london165 The Parthenon Galleries Athens became the principal city-state of Classical Greece. The Parthenon, the temple of Athena Parthenos, was the city's most important building. It was built between 447 and 432 BC as the crowning achievement of Athenian political, economic and artistic prowess. Still today it represents a standard of excellence for western civilization, both as perfection in craftsmanship and as evidence of supreme intellect in design. The Panthenaic Way Every year, at the height of summer, the ancient Athenians celebrated the Panathenaic Festival in honor of Athena, patron goddess of their city. Every fourth year the festival was celebrated with particular splendor and a newly woven robe (peplos) was carried in procession to the Acropolis. This great rock, situated at the center of the city, was its sacred heart. Among its many ancient shrines was that of Athena Polias ('of the City') and the robe was dedicated there to a wooden statue of the goddess. Panathenaia implies 'all Athenians' and the procession brought together young and old, citizen and non-citizen, male and female, soldier and civilian. The participants gathered at dawn near the Dipylon Gate (double gateway) at the northwestern side of the city. The procession moved through the potters' quarter, along a straight road that led into the market place or agora. The Panathenaic Way passed through the agora, with its many sacred and civic monuments, and then climbed the Acropolis. The Acropolis In 479 BC, during the Persian invasion of Greece, the Acropolis was sacked and all its great monuments destroyed. The invader was eventually expelled and Athens came to assume the leadership of the alliance formed to maintain the freedom of the Greek city-states. From about 450 BC, a great building program was begun under the administration of Athens' premier statesman Pericles. Many sacred and civic buildings were erected on the Acropolis, in the town itself and in the Athenian countryside. Construction on the site of the Parthenon began a little before 447 BC. By 438 the roof was on the temple and, while work continued there, the first stones of a new monumental gateway, or Propylaea, were laid. Plan of the Parthenon The Parthenon was designed in the Doric style, or 'order', and built almost entirely of marble from nearby Mount Pentelikon. Its pitched roof and entablature were supported on a colonnade of seventeen columns on the long sides and eight on the short, counting corner columns twice. At the two short ends a second row of columns formed a porch before the great west and east doorways. The larger of the two chambers was entered from the east and contained the colossal statue of Athena Parthenos on a rectangular base. This statue was constructed from gold and ivory by Phidias, the most famous sculptor of all antiquity. The long external walls of the chambers and the porches at the ends were decorated with a continuous frieze. It showed the Panathenaic procession divided into two branches, both beginning at the southwest corner. The Parthenon Sculptures The temple itself was richly ornamented with sculptures representing scenes from mythology and cult. The frieze ran around all four sides of the building within the colonnade and shows the Panathenaic procession. The so-called metopes are rectangular slabs of marble carved in high relief with scenes of mythological battle. These were placed above the architrave over the columns on the outside of the temple. The pediment sculptures are carved in the round and were placed on a shelf in the triangular gable ends (pediments) of the temple. On the east side they showed the miraculous birth of Athena and on the west her contest with Poseidon for supremacy over Athens. The West Frieze of the Parthenon Approaching the Parthenon from the Propylaea gateway, the short west side of the Parthenon was seen first. The west frieze, therefore, was chosen to show preparation for the cavalcade that appears on the friezes of the north and south sides on the temple. The west frieze comprised sixteen blocks of carved stone, of which two are displayed in the larger gallery, and the remainder are in Athens. Around 1802 molds were made for Lord Elgin of all the frieze blocks that were to remain in Athens. Casts that derive from these molds are displayed here (on the wall). The sculptures themselves are now less complete than the casts, which are therefore an important record of the condition of the sculpture before it was damaged by two centuries of exposure to the elements.