Subject
Parthenon (Athens, Greece)
Athena (Greek deity)
Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
Temples, Greek--Greece
Ancient Greek religion
Athens (Greece)
Attikē (Greece)
Greece--History--Athenian supremacy, 479-431 B.C.
Age of Pericles
Pericles, 495-429 B.C.
Phidias, approximately 500 B.C.-approximately 430 B.C.
Relief (Sculpture), Greek
Description
The Parthenon is perhaps the most famous Greek temple from Classical Period. Dedicated to Athena's perpetual virginity (Parthenos), the Parthenon was built during the revitalization campaign of Pericles, which rebuilt the infrastructure of Athens after the Persian forces destroyed most of the city in 480 BCE. These new buildings, the Parthenon chief among them, were also meant to demonstrate Athens' dominance over the Mediterranean world. The Parthenon took nearly 15 years to complete, beginning in 447 BCE and finishing in 432 BCE. The main chamber of the building (naos) contained a statue of the goddess sculpted by the artist, Phidias, and standing nearly 40 feet tall. The secondary, smaller chamber behind the main naos was used as a treasury after the Athenians moved the war funds of the Delian League from the island of Delos to Athens.
Bas-relief sculptures known as metopes ran around both sets of external walls of the Parthenon. This photograph captures several metopes on the outer wall, just under the eastern pediment. Each series of metopes on the four sides of the temple had a unified theme, and the eastern set depicted the Gigantomachia: i.e. the mythic battle between the Olympians and the Giants.