Download THE PARTHENON

THE PARTHENON
Coloured as it was at its peak
WHERE IS IT? WHAT WAS IT?
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis,
Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the
people of Athens considered their patron.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The Parthenon is part of the greater Periklean building
project
• BEGINNING OF ITS CONSTRUCTION: 447 BC when the
Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power.
• DURATION OF CONSTRUCTION: 9 years
• INAUGURATION: 438 BC
• ARCHITECTS: IKTINOS & KALLIKRATIS
• SCULPTORS: Phedias and his students Agorakritos &
Alkamenis
• MATERIAL: Pentelic marble
• COLUMNS: 17 of Doric style on each side and 8 columns in
each steni
• COLUMN HEIGHT: 10,43 m.
• METOPES: 92
• ZOFOROS: 160 m.
The golden age & Pericles
• Best known as the leader
of Athens during its Golden
Age.
• During the Age of Pericles,
Athens blossomed as a
center of education, art,
culture, and democracy.
• He also worked on
reforming the Athenian
democracy. For him
democracy means equality
of all the citizens to the
law.
The Architects, Iktinos & Kallikratis at work
The Parthenon’s History
• Built between 447 and 438 BC, this so-called
Periklean Parthenon (Parthenon III) replaced
an earlier marble temple (Parthenon II), 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.
Converted into a church-5th century AD
• The Parthenon
remained unchanged
until the 5th century
AD, when it was
converted into a
church dedicated
first to Saint Sophia
and later to the
Panagia (Virgin
Mary).
UNDER TURKISH/ OTTOMAN
(1453-1821) RULE IT BECAME
A MOSQUE
in 1687, during the siege of the
Αcropolis by Μorozini, (head
of Venetian flet) the
parthenon was bombarded
and largely destroyed
• Further serious damage
was caused in the early
19th century by Lord
Elgin, who looted much
of the temple's
sculptural decoration
and sold it to the British
Museum.
• Conservation and
restoration of the
Parthenon took place in
1896-1900 and again in
1922-1933.
ITS DESIGN in detail
• The Parthenon is a double peripteral
Doric temple with several unique and
innovative architectural features. The
temple proper is divided into pronaos,
cella (Naos) and opisthodomos, with a
separate room at the west end, and is
surrounded by a pteron with 8 columns
on each of the short sides and 17
columns on the long ones.
Ground/floor plan
The interior
• inside the Cella/Naos a
double pi-shaped
colonnade established a
background for the gold
and ivory statue of
Athena Parthenos,
which showed the
goddess in full armour
carrying Nike (Victory)
to the Athenians in her
right hand.
The east & west pediment
• The east pediment
depicted the birth of the
goddess, who sprang
from the head of her
father, Zeus, before an
assembly of the Olympian
gods, while the west
pediment showed Athena
and Poseidon disputing
for the possession of the
city of Athens before the
gods, heroes and mythical
kings of Attica.
Μetopes
• Ninety-two metopes
alternating with triglyphs
were placed above the
epistyle of the outer
colonnade and under the
architrave. All of them were
adorned with reliefs.. Their
themes were derived from
legendary battles: the
Gigantomachy was depicted
on the eastern side, the
Trojan War on the northern
side, the Amazonomachy on
the western side and the
Centauromachy on the
southern side
The frieze
• The frieze, an element of
the Ionic order, brilliantly
added to this Doric
temple along the top of
the cella, pronaos and
opisthodomos, depicted
the splendid procession
of the Panathinaia, the
greatest festival of Athens
in honour of Athena.
Parthenon Design & Dimensions
• It was constructed using a 4:9 ratio in several
aspects. The diameter of the columns in
relation to the space between columns, the
height of the building in relation to its width,
and the width of the inner cella in relation to
its length are all 4:9. Other sophisticated
architectural techniques were used to combat
the problem that anything on that scale of size
when perfectly straight seems from a distance
to be curved.
The illusion of true straight lines
To give the illusion of true
straight lines, the columns
lean ever so slightly inwards,
a feature which also gives a
lifting effect to the building
making it appear lighter than
its construction material
would suggest. Also, the
stylobate or floor of the
temple is not exactly flat but
rises slightly in the centre.
The columns also have a
slight fattening in their
middle, and the four corner
columns are imperceptibly
fatter than the other
columns.
• The cella consisted of two separated rooms.
The smaller room contained four Ionic columns
to support the roof section and was used as the
city’s treasury. The larger room housed the cult
statue and was surrounded by a Doric
colonnade on three sides.
• The roof was constructed using cedar wood
beams and marble tiles and would have been
decorated with akroteria (of palms or figures) at
the corners and central apexes. The roof corners
also carried lion-headed spouts to drain away
water.
• The outer columns of the temple were Doric
with 8 seen from the front and back and 17
seen from the sides. This was in contrast to
the normal 6x13 Doric arrangement, and they
were also slimmer and closer together than
usual. Within, the inner cella (or
opisthodomos) was fronted by 6 columns at
the back and front. It was entered through
large wooden doors embellished with
decorations in bronze, ivory, and gold.
DIMENSIONS
• Measured at the stylobate, the dimensions of
the base of the Parthenon are 69.5 by 30.9
metres (228 by 101 ft).
• The cella was 29.8 metres long by
19.2 metres wide (97.8 × 63.0 ft), with
internal 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 ft) high. The corner columns are
slightly larger in diameter.
• The Parthenon had 46 outer columns and 23
inner columns in total, each column
containing 20 flutes. (A flute is the concave
shaft carved into the column form.) The
stylobate has an upward curvature towards its
centre of 60 millimetres (2.4 in) on the east
and west ends, and of 110 millimetres (4.3 in)
on the sides. The roof was covered with large
overlapping marble tiles.
A BRIEF VIDEO ON THE PARTHENON BY KOSTAS
GAVRAS
• http://www.klik.gr/gr/el/greece/i-istoria-touparthenona-se-733-lepta-apo-ton-kostagabra/
• And a longer one!!!
• https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#s
earch/the+parthen/151632998428fbac?proje
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