showing the great procession of the Panathenaia, the main annual festival honouring Athena. On the fourth, eastern, side was a frieze showing all the gods of the Greek pantheon.
Although the white marble of surviving Ancient Greek temples appeals to the modern aesthetic, the Parthenon, like all ancient buildings, was at least partly painted, though scholars dispute the extent and the colour scheme. It is known that the internal ceilings were painted a deep blue, and that the statuary groups on the pediments were painted in bright colours. Some scholars believe that the upper parts of the Parthenon were painted bright red and blue, so that the sculptures would stand out in greater relief when seen from below. Some evidence of colour schemes can be seen on statues displayed inside the Acropolis museum.
Later History
The Parthenon survived as the most important temple of the Ancient Greek religion for close to a thousand years. It was certainly still intact in the 4th century AD, by which time it was already as old as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is now, and far older than St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. But by that time Athens had been reduced to a provincial city of the Roman Empire, albeit one with a glorious past. Sometime in the 5th century, the great cult image of Athena was looted by one of the Emperors, and taken to Constantinople, where it was later destroyed, possibly during the sack of the city during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
Shortly after this, the Parthenon was converted to a Christian church. In Byzantine times it became the Church of the Parthena Maria (Virgin Mary), or the Church of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary). At the time of the Latin Empire it became briefly a Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady. The conversion of the temple to a church involved removing the internal columns and some of the walls of the cella, and the creation of an apse at the eastern end. This inevitably led to the removal and dispersal of some of the sculptures. Those depicting pagan gods were either re-interpreted according to a Christian theme, or removed and destroyed.
In 1456, Athens fell to the Ottomans, and the Parthenon was converted again, into a mosque. Contrary to subsequent mythology, the Ottomans were generally respectful of ancient monuments in their territories, and did not willfully destroy the antiquities of Athens, though they had no actual program to protect them. In times of war they were willing to demolish them to provide materials for walls and fortifications. A minaret was added to the Parthenon, but otherwise it was not damaged further. European visitors in the 17th century testified that the building was largely intact.
Today these sculptures are in the British Museum, where they are known as the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Marbles. Other sculptures from the Parthenon are in the Louvre in Paris and in Copenhagen. Most of the remainder are in the Acropolis Museum which stands a few metres to the south-east of the Parthenon. A few can still be seen on the building itself. The Greek government has been campaigning for many years for the British Museum sculptures to be returned to Greece. The British Museum has steadfastly refused to consider this, and successive British governments have been unwilling to force the Museum to do so (which would require legislation).
When independent Greece gained control of Athens in 1832, the minaret was removed from the Parthenon and all the medieval and Ottoman buildings on the Acropolis removed. Many sculptures were destroyed in the process. The area became a historical precinct controlled by the Greek government. Today it attracts millions of tourists every year, who troop up the path at the western end of the Acropolis, through the restored Propylaea, and up the Panathenaic Way to the Parthenon, which is surrounded by a low fence to prevent damage.
Reconstruction
In 1975, the Greek government began a concerted effort to restore the Parthenon and other Acropolis structures. The project later attracted funding and technical assistance from the European Union. An archaeological committee thoroughly documented every artifact remaining on the site, and architects assisted with computer models to determine their original locations. In some cases, prior re-construction was found to be incorrect. Particularly important and fragile sculptures were transferred to the Acropolis Museum. A crane was installed for moving marble blocks; the crane was designed to fold away beneath the roofline when not in use. The incorrect reconstructions were dismantled, and a careful process of restoration began. The Parthenon will not be restored to a pre-1687 state, but the explosion damage will be mitigated as much as possible, and new marble is being used from the original quarry to fill gaps and effect structurally necessary repairs. Ultimately, almost all major pieces of marble will be placed in the structure where they originally would have been, supported as needed by modern materials.
Since the 1960s, the greatest threats to the Parthenon have been environmental. Athens has grown enormously since World War II and has major problems with traffic congestion and air pollution. Corrosion of its marble by acid rain polluted by car exhausts has already caused irreparable damage to some sculptures and threatens the remaining sculptures and the temple itself. Over the past 20 years, the Greek government and the city of Athens have made some progress on these issues, but the future of the Parthenon is still a matter of some concern.
Treasury or temple?
Architecturally, the Parthenon is clearly a temple, formerly containing the famous cult image of Athena by Phidias and the treasury of votive offerings. Since actual Greek sacrifices always took place at an altar invariably under an open sky, as was in keeping with their religious practices, the Parthenon does not suit some definitions of “temple”. Thus, some scholars have argued that the Parthenon was only used as a treasury. While this opinion was first formed late in the 19th century, it has gained strength in recent years. The majority of scholarly opinion still sees the building in the terms Walter Burkert described for the Greek sanctuary, consisting of temenos, altar and temple with cult image (Burkert 1985 pp 84-92).