Parthenon

Ultimate Art Quiz The first of Phidias’s monuments to Athena, the bronze The so-called Lemnian Athena was dedicated as an offering by Athenian colonists who were sent to The colossal statue of the ce (now in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens), and a Hellenistic copy, from about 160 bce, made for the main hall of the royal library at Pergamum (now in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin). Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Phidias’s last years remain a mystery. Pericles’ enemies accused Phidias of stealing gold from the statue of the Athena Parthenos in 432, but he was able to disprove the charge. They then accused him of impiety (for including portraits of Pericles and himself on the shield of Athena on the Athena Parthenos), and he was thrown into prison. Until recently, it was thought that Phidias died in prison shortly thereafter, but now it is believed that he was

This Week’s Hours MON: Closed* | TUES-THURS: 9:00 AM - 7:00 PM | FRI-SAT: 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM | SUN: 12:30 - 4:30 PM * Holiday Hours & Special Closures: Museum closed June 19 and June 23-25; parking lot closed June 19-27. Parking lot closed July 19-20; museum will remain open. Closing June 28 at 4:30 PM. Closed July 4. We are a Blue Star Museum! Active-duty military personnel and their families receive free admission Memorial Day through Labor Day. Kyshona - The Parthenon Sessions EP Release Centennial Park Conservancy and the Parthenon announce a new EP of live recordings of Nashville-based artist Kyshona. This collection of recordings is the latest installment of The Parthenon Sessions - live recordings made at the foot of the great statue of the goddess Athena inside the Nashville Parthenon.

• Back to previous menu • — Membership • — Membership • — Renew Membership • — Events • — Buy Membership • — Young Friends • — Existing Members • — Buy Under 26 Membership • — Upgrade your Membership • — How your money helps • — Buy Gift Membership • — Visiting as a Member • — Members' Room • Support us Toggle Support us submenu A reconstruction of how the Acropolis may have looked in ancient times, including the Parthenon. Illustration by Kate Morton. The temple's great size and lavish use of white marble was intended to show off the city's power and wealth at the height of its empire, under the statesman Pericles. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme centred on the Acropolis. The temple was richly decorated with sculptures, designed by the famous artist Pheidias, which took until 432 BC to complete. The pediments and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek myth, while the frieze represents the people of Athens in a religious procession. Inside the building stood a colossal image of Athena Parthenos, constructed of gold and ivory by Pheidias and probably dedicated in 438 BC. The sculptures in ancient times Sculptures carved in the round filled the pediments (the triangular gables) at either end of the building. A reconstruction of the Parthenon showing the location of the frieze. Illustration by Kate Morton. While the pediment sculptures and metopes depicted scenes from Greek myth, as was usual for the sculpture on Greek temples, the frieze breaks with...

Few monuments in the world are more recognizable than the Constructed with impressive speed during a massive fifth-century building project at the hilltop citadel known as the Through bombardments, occupations, neglect, vandalism and even earthquakes, the Parthenon and other structures of the Acropolis have remained standing, thanks to the sophisticated methods used in their construction. An Interrupted Construction The Acropolis was inhabited as far back as the In 447 B.C., after Athens led a coalition of Greek city-states to victory over the Persians, the great Athenian general and statesman “Athens under Pericles wanted to promote itself as the greatest of Greek cities,” says Jeffrey Hurwit, a professor emeritus of art history and classics at the University of Oregon and author of The Athenian Acropolis. Over some 50 years, the Periclean building program produced not only the large temple to Athena Parthenos (“Athena the Virgin,” in Greek), but the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis, as well as two smaller temples, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. “There were several different Athenas who were worshipped on the Acropolis,” Hurwit explains. “The Erechtheion is really the last temple to Athena Polyas, or Athena the guardian of the city. The Temple of Athena Nike is devoted to Athena in her role as a warrior goddess who defended Athens. It’s still the same goddess, but she was worshipped in different ways and in different guises.” The Gloriously Deviant ...

The careful placement of precisely cut masonry ensured that the Parthenon remained essentially intact for over two millennia. Although some of the sculptures were removed when the building was converted to a Byzantine church, the structure survived—even during its later transformation into a Roman Catholic cathedral and then a mosque. Indeed, it did not become a ruin until 1687, when, during the bombardment of the Acropolis by Venetians fighting the Turks, a powder magazine stored in the temple exploded and destroyed the centre of the building. The Venetians then inadvertently smashed several sculptures while attempting to remove them as loot, and The Parthenon was part of a magnificent rebuilding program directed by the Athenian statesman bce). The project was to include, among other things, the Propylaea, the gateway to the sacred precinct; theErechtheum, a shrine to the agricultural deities, especially Erichthonius; and the bce. According to some sources, Pericles misappropriated surplus funds from the league to pay for the new buildings. The architecture Work on the Parthenon began in 447 bceunder the architects bce. The Parthenon embodies an extraordinary number of architectural refinements, which combine to give a plastic, sculptural appearance to the building. Among them are an upward curvature of the base along the ends and repeated in the entablature; an imperceptible delicate convexity (entasis) of the columns as they

ATHENS Parthenon The Parthenon, dedicated by the Athenians to Athena Parthenos, the patron of their city, is the most magnificent creation of Athenian democracy at the height of its power. It is also the finest monument on the Acropolis in terms of both conception and execution. Built between 447 and 438 BC, as part of the greater Periklean building project, this so-called Periklean Parthenon (Parthenon III) replaced an earlier marble temple (Parthenon II), begun after the victory at the battle of Marathon at approximately 490 BC and destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC. This temple had replaced the very first Parthenon (Parthenon I) of c. 570 BC. The Periklean Parthenon was designed by architects Iktinos and Kallikrates, while the sculptor Pheidias supervised the entire building program and conceived the temple's sculptural decoration and chryselephantine statue of Athena. The Parthenon is a double peripteral Doric temple with several unique and innovative architectural features. The temple proper is divided into pronaos, cella and opisthodomos, with a separate room at the west end, and is surrounded by a pteron with eight columns on each of the short sides and seventeen columns on the long ones. The columns had the same width as those of Parthenon II, so that use was made of the material prepared for it, even though the new temple was much broader than its predecessor. The interior demonstrates an innovative approach to both new and old elements: inside the cella a double...

The Parthenon is a resplendent marble temple built between 447 and 432 B.C. during the height of the ancient Greek Empire. Dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the Parthenon sits high atop a compound of temples known as the Acropolis of Athens. It was the largest and most lavish temple the Greek mainland had ever seen. Throughout the centuries, the Parthenon withstood earthquakes, fire, wars, explosions and looting yet remains, although battered, a powerful symbol of ancient Greece and Athenian culture. Today, it is one of the most recognized buildings in the world and an enduring symbol of Delian League The Parthenon was the center of religious life in the powerful Greek city-state of Athens, the head of the Delian League. Developed to thwart the possibility of an attack by the Persian Empire or other foes, the Delian League was a cooperative alliance of Greek city-states founded in 478 B.C. during the invasions of the Persian Wars. The celebrated Greek statesman An earlier structure known as the Older Parthenon or Pre-Parthenon once existed on the site of the current Parthenon. Many historians believe the Older Parthenon was under construction in 480 B.C. when the When Was the Parthenon Built? In 447 B.C., some 33 years after the Persian invasion, Pericles commenced building the Parthenon to replace the earlier temple. The massive structure was dedicated in 438 B.C. Sculpting and decorative work at the Parthenon continued until 432 B.C. It’s estimated that 13,400 stone...

Few monuments in the world are more recognizable than the Constructed with impressive speed during a massive fifth-century building project at the hilltop citadel known as the Through bombardments, occupations, neglect, vandalism and even earthquakes, the Parthenon and other structures of the Acropolis have remained standing, thanks to the sophisticated methods used in their construction. An Interrupted Construction The Acropolis was inhabited as far back as the In 447 B.C., after Athens led a coalition of Greek city-states to victory over the Persians, the great Athenian general and statesman “Athens under Pericles wanted to promote itself as the greatest of Greek cities,” says Jeffrey Hurwit, a professor emeritus of art history and classics at the University of Oregon and author of The Athenian Acropolis. Over some 50 years, the Periclean building program produced not only the large temple to Athena Parthenos (“Athena the Virgin,” in Greek), but the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis, as well as two smaller temples, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. “There were several different Athenas who were worshipped on the Acropolis,” Hurwit explains. “The Erechtheion is really the last temple to Athena Polyas, or Athena the guardian of the city. The Temple of Athena Nike is devoted to Athena in her role as a warrior goddess who defended Athens. It’s still the same goddess, but she was worshipped in different ways and in different guises.” The Gloriously Deviant ...

The Parthenon is a resplendent marble temple built between 447 and 432 B.C. during the height of the ancient Greek Empire. Dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the Parthenon sits high atop a compound of temples known as the Acropolis of Athens. It was the largest and most lavish temple the Greek mainland had ever seen. Throughout the centuries, the Parthenon withstood earthquakes, fire, wars, explosions and looting yet remains, although battered, a powerful symbol of ancient Greece and Athenian culture. Today, it is one of the most recognized buildings in the world and an enduring symbol of Delian League The Parthenon was the center of religious life in the powerful Greek city-state of Athens, the head of the Delian League. Developed to thwart the possibility of an attack by the Persian Empire or other foes, the Delian League was a cooperative alliance of Greek city-states founded in 478 B.C. during the invasions of the Persian Wars. The celebrated Greek statesman An earlier structure known as the Older Parthenon or Pre-Parthenon once existed on the site of the current Parthenon. Many historians believe the Older Parthenon was under construction in 480 B.C. when the When Was the Parthenon Built? In 447 B.C., some 33 years after the Persian invasion, Pericles commenced building the Parthenon to replace the earlier temple. The massive structure was dedicated in 438 B.C. Sculpting and decorative work at the Parthenon continued until 432 B.C. It’s estimated that 13,400 stone...

• Back to previous menu • — Membership • — Membership • — Renew Membership • — Events • — Buy Membership • — Young Friends • — Existing Members • — Buy Under 26 Membership • — Upgrade your Membership • — How your money helps • — Buy Gift Membership • — Visiting as a Member • — Members' Room • Support us Toggle Support us submenu A reconstruction of how the Acropolis may have looked in ancient times, including the Parthenon. Illustration by Kate Morton. The temple's great size and lavish use of white marble was intended to show off the city's power and wealth at the height of its empire, under the statesman Pericles. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme centred on the Acropolis. The temple was richly decorated with sculptures, designed by the famous artist Pheidias, which took until 432 BC to complete. The pediments and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek myth, while the frieze represents the people of Athens in a religious procession. Inside the building stood a colossal image of Athena Parthenos, constructed of gold and ivory by Pheidias and probably dedicated in 438 BC. The sculptures in ancient times Sculptures carved in the round filled the pediments (the triangular gables) at either end of the building. A reconstruction of the Parthenon showing the location of the frieze. Illustration by Kate Morton. While the pediment sculptures and metopes depicted scenes from Greek myth, as was usual for the sculpture on Greek temples, the frieze breaks with...