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THE PARTHENON CODE
PowerPoint Series
Volume One
THE EAST PEDIMENT
Its Profound
And
Simple
Meaning
INTRODUCTION
Reclaiming What
We’ve Lost of Our
Greek Heritage
© 2006 Solving Light Books
SolvingLight.com
Ancient Greece—the city
of Athens in particular—
created the living cultural
basis of our modern
world. Here we see Peter
Connolly’s painting of the
ancient Akropolis, or high
place of the city. Athena’s
temple, the Parthenon,
dominates the landscape,
as Greek culture still
dominates our age.
Greece bequeathed to Europe her sciences, her
philosophies, her letters, and her arts as the living
cultural basis of our modern world.
Will Durant, The Life of Greece
Athens was the shining star of the ancient world,
dominating almost every field of human endeavor.
Peter Connolly, The Ancient City
Athens is the original home of Western civilization.
John M. Camp, The Athenian Agora
Our universities and other
academic institutions are
based on the Academy of
Plato.
Socrates invented modern philosophy.
Our ideals of individual liberty and democracy originated in ancient Athens.
The architecture of the
United States Supreme
Court is Greek.
Charles Freeman, author of The Greek Achievement, put it this way: “The Greeks provided the
chromosomes of Western civilization.” We can thus relate to almost all aspects of the ancient
Greek world.
Ancient Greek comedy
means something to us . . .
Because as Abbott and Costello would tell us, it’s the basis of our own comedy.
We can relate to Greek theater . . .
. . . Because our cinema, and most of our prime-time television shows are based on
the elements of ancient Greek drama.
We understand drinking wine and listening to music . . .
We relate very easily to music and dancing . . .
We understand beautifying
and adorning ourselves . . .
We understand the need to be prepared for war . . .
Many who have served in the
military have heard the
bugler’s call to formation . . .
We can relate to the ancient wrestling that the Greeks called Pankration . . .
. . . Because the World Wrestling Federation’s Smackdowns are nothing more than a
modern update of Pankration.
We know that the NASCAR races in Indy and Dover and Daytona find their roots in the
chariot races in ancient Olympia. It’s still horsepower that matters.
Our athletes still participate in the Olympics, in events such as the discus throw and
the javelin toss.
We understand writing, and that our scientific terms are based almost exclusively on Greek
words. Yes, we can relate to almost every thing in ancient Greek society, except for the one
thing that meant the most to them . . . their religion, what we erroneously refer to as mythology.
The ancient Greeks’ religion found expression
in their prayers, their sacrifices, their temples,
their sculpture, their paintings, their stories,
their coinage, their politics, their festivals, and
just about every other aspect of their society.
But yet today, we barely understand what their
religion meant to them at all.
Many of their religious images seem bizarre and inexplicable. Here we see a
worshipper placing a statue of Hermes with an erect phallus near an altar. Why was he
doing this? What did it mean to him?
Who are these half-men, half horses, called Kentaurs? And who is this man they are
pounding into the ground with a boulder? Why would Greek artists spend years of
work sculpting such a scene?
Who is this special child, and why is he being presented to Athena by a woman arising
from the earth? Who are the spectators to this event?
The place to find these answers and many more is Athena’s ancient temple, the
Parthenon. Scholars have called it the most important building in the history of
Western Civilization. It boasted more sculpture than any other Greek temple, and
those sculptures explained exactly what the ancient Greeks believed and why.
Metopes
Frieze
Let’s look at where the sculptures
were located on the Parthenon.
Both of the pediments, one at the
east end and one at the west,
were filled with sculpture. There
were 14 metopes—individual,
nearly-square sculpted scenes,
under each pediment. 32 metopes
ran along the north side of the
temple, and 32 more, along the
south side, making a total of 92
metopes in all. A continuous
frieze, 160 meters long, ran along
the outside of the inner temple
itself.
Pediment
For more than 2,000 years, the true meaning of these sculptures has remained hidden
beneath baffling myths. The east pediment depicts the birth of Athena where the lame
god, Hephaistos, has cracked open the head of Zeus, and out pops the goddess.
On the west pediment, Athena and Poseidon supposedly compete in a contest for
control of Athens and the surrounding region.
On the 14 metopes, or square sculpted scenes, on the east side, the gods defeat the Giants.
But who are these Giants?
On the 14 metopes on the west side, Greeks defeat Amazons. But who are these Amazons?
On the south side, the theme of the 32 metopes, many of the them well-preserved, is
the Kentaurs defeating the Lapiths and taking their women. But who are these
Kentaurs, and who are these Lapiths?
The theme of the 32 metopes on the north side is the aftermath of the Trojan war.
Frieze
The theme of the 160-meter wrap-around frieze is a great procession which presents Athena
with an embroidered cloak. The Greeks established the living basis of our culture, profoundly
influencing the things we do and think every day. And yet we haven’t understood what these
sculptural themes mean, or grasped what, if anything, they have to do with us.
The Parthenon was the Greeks’ primary instrument of communication to future ages. We
should comprehend, intuitively even, what the Parthenon sculptures mean. And yet, one
of the great scholars of the ancient Greek world, Sir John Boardman has written, “The
Parthenon and is sculptures are the most fully known, if least well understood, of all the
monuments of classical antiquity.” Where is the missing key to understanding what our
ancestors were trying to tell us?
The Greek myths tell us much, but the key to their correct interpretations lies
elsewhere. Of all places, we find it in the Scriptures, mainly in the early chapters of the
Book of Genesis. As we use this invaluable key to open the door of our Greek past,
the great Greek myths, at long last, will begin to make sense to us.
The simple secret is that the Book of Genesis and the Parthenon sculptures tell the
same story from opposite view points. The so-called “myth” of Athena being born fullgrown out of Zeus, for example, is a picture of Eve being born full-grown out of Adam.
That’s right, the goddess the Greeks called Athena is the woman the Book of Genesis calls Eve . . .
Greek myth is not subjective metaphor or nonsense; it is history—the history of the
human race carved in marble on the Parthenon.
The myths of the Greeks begin in Eden. Their basic beliefs were that the serpent was
the enlightener of mankind rather than our deceiver, and that Athena, the deified Eve,
brought that enlightenment back to us after the Flood.
In this presentation, we are going to prove that this is true by reconstructing the east
pediment of the Parthenon, the most sacred sculpted space in Greek antiquity. The
east pediment told the story of the serpent’s side of Eden in unmistakable terms. The
ancient Greeks understood it. And so should we.