The
Parthenon (
ancient Greek:
Παρθενών) is a temple of the
Greek goddess Athena built in the 5th century BC on the
Acropolis of Athens. It is the most important surviving building of
Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the
Doric order. Its decorative sculptures are considered one of the high points of
Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of ancient Greece and of
Athenian democracy, and is one of the world's greatest cultural monuments. The
Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a program of restoration and reconstruction.
The Parthenon replaced an older temple of Athena, called the Pre-Parthenon or
Older Parthenon, that was destroyed in the
Persian invasion of 480 BC. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon was used as a
treasury, and for a time served as the treasury of the
Delian League, which later became the
Athenian Empire. In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian
church dedicated to the
Virgin. After the
Ottoman conquest, it was converted into a
mosque in the early
1460s. On
September 28,
1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by
Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806,
Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures, with
Ottoman permission. These sculptures, now known as the
Elgin or
Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the
British Museum in
London, where they are now displayed. The Greek government is committed to the return of the sculptures to Greece, so far with no success.
Design and construction The Parthenon, an
octostyle,
peripteral Doric temple with
Ionic architectural features, housed the
chryselephantine statue of
Athena Parthenos sculpted by
Pheidias and dedicated in 439/438 BC. The decorative stonework was originally highly coloured. The temple was dedicated to the Athena at that time, though construction continued until almost the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War in 432. By the year 438, the sculptural decoration of the Doric metopes on the frieze above the exterior colonnade, and of the Ionic frieze around the upper portion of the walls of the
cella, had been completed. The richness of the Parthenon's frieze and metope decoration is in agreement with the function of the temple as a treasury. In the
opisthodomus (the back room of the cella) were stored the monetary contributions of the Delian League of which Athens was the leading member.
Sculptural decoration Main article Metopes of the Parthenon The ninety-two
metopes were carved in high relief, a practice employed until then only in treasuries (buildings used to keep votive gifts to the gods). According to the building records, the metope sculptures date to the years 446-440 BC. Their design is attributed to the sculptor Kalamis. The metopes of the east side of the Parthenon, above the main entrance, depict the
Gigantomachy (mythical battles between the Olympian gods and the Giants). The metopes of the west end show
Amazonomachy (mythical battle of the Athenians against the
Amazons). The metopes of the south side—with the exception of the somewhat problematic metopes 13–20, now lost—show the Thessalian
Centauromachy (battle of the
Lapiths aided by
Theseus against the half-man, half-horse
Centaurs). On the north side of the Parthenon the metopes are poorly preserved, but the subject seems to be the
sack of Troy.
Stylistically, the metopes present surviving traces of the Severe Style in the anatomy of the figures' heads, in the limitation of the corporal movements to the contours and not to the muscles, and in the presence of pronounced veins in the figures of the Centauromachy. Several of the metopes still remain on the building, but with the exception of those on the northern side, they are severely damaged. Some of them are located at the Acropolis Museum, others are in the British Museum and one can be seen at the
Louvre Museum.
Metopes Main article Parthenon Frieze The most characteristic feature in the architecture and decoration of the temple is the Ionic frieze running around the exterior walls of the cella. Carved in bas-relief, the frieze was carved in situ and it is dated in 442-438 BC.
One interpretation is that it depicts an idealized version of the
Panathenaic procession from the Dipylon Gate in the
Kerameikos to the Acropolis. In this procession held every year, with a special procession taking place every four years, Athenians and foreigners were participating to honour the goddess Athena offering sacrifices and a new peplos (dress woven by selected noble Athenian girls called
ergastines).
Another interpretation of the Frieze is based on
Greek Mythology. This interpretation postulates that the scenes depict the sacrifice of
Pandora, youngest daughter of
Erechtheus to
Athena. This human sacrifice was demanded by
Athena to save the city from
Eumolpus, king of
Eleusis who had gathered an army to attack Athens.
Frieze Pausanias, the 2nd century traveller, when he visited the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon, briefly described only the
pediments (four entrances to the Parthenon) of the temple.
Pediments The East pediment narrates the birth of Athena from the head of her father,
Zeus. According to
Greek mythology Zeus gave birth to Athena after a terrible headache prompted him to summon
Hephaestus' (the god of fire and the forge) assistance. To alleviate the pain he ordered Hephaestus to strike him with his forging hammer, and when he did, Zeus' head split open and out popped the goddess Athena in full armour. The sculptural arrangement depicts the moment of Athena's birth.
Unfortunately, the center pieces of the pediment were destroyed before Jacques Carrey created drawings in 1674, so all reconstructions are subject to conjecture and speculation. The main Olympian gods must have stood around Zeus and Athena watching the wondrous event with Hephaestus and Hera probably near them. The Carrey drawings are instrumental in reconstructing the sculptural arrangement beyond the center figures to the north and south.
East pediment The west pediment faced the Propylaia and depicted the contest between Athena and
Poseidon during their competition for the honor of becoming the city's patron. Athena and Poseidon appear at the center of the composition, diverging from one another in strong diagonal forms with the goddess holding the olive tree and the god of the sea raising his trident to strike the earth. At their flanks they are framed by two active groups of horses pulling chariots, while a crowd of legendary personalities from Athenian mythology fills the space out to the acute corners of the pediment.
The work on the pediments lasted from
438 to
432 BC and the sculptures of the Parthenon pediments are some of the finest examples of classical Greek art. The figures are sculpted in natural movement with bodies full of vital energy that bursts through their flesh, as the flesh in turn bursts through their thin clothing. The thin
chitons allow the body underneath to be revealed as the focus of the composition. The distinction between gods and humans is blurred in the conceptual interplay between the idealism and naturalism bestowed on the stone by the sculptors.
West pediment For more details on this topic, see Athena Parthenos. Athena Parthenos Main article: Older Parthenon Older Parthenon The origin of the Parthenon's name is unclear. According to Jeffrey M. Hurwit, the term "Parthenon" means "of the virgin" or "of the virgins", and seems to have originally referred only to a particular room of the Parthenon; it is debated which room this is, and how the room acquired its name. One theory holds that the "parthenon" was the room in which the
peplos presented to Athena at the
Panathenaic Festival was woven by the
arrephoroi, a group of four young girls chosen to serve Athena each year.
Name 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," as no evidence of an altar has been discovered. Thus, some scholars have argued that the Parthenon was only ever
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.
Treasury or temple? Christian church In 1456, Athens fell to the
Ottomans, and the Parthenon was converted again, into a
mosque. Contrary to subsequent misconception, the Ottomans were generally respectful of ancient monuments in their territories, and did not wilfully destroy the antiquities of Athens, though they had no actual programme to protect them. However in times of war they were willing to demolish them to provide materials for walls and fortifications. A
minaret was added to the Parthenon and its base and stairway are still functional, leading up as high as the architrave and hence invisible from the outside; but otherwise the building was not damaged further. European visitors in the 17th century, as well as some representations of the
Acropolis hill testified that the building was largely intact.
In 1687, the Parthenon suffered its greatest blow when the
Venetians under
Francesco Morosini attacked Athens, and the Ottomans fortified the Acropolis and used the building as a gunpowder magazine. On
September 26, a Venetian mortar, fired from the Hill of Philopappus, exploded the magazine and the building was partly destroyed. After this, much of the building fell into disuse and a smaller mosque was erected.
The eighteenth century was a period of Ottoman stagnation, as a result many more Europeans found access to Athens, and the picturesque ruins of the Parthenon were much drawn and painted, spurring a rise in
philhellenism and helping to arouse sympathy in
Britain and
France for Greek independence. Amongst those early travellers and archaeologists were James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, who were commissioned by the Society of the Diletanti to survey the ruins of classical Athens. What they produced was the first measured drawings of the Parthenon published in 1787 in the second volume of
Antiquities of Athens Measured and Delineated. In 1801, the British Ambassador at
Constantinople, the
Earl of Elgin, obtained a
firman (permit) from the
Sultan to make casts and drawings of the antiquities on the Acropolis, to demolish recent buildings if this was necessary to view the antiquities, and to remove sculptures from them. He took this as permission to collect all the sculptures he could find. He employed local people to detach them from the building itself, a few others he collected from the ground, and some smaller pieces he bought from local people. The detachment of the sculptures caused further irreparable damage to what was left of the building as some of the frieze blocks were sawn in half to lessen their weight for shipment to England.
During Ottoman rule When independent Greece gained control of Athens in 1832, the visible section of the minaret was removed from the Parthenon and soon all the medieval and Ottoman buildings on the Acropolis were removed. However the image of the small mosque within the Parthenon's cella has been preserved in Joly de Lotbinière's
Excursions Daguerriennes, published 1842: the first photograph of the acropolis. The area became a historical precinct controlled by the Greek government. Today it attracts millions of tourists every year, who travel 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.
Independent Greece Today the Parthenon Marbles that Earl of Elgin removed are in the
British Museum. Other sculptures from the Parthenon are now in the
Louvre Museum in
Paris, in
Copenhagen, and elsewhere, but most of the remainder are in Athens, in the
Acropolis Museum which still stands below ground level, a few metres to the south-east of the Parthenon, but will be soon transferred to a new building.
Dispute over the marbles 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, both in the interest of restoring the structural integrity of the edifice (important in this earthquake-prone region) and to restore the æsthetic integrity by filling in chipped sections of column drums and lintels, using precisely sculpted marble cemented in place. New marble is being used from the original quarry. 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.
Originally, various blocks were held together by elongated
iron H pins that were completely coated in
lead, which protected the iron from corrosion. Stabilizing pins added in the 19th century were not so coated and corroded. Since the corrosion product (rust) is expansive, the expansion caused further damage by cracking the marble. All new metalwork uses
titanium, a strong, light, and corrosion resistant material.
Reconstruction An immediate problem facing the Parthenon is the environmental impact of the growth of Athens since the 1960s. Corrosion of its marble by
acid rain and car pollutants 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 survival of the Parthenon does not seem to be assured.
Pollution hazards Acropolis Museum New Acropolis Museum Elgin marbles Erechtheum Nashville Parthenon - a full scale and
polychromed replica of the original as seen by the ancients
National Monument, Edinburgh See also Notes Online sources Beard, Mary. The Parthenon. Harvard University: 2003.
ISBN 0-674-01085-X.
Cosmopoulos, Michael (editor).
The Parthenon and its Sculptures. Cambridge University: 2004.
ISBN 0-521-83673-5.
Holtzman, Bernard (2003). L'Acropole d'Athènes : Monuments, Cultes et Histoire du sanctuaire d'Athèna Polias (in French). Paris: Picard. ISBN 2-7084-0687-6. Papachatzis, Nikolaos D.
Pausaniou Ellados Periegesis- Attika Athens, 1974.
Tournikio, Panayotis.
Parthenon. Abrams: 1996.
ISBN 0-8109-6314-0.
Traulos, Ioannis N.
I Poleodomike ekselikses ton Athinon Athens, 1960
ISBN 960-7254-01-5 Woodford, Susan.
The Parthenon. Cambridge University: 1981.
ISBN 0-521-22629-5.
King, Dorothy "The Elgin Marbles" Hutchinson / Random House, January 2006.
ISBN 0-09-180013-7
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