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Oct 25, 2012 · A drawing illustrating the floor plan of the Parthenon (447-438 BCE). The number of Doric columns in the outer colonnade (8x17) was unusual for a Greek temple (6x13). The cella contained the 12m high cult statue of Athena and the rear smaller chamber was used as the treasury of the city of Athens.
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The purpose of the Parthenon has changed over its 2,500-year history, beginning as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena Parthenos (“Athena the Virgin”). Some scholars, however, question the building’s religious function, partly because no altar from the 5th century BCE has been found. All experts agree that early on the Parthenon was used as a treasury. In subsequent centuries the building was transformed into a Byzantine church, a Roman Catholic cathedral, and later a mosque. The temple was then used to store the Ottomans’ ammunition during a war with the Venetians, which is how an explosion led to the building’s ruin in 1687. After serving as an army barracks at the end of Greece’s war for independence (1821–32), the Parthenon assumed its role as tourist destination during the late 19th century, just as restoration efforts began.
Athena
Learn about Athena, the Greek goddess to whom the Parthenon was dedicated.
Why is the Parthenon important?
The Parthenon is the centrepiece of a 5th-century-BCE building campaign on the Acropolis in Athens. Constructed during the High Classical period, it is generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order, the simplest of the three Classical Greek architectural orders. The temple’s harmonic proportions, precise construction, and lifelike sculptures have been celebrated and emulated for thousands of years. The Parthenon is often regarded as a monument to democracy, which was founded in Athens during this period, as well as a tribute to the Athenians’ victory in the Greco-Persian Wars (492–449 BCE).
Greco-Persian Wars
The Parthenon was part of a magnificent rebuilding program directed by the Athenian statesman Pericles, following the sack of the Acropolis during the Greco-Persian Wars (492–449 bce). The project was to include, among other things, the Propylaea, the gateway to the sacred precinct; the Erechtheum, a shrine to the agricultural deities, especially E...
Work on the Parthenon began in 447 bceunder the architects Ictinus and Callicrates with the supervision of the sculptor Phidias. The building was completed by 438, and that same year a great gold and ivory statue of Athena, made by Phidias for the interior, was dedicated. Work on the exterior decoration of the building continued until 432 bce.
Although the rectangular white marble Parthenon has suffered damage over the centuries, including the loss of most of its sculpture, its basic structure has remained intact. A colonnade of fluted baseless columns with square capitals stands on a three-stepped base and supports an entablature, or roof structure, consisting of a plain architrave, or band of stone; a frieze of alternating triglyphs (vertically grooved blocks) and metopes (plain blocks with relief sculpture, now partly removed); and, at the east and west ends, a low triangular pediment, also with relief sculpture (now mostly removed). The colonnade, consisting of 8 columns on the east and west and 17 on the north and south, encloses a walled interior rectangular chamber, or cella, originally divided into three aisles by two smaller Doric colonnades closed at the west end just behind the great cult statue. The only light came through the east doorway, except for some that might have filtered through the marble tiles in the roof and ceiling. Behind the cella, but not originally connected with it, is a smaller square chamber entered from the west. The east and west ends of the interior of the building are each faced by a portico of six columns. Measured by the top step of the base, the building is 101.34 feet (30.89 metres) wide and 228.14 feet (69.54 metres) long.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dec 10, 2021 · One of the largest temples ever built, the Parthenon had 46 outer columns and 23 inner columns – 8 columns at either end (octastyle) and 17 on the long sides. The dimensions of the temple’s base (stylobate) are 69.5 meters by 30.9 meters, while the exterior columns are 10.4 meters high.
The Parthenon is a temple of Doric order designed as a showcase to the world of the city’s history. Both in front and in its friezes prints reminiscent great battles, the facts of mythology, and so on.
The temple known as the Parthenon was built on the Acropolis of Athens between 447 and 438 B.CE. It was part of a vast building program masterminded by the Athenian statesman Perikles. Inside the temple stood a colossal statue representing Athena, patron goddess of the city.
- You aren't reading it incorrectly. The text first refers to the fact that the temple was largely intact for some 2000 years, from the 430s B.C.E. t...
- Aphrodite was formed from the blood of Uranus (or Ouranos), Kronos' father, when Kronos threw the pieces into the sea, creating seafoam. One day ou...
- The Parthenon is there according to mythology because of the competition between Athena and Poseidon to have the city named after one of each other...
- Yes, the Romans are assumed to have taken it, it being the symbol of Greece and their prosperity. It could have been the Persians too, when Athens...
- No Athena was birthed from the forehead of her father Zeus.
The Parthenon is a traditional peripteral temple (surrounded on all sides by columns), but built on a grander scale than any temple before it, Pericles’ grandest “imperishable monument” to Athens’ greatness: although its outside columns are arranged in the traditional ratio (X x 2X+1), the Parthenon’s columns number 8 x 17 instead of ...
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Who designed the Parthenon?
Dec 6, 2023 · Learn about the great temple of Athena, patron of Athens, and the building’s long history. Iktinos and Kallikrates (sculptural program directed by Phidias), Parthenon, 447–432 B.C.E. (Athens). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Video transcript.
