The Parthenon (ancient Greek: Παρθενών; modern Greek: Παρθενώνας) is an ancient temple in , dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the Athenians considered their patroness. Construction began in 447 BC. BC, when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. It ended in 438 BC. e., although the decoration of the building continued until 432 BC. e. It is the most important surviving building of classical Greece, the zenith of which is generally considered to be the Doric order. The decorative sculptures of the Parthenon are considered among the most successful in Greek art. And the Parthenon itself is a symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and Western civilization, and one of the greatest cultural monuments in the world. The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently implementing a program of selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially destroyed structure.

The Parthenon, replaced by what historians call the Pre-Parthenon, was destroyed during the Persian invasion of 480 BC. e. The temple was built archaeoastronomically, according to the Hyades star cluster. Despite the fact that the sacred building was dedicated to the patron goddess of the city, it was actually used as a treasury. At one time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the last decades of the sixth century AD, the Parthenon, which was converted into a Christian church, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

After the Ottoman conquest in the early 60s of the 15th century, it was turned into a mosque. On September 26, 1687, due to the Venetian bombardment, Ottoman ammunition stored in the building caught fire. The explosion seriously damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, removed some of the surviving sculptures, ostensibly with Ottoman permission. They are now known as the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles. In 1816 they were sold to the British Museum in London, where they are exhibited today. Since 1983 (on the initiative of the Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri), the Greek government decided to return the sculptures to Greece.

Etymology

Originally, the name "Parthenon" came from the Greek word παρθενών (parthenon), and was referred to in the sense of "unmarried women's rooms" in a house, and in the case of the Parthenon, perhaps only a separate room of the temple was used at first. There is debate as to what room this was and how it got its name. According to the work of Lidle, Scott, Jones "Greek-English Lexicon" it was the western cella of the Parthenon. Jamari Greene believes that the Parthenon was the room in which peplum was presented to Athena at the Panathenaic Games. It was woven by the Arrephoros, four girls who were chosen each year to serve Athena. Christopher Pelling argues that the Athena Parthenos may represent a separate cult of Athena, closely related, but not identical, to the cult of Athena Polias. According to this theory, the name Parthenon means "temple of the virgin goddess" and refers to the cult of Athena Parthenos, which was associated with this temple. The epithet "parthenos" (παρθένος), whose origin is unknown, means "maiden, girl", but also "virgin, unmarried woman", and was mainly used in relation to Artemis, goddess of wild animals, hunting and vegetation, and Athena, goddess of strategy and tactics, craft and practical reason. There is also speculation that the name of the temple refers to the maidens (parthenos), whose supreme sacrifice guarantees the safety of the city.

© website, in the photo: The Parthenon today, July 2014

The first instance in which the name Parthenon clearly refers to the entire building was found in the writings of the orator Demosthenes, dating from the 4th century BC. In the 5th century the building was seen as a structure simply called ho naos ("temple"). It is believed that the architects Mnesicles and Kallicrates called it Hekatompodos ("one hundred feet") in their lost treatise on Athenian architecture, and in the 4th century and later, it was known as Hekatompedos or Hekatompedon, like the Parthenon; in the 1st century AD e. the writer Plutarch called the building Hekatompedon Parthenon.

Because the Parthenon was dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, it was sometimes called the Temple of Minerva, the Roman name for Athena, especially in the 19th century.

Purpose

Although architecturally the Parthenon is a temple and is usually called that, in the generally accepted sense of the word this is not entirely true. A small temple was found inside the building, on the site of an old one, probably dedicated to Athena as a way to get closer to the goddess, but the Parthenon itself never accepted the cult of Athena Polis, the patroness of Athens; The cult image, which was washed in the sea and presented with peplos, was the olive xoan, located on the old altar in the northern part of the Acropolis.

The magnificent statue of Athena, by Phidias, was not associated with any cult and it is not known whether it kindled any religious fervor. She probably did not have a priestess, altar or cult name. According to Thucydides, Pericles once called the statue a gold reserve, emphasizing that it "consisted of forty talents of pure gold, and they could be taken out." The Athenian statesman thus assumed that the metal obtained from modern coinage could be used again without any disrespect. The Parthenon was then seen more as a large setting for a votive statue of Phidias, rather than a place of worship. It is said that many Greek authors in their works described the countless treasures stored inside the temple, such as Persian swords and small statues made of precious metals.

Archaeologist Joan Breton Connelly has recently championed the connection of the Parthenon's sculptural plan in presenting a series of genealogical accounts that trace Athenian features back through the centuries: from the birth of Athena, through cosmic and epic battles, to the great final event of the Athenian Bronze Age, the War of Erechtheus and Eumolpus. She argues that the pedagogical function of the Parthenon's sculptural decoration establishes and reinforces the Athenian foundations of myth, memory, values ​​and identity. Connelly's thesis is controversial and some well-known classicists such as Mary Beard, Peter Green and Garry Wheels have either questioned it or simply rejected it.

Early history

Old Parthenon

The initial desire to build a sanctuary of Athena Parthenos on the site of the current Parthenon was realized soon after the Battle of Marathon (ca. 490-488 BC) on a foundation of solid limestone, which was located at the southern part of the top of the Acropolis. This building replaced the Hekatompedon (i.e. "one hundred feet") and stood next to the archaic temple dedicated to Athena Polias. The Old Parthenon, or Pre-Parthenon as it is often called, was still under construction when it was built in 480 BC. e. the Persians sacked the city and destroyed the Acropolis.

The existence of the proto-Parthenon and its destruction is known from Herodotus. The drums of its columns were clearly visible and were built after the load-bearing wall north of the Erechtheion. Further material evidence of this structure was revealed during the excavations of Panagis Kavadias in 1885-1890. Their results allowed Wilhelm Dörpfeld, then director of the German Archaeological Institute, to argue that there was an underground structure in the original Parthenon, called Parthenon I, which was not located exactly below the current building, as previously thought. Dörpfeld's observation was that three of the steps of the first Parthenon were made of limestone, two of which were porous, like the base, and the top step of Carkha limestone, which was covered by the lowest step of Pericles' Parthenon. This platform was smaller and located just north of the final Parthenon, indicating that it was built for an entirely different building, now completely covered. The picture was somewhat complicated by the publication of the final report of the excavations in 1885-1890, which indicated that this underground structure was of the same age as the walls built by Cimon, and implied a later date for the first temple.

Plan of the Parthenon, photo: public domain

If the original Parthenon was indeed destroyed in 480, this raises the question of why the site remained in ruins for thirty-three years. One argument suggests an oath taken by the Greek allies before the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. e., according to which the sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians will not be restored. Only in 450, with the conclusion of the Peace of Callias, did the Athenians free themselves from this oath. The mundane fact about the cost of rebuilding Athens after the Persian sack is not as plausible as its reason. However, Bert Hodge Hill's excavations led him to propose the existence of a second Parthenon, created during the reign of Cimon after 468 BC. e. Hill argued that the Carja limestone step, which Dörpfeld thought was the tallest in Parthenon I, was in fact the lowest of the three steps of Parthenon II, whose stylobate, according to Hill's calculations, measured 23.51 by 66.888 meters (77.13 × 219.45 feet).

One of the difficulties in dating the proto-Parthenon is that at the time of the excavations in 1885, the archaeological method of seriation was not fully developed; careless digging and backfilling of the site resulted in the loss of a lot of valuable information. Attempts to discuss and comprehend the clay shards found in the Acropolis were realized in a two-volume work by Graf and Langlotz, published in 1925-1933. This inspired the American archaeologist William Bell Dinsmoor to try to establish extreme dates for the temple platform and its five walls, hidden under the re-terracing of the Acropolis. Dinsmoor concluded that the last possible date for Parthenon I was no earlier than 495 BC. e., which contradicts more early date established by Dörpfield. Moreover, Dinsmoor denied the existence of two proto-Parthenons and established that the only temple before the Temple of Pericles was the one Dörpfeld called Parthenon II. In 1935, Dinsmoor and Dorpfield exchanged opinions in the American Journal of Archaeology.

Modern construction

In the middle of the 5th century BC. BC, when the Athenian Acropolis became the seat of the Delian League, and Athens was the greatest cultural center of its time, Pericles initiated an ambitious building project that lasted throughout the second half of the century. During this period, the most important buildings that can be seen on the Acropolis today were built: the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. The Parthenon was built under the general direction of Phidias, who was also responsible for the sculptural decoration. The architects Ictinus and Callicrates began their work in 447 BC. BC, and by 432 the building was completed, but decoration work continued until at least 431. Some financial records survive for the Parthenon, which show that the largest expense was transporting the stones from Mount Pentelikon, about 16 km (9.9 mi) from Athens, to the Acropolis. These funds were partly taken from the treasury of the Delian League, transferred from the Panhellenic sanctuary at Delos to the Acropolis in 454 BC. e.

Architecture

The Parthenon is an octastyle Doric temple surrounded by columns with Ionic architectural features. It stands on a platform or stylobate of three steps. Like other Greek temples, it has a lintel and is surrounded by columns carrying an entablature. At each end there are eight columns ("octastyle"), and on the sides there are seventeen. Also, at each end of the column, there are two rows of columns. The colonnade surrounds an internal stone structure - a cella, divided into two rooms. At both ends of the building, the roof ends in a triangular pediment, originally filled with sculptures. The columns are of the Doric order with a simple capital, fluted shaft and no base. Above the architrave is a frieze of illustrated carved panels (metopes) separated by a triglyph, typical of the Doric order. Around the cella and along the lintels of the internal columns there is a continuous sculptural frieze in the form of bas-relief. This element of architecture is more Ionic than Doric.

Measured on the stylobate, the dimensions of the Parthenon's base are 69.5 by 30.9 meters (228 by 101 ft). The cella was 29.8 meters long and 19.2 meters wide (97.8 x 63.0 ft) with an internal colonnade in two rows, structurally necessary to support the roof. Externally, the Doric columns measured 1.9 meters (6.2 ft) in diameter and 10.4 meters (34 ft) in height. The diameter of the corner columns was slightly larger. In total, the Parthenon had 23 internal and 46 external columns, each containing 20 flutes. (A flute is a concave groove carved in the shape of a column). The stylobate had a curvature that increased towards the center by 60 mm (2.4 in) at the east and west ends and 110 mm (4.3 in) at the sides. The roof was covered with large overlapping marble tiles known as tegula and tegula tiles.

© website, in the photo: The Parthenon today, July 2014

The Parthenon is considered the best example of Greek architecture. John Julius Cooper wrote that the temple “enjoys the reputation of being the most perfect Doric temple ever built. Even in antiquity, his architectural improvements were legendary, especially the subtle relationship between the curvature of the stylobates, the inclination of the cella walls and the entasis of the columns." Entasis refers to the slight decrease in the diameter of columns as they rise, although the observed effect in the Parthenon is much more subtle than in earlier temples. Stylobate is a platform on which columns stand. Like many other classical Greek temples, it has a slight parabolic increase in curvature to drain rainwater and strengthen the building against earthquakes. Perhaps this is why the columns were supposed to lean outward, but in fact they leaned slightly inward so that if they continued they would meet almost exactly a mile above the center of the Parthenon; since they are all of the same height, the curvature of the outer edge of the stylobate is transferred to the architrave and the roof: “The whole subsequent principle of construction is based on a slight curvature,” Gorham Stevens noted this when he pointed out that the western façade was built slightly higher than the southern one. It is not universally established what the intended effect of entasis is; it is possible that it served as a kind of “reverse optical illusion.” Because the Greeks may have known that two parallel lines slope, or bend outward, when crossing converging lines. In this case, it seems that the ceiling and floor of the temple are leaning towards the corners of the building. In their quest for perfection, the designers may have added these curves, compensating for the illusion by creating their own curves, thus negating the effect and allowing the temple to be what it was intended to be. It has also been suggested that it was used to “revitalize” a building without curves that would perhaps have the appearance of an inert mass, but the comparison should be with the more obvious curved predecessors of the Parthenon, and not with a conventionally rectilinear temple.

Some studies of the Acropolis, including the Parthenon, have concluded that many of its proportions are close to the golden ratio. The Parthenon's façade, as well as its elements, can be described by a golden rectangle. This view was refuted in later studies.

Sculpture

The cella of the Parthenon housed the chrysoelephantine statue of Athena Parthenos by Phidias, created in 439 or 438 BC. e.

Initially, decorative stonework was very colorful. At that time, the temple was dedicated to Athena, although construction continued almost until the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 432. By 438, the sculptural decoration of the Doric metopes on the frieze above the outer colonnade and the decoration of the Ionic frieze around the top of the cella wall were completed.

The richness of the frieze and metopes is consistent with the temple's purpose as a treasury. The opisthodome (back room of the cella) housed the monetary contributions of the Delian League, of which Athens was a leading member. Today, the surviving sculptures are kept in the Acropolis Museum in Athens and the British Museum in London, and several items are in Paris, Rome, Vienna and Palermo.

Metopes

The frieze of the entablature contains ninety-two metopes, fourteen each on the east and west sides, and thirty-two each on the north and south. They are carved in bas-relief, a practice used only for treasuries (the building was used to store votive gifts to the gods). According to construction documentation, the metope sculptures date back to 446-440 BC. e. The metopes of the Parthenon, above the main entrance, on the eastern side, depict the Gigantomachy (mythical battle between the Olympian gods and the giants). The metopes on the western side show the Amazonomachy (mythical battle of the Athenians against the Amazons), and on the south the Thessalian centauromachy (battle of the Lapiths, aided by Theseus, against the half-human, half-horse centaurs). Metopes 13 to 21 are missing, but drawings attributed to Jacques Curry indicate groups of people; they have been variously interpreted as scenes from the wedding of Lapith, scenes from early history Athens and various myths. On the north side of the Parthenon, the metopes are poorly preserved, but the plot resembles the destruction of Troy.

Metopes are presented as an example of a strict style in the anatomy of the heads of figures, in the limitation physical movements to the contours, but not to the muscles, and in the pronounced veins in the centauromachy figures. Some of them still remain on the building, with the exception of those on the north side, as they are badly damaged. Several metopes are in the Acropolis Museum, others are in the British Museum, and one in the Louvre.

In March 2011, archaeologists announced that they had discovered five Parthenon metopes on the south wall of the Acropolis, which was extended when the Acropolis was used as a fortress. According to the daily newspaper Eleftherotype, archaeologists claimed that the metopes were placed there in the 18th century, when the wall was being restored. Experts discovered the metopes when processing 2,250 photographs using modern photographic methods. They were made from white Pentelic marble, which is different from the other stone on the wall. It was previously assumed that the missing metopes were destroyed during the explosion of the Parthenon in 1687.

© website, in the photo: The Parthenon today, July 2014

Frieze

Most distinctive feature The architecture and decoration of the temple includes an Ionic frieze around the outer walls of the cella (the interior of the Parthenon). The bas-relief frieze was carved at the construction site; it dates back to 442-438 BC. e. One interpretation is that it depicts an idealized version of the procession of the Panathenaic Games from the Dipylon gate at Kerameikos to the Acropolis. This procession, which took place every year, was attended by Athenians and foreigners to honor the goddess Athena by offering sacrifices and new peplos (cloth woven by specially selected noble Athenian maidens).

Joan Breton Connelly offers a mythological interpretation of the frieze, which is in harmony with the rest of the temple's sculptural plan, and shows Athenian genealogy through a series of myths from the distant past. She identifies the central panel above the Parthenon door as the sacrifice made before the battle by the daughter of King Erechtheus, which secured victory over Eumolplus and his Thracian army. A large procession moved towards the eastern part of the Parthenon, displaying a post-battle thanksgiving offering of cattle and sheep, honey and water, following the triumphant army of Erechtheus as it returned victorious. In mythical times, these were the very first Panathenaea, the model on which the historical processions of the Panathenaic Games were based.

Pediments

When the traveler Pausanias visited the Acropolis at the end of the 2nd century AD, he only briefly mentioned the sculptures of the temple pediments (gabel ends), leaving the main place to describe the gold and ivory statue of the goddess that was located inside the temple.

East gable

The east pediment tells the story of the birth of Athena from the head of her father Zeus. According to Greek mythology Zeus gave life to Athena after a terrible headache prompted him to call Hephaestus (god of fire and blacksmithing) to provide assistance. To ease the pain, he ordered Hephaestus to hit him with a hammer, and when he did this, Zeus's head split open and the goddess Athena came out of it, all dressed in armor. The sculptural composition depicts the moment of the birth of Athena.

Unfortunately, the central part of the pediment was destroyed even before Jacques Curry, who in 1674 created useful documentary drawings, therefore, all restoration work is the subject of assumptions and hypotheses. The main Olympian gods would be standing around Zeus and Athena, watching the miraculous event, probably with Hephaestus and Hera at their side. Kerry's drawings played an important role in restoring the sculptural composition on the north and south sides.

West gable

The western pediment overlooked the Propylaea and depicted the struggle between Athena and Poseidon during their competition for the honor of becoming the patron of the city. They appear in the center of the composition, and diverge from each other in strict diagonal shapes, the goddess holds an olive tree, and the sea god raises his trident to strike the ground. On the sides, they are flanked by two groups of horses pulling chariots, while the space in the sharp corners of the pediment is filled with legendary characters from Athenian mythology.

Work on the pediments continued from 438 to 432 BC. e., and the sculptures on them are considered one of the best examples of classical Greek art. The figures are created in natural movements, and the bodies are full of vital energy that breaks through their flesh, which in turn breaks through their thin clothing. Thin chitons show the lower part of the body as the center of the composition. By placing the sculptures in stone, the sculptors erased the differences between gods and men, and the conceptual relationship between idealism and naturalism. The gables no longer exist.

Drawing of the statue “Athena Parthenos” installed inside the Parthenon

Athena Parthenos

Only one sculpture from the Parthenon is known to belong to the hand of Phidias, a statue of Athena, which was located in the naos. This massive gold and ivory sculpture is now lost. It is known only from copies, vase paintings, jewelry, literary descriptions and coins.

Late period of history

Late Antiquity

In the mid-third century AD, a major fire broke out at the Parthenon, destroying the roof and much of the temple's interior. In the fourth century AD, restoration work was carried out, probably during the reign of Flavius ​​Claudius Julian. To cover the sanctuary, a new wooden roof was laid, covered with clay tiles. It had a greater slope than the original roof, and the wings of the building were left open.

For almost a thousand years, the Parthenon continued to exist as a temple dedicated to Athena, until in 435 AD. e. Theodosius II did not decide to close all pagan temples in Byzantium. In the fifth century, one of the emperors stole the great cult image of Athena and took it to Constantinople, where it was later destroyed, possibly during the siege of Constantinople in 1204 AD. e.

Christian church

In the last decades of the sixth century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church, called the Church of Maria Parthenos (Virgin Mary), or the Church of Theotokos (Mother of God). The orientation of the building was changed, turning the facade to the east; The main entrance was moved to the western end of the building, and the Christian altar and iconostasis were located on the eastern side of the building next to the apse, built on the site where the temple's pronaos had previously been located.

A large central entrance with adjacent side doors was made in the wall dividing the cella, which became the church nave, from the back room, the narthex of the church. The gaps between the columns of the opisthodome and peristyle were walled up, however, the number of entrances to the room was sufficient. Icons were painted on the walls, and Christian inscriptions were carved into the columns. These renovations inevitably led to the removal of some sculptures. The images of the gods were either interpreted in accordance with Christian themes, or were confiscated and destroyed.

The Parthenon became the fourth most important site of Christian pilgrimage in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, after Constantinople, Ephesus and Thessalonica. In 1018, Emperor Basil II made a pilgrimage to Athens, immediately after his final victory over the Bulgarians, for the sole purpose of visiting the church at the Parthenon. In medieval Greek records it was called the Temple of the Virgin of Athens (Theotokos Atheniotissa) and was often referred to indirectly as famous, without precisely explaining which temple was meant, thus confirming that it was indeed famous.

During the Latin occupation, for approximately 250 years, it became the Roman Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary. During this period, a tower was built on the southwest corner of the cella, which was used as a watchtower or as a bell tower with a spiral staircase, and also as vaulted tombs under the floor of the Parthenon.

Islamic mosque

In 1456, Ottoman forces invaded Athens and besieged the Florentine army, which defended the Acropolis until June 1458, when the city fell to the Turkish. The Turks quickly restored the Parthenon for continued use as a church by Greek Christians. For some time, before its closure in the fifteenth century, the Parthenon became a mosque.

The exact circumstances under which the Turks took possession of it for use as a mosque are unclear; one source states that Mehmed II ordered its reconstruction as punishment for the Athenian plot against the Ottoman Empire.

The apse, which became a mihrab (a tower built earlier during the Roman Catholic occupation of the Parthenon), was extended upward to make a minaret, a minbar was installed, and the Christian altar and iconostasis were removed, and the walls were whitewashed to cover icons of Christian saints and other Christian images.

Despite the changes that accompanied the Parthenon, conversion into a church and then into a mosque, its structure remains largely unchanged. In 1667, Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi expressed admiration for the Parthenon sculptures and figuratively described the building as “a kind of impregnable fortress not created by man.” He composed poetic prayers: “the work of lesser human hands than Heaven itself must stand for a long time».

The French artist Jacques Kerry visited the Acropolis in 1674 and made sketches of the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. In early 1687, an engineer named Plantier painted the Parthenon for the Frenchman Gravi Dortier. These images, especially those made by Kerry, became important evidence of the condition of the Parthenon and its sculptures before the destruction in late 1687 and the subsequent looting of its works.

Destruction of the Parthenon as a result of the explosion of a gunpowder magazine during the Venetian-Turkish War. 1687 Drawing by an unknown artist.

Destruction

In 1687, the Parthenon was badly damaged in the greatest disaster that has ever befallen it in its long history. The Venetians sent an expedition led by Francesco Morosini to attack and capture the Acropolis. The Ottoman Turks fortified the Acropolis and used the Parthenon as a magazine for ammunition - despite the dangers of such use after the 1656 explosion that severely damaged the Propylaea - and to shelter members of the local Turkish community. On September 26, a Venetian mortar fired from the Philopappa Hill blew up the cellar and partially destroyed the building. The explosion smashed the central part of the building into smithereens and caused the cella to collapse. Greek architect and archaeologist Cornelia Hatziaslani writes that “... three of the four walls of the sanctuary almost collapsed and three-fifths of the frieze sculptures fell. It is obvious that no part of the roof remained in place. Six columns fell on the south side and eight on the north, and nothing remained of the eastern portico, except for one column. Along with the columns, a huge marble architrave, triglyphs and menotopes collapsed.” The explosion killed approximately three hundred people, who were buried in marble debris near the Turkish defenders. It also started several large fires that burned until the next day and destroyed many houses.

During the conflict, notes were made as to whether the destruction was intentional or accidental; One of these records belongs to the German officer Zobifolski, which states that a Turkish deserter gave Morosini information about what the Turks were using the Parthenon for, expecting that the Venetians would not target a building of such historical importance. In response, Morosini sent artillery to the Parthenon. Subsequently, he attempted to loot sculptures from the ruins and cause further damage to the building. When the soldiers tried to remove the sculptures of Poseidon and the horses of Athena from the western pediment of the building, they fell to the ground and were broken.

IN next year the Venetians abandoned Athens to avoid confrontation with the large Turkish army assembled in Chalkis; At that time, the Venetians took into account the explosion, after which almost nothing was left of the Parthenon and the rest of the Acropolis, and rejected the possibility of its further use by the Turks as a fortress, but such an idea was not pursued.

After the Turks recaptured the Acropolis, they built a small mosque within the walls of the destroyed Parthenon, using the ruins from the explosion. Over the next century and a half, the remaining parts of the structure were looted for building materials and other valuables.

The 18th century was the period of the “sick man of Europe”; as a result, many Europeans were able to visit Athens, and the picturesque ruins of the Parthenon became the subject of many paintings and drawings, spurring the growth of the philhellenes and helping to awaken British and French sympathy for Greek independence. Among these early travelers and archaeologists were James Stewart and Nicholas Revett, who were commissioned by the Society of Dilettantes to explore the ruins of classical Athens.

They created drawings of the Parthenon, while taking measurements, which in 1787 published in two volumes Antiquities of Athens Measured and Delineated (Antiquities of Athens: Measured and Delineated). In 1801, the British ambassador to Constantinople, the Earl of Elgin, received a dubious firman (decree) from the Sultan, whose existence or legitimacy has not been proven to this day, to make casts and drawings of the antiquities of the Acropolis, and to demolish the last buildings, if necessary examine the antiquities, and remove the sculptures .

Independent Greece

When independent Greece gained control of Athens in 1832, the visible part of the minaret was destroyed; Only its base and the spiral staircase up to the architrave level remained intact. Soon all the medieval and Ottoman buildings built on top of the Acropolis were destroyed. However, Joly de Lotbinière's photograph of a small mosque in the cella of the Parthenon survives, published in Lerbeau's album Excursions Daguerriennes in 1842: the first photograph of the Acropolis. This area became a historical site controlled by the Greek government. Today it attracts millions of tourists every year. They follow the road 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.

Marble sculpture controversy

The center of the dispute was the marble sculptures taken by the Earl of Elgin from the Parthenon, which are in the British Museum. There are also several sculptures from the Parthenon on display in the Louvre in Paris, in Copenhagen, and elsewhere, but more than fifty percent are in the Acropolis Museum in Athens. Some can still be seen on the building itself. Since 1983, the Greek government has been campaigning to return the sculptures to Greece from the British Museum.

The British Museum has steadfastly refused to return the sculptures, and successive British governments have been unwilling to force the museum to do so (which would have required legislative grounds). However, negotiations between senior representatives of the Greek and British ministries of culture and their legal advisers took place in London on 4 May 2007. These were the first serious negotiations for several years, with hopes that both sides could move closer to a resolution.

© website, in the photo: Parthenon columns in scaffolding

Recovery

In 1975, the Greek government began a coordinated effort to restore the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis. After some delay, the Committee for the Conservation of Monuments of the Acropolis was created in 1983. The project later attracted funding and technical assistance from the European Union. The archaeological committee carefully documented every artifact left there, and with the help of computer models, architects determined their original location. Particularly important and fragile sculptures were transferred to the Acropolis Museum. A crane was installed to move the marble blocks. In some cases, previous reconstructions turned out to be incorrect. Dismantling was carried out, and the restoration process began anew. Originally, the various blocks were held together by elongated iron H-joints, which were completely coated with lead to protect the iron from corrosion. The stabilizing connectors added in the 19th century were less leaded and susceptible to corrosion. Since the product of corrosion (rust) tends to expand, it caused further damage to the already cracked marble. All new metalwork consisted of titanium, a strong, lightweight and corrosion-resistant material.

The Parthenon will not be restored to its pre-1687 condition, but damage from the explosion will be repaired to the extent possible. In the interest of restoring the building's structural integrity (important in this seismic zone) and aesthetic integrity, the broken portions of the column drums and lintels will be filled using precision-cut marble anchored in place. New Pentelic marble from the original quarry is used. Eventually, almost all large pieces of marble will be placed where they originally were, supported, if necessary, by modern materials. Over time, the white repaired parts will become less noticeable than the original surfaces that were exposed to weathering.

Name: Παρθενών (el), Parthenon (en)

Location: Athens, Greece)

Creation: 447–438 BC.

Architect(s): Callicrates, Iktin

Customer / Founder: Polis of Athens during the reign of Pericles

Parthenon architecture

1. Entablature. The orders of stone temples were borrowed by the Greeks from ancient wooden buildings. They are based on a simple connection of load-bearing parts (column with capital) and supporting floor beams - an entablature. In the classical era (V-IV centuries BC), the order system reached perfection.
2. Architrave. Each stone beam of the architrave (the lower part of the entablature) is 6 centimeters narrower in the center than at the edges. Hewn along a curved line, from a distance they look absolutely flat.
3. Frieze. Inside the temple, directly under the beams of the peristyle, there was a carved marble frieze. The marble reliefs of the Parthenon depict Athenian horsemen, mythological characters, competitions of the gods, heroic battles of the Greeks with the Amazons, and episodes of the siege of Troy. main topic Frieza - a solemn procession in honor of the celebration of the Day of the Great Panathenaia, dedicated to the goddess Athena. In 1801-1803, the frieze panels were dismantled. In the upper part of the frieze, the sculptural images are made in more relief. This technique softens the impression of a sharp reduction in figures that appears when viewed from below.
4. Doric order. The Parthenon is surrounded by monumental columns of the Doric order. The column trunk is cut through the entire height by vertical grooves - flutes. They create a special play of light and shadow and emphasize the volume of the column.
5. Corner column. Corner columns are thicker than others. They are moved closer to the neighbors and slightly inclined towards the center of the building - otherwise the structure would seem to be falling apart. The remaining columns are also inclined inward by 6 cm relative to the vertical axis.
6. steps. The Parthenon stands on a podium, the curved surface of which rises towards the center. The steps are also curved. The harmony of the Parthenon is based on complex geometric calculations.
   Entasis. The columns of the Parthenon are slightly convex in the middle. If they were straight, they would appear concave from a distance. "Amendment" to optical illusion The Greeks called it entasis.
7. Athena statue. The statue of Athena, the patroness of the city, was made by Phidias from gold and ivory. She stood opposite the eastern entrance and was illuminated by the rays of the rising sun. The height of the statue is 12.8 m.

Symbolic interpretation of the Parthenon structure

• At the Parthenon maximum amount columns, perceived from one point, for example from the Propylaea, is 24 (8 +17-1 angular, common for two facades), which directly correlates with the number of hours that make up a day.
• The number of drums in the column is 12, which directly correlates with the number of months in the year.
• Each triglyph consists of three protruding parts, which corresponds to the division of the month into three decades of ten days, customary in Ancient Greece. The total number of triglyphs-months along the entire perimeter of the temple is 96, which corresponds to the eight-year calendar cycle widespread in antiquity. The triglyphs seemed to contain time, real time: an eight-year cycle composed of decades and months.
• In between the triglyphs and metopes, mythological time was placed - the history of the struggle of the Greek tribe of Lapiths with the centaurs. Behind the Doric frieze containing the eight-year cycle, in the depths of the peripter on the wall of the cella, closer to Athena, the main deity of the temple, there is a relief frieze depicting the Panathenaic procession, which took place every four years. Behind the external general calendar eight-year cycle is hidden a private four-year cycle of time, the most important specifically for the temple of Athena.
• Under each triglyph there is a board with 6 droplets: 6 droplets above the column and 6 droplets above the intercolumnium. It can be assumed that each step of the columns contained a year consisting of 12 drop-months. Total number drops around the perimeter of the temple: 96 boards of 6 drops amounted to 48 years - a period that was a multiple of the eight-year cycle, and possibly correlated with the average duration human life that time.
• Under the cornice shelf there were also stone drops hanging from the mutul boards: 6 rows of three in each row. If we assume that each of them corresponds to a decade, then we get six months of three decades. In this case, for each step of the columns (two boards - 3 × 12 drops) there is again a year, consisting of 12 months of three decades each. The Latin name of these drops is “regula” (from “regulo” - to direct, to order) indicates the continuity of tradition in the understanding of time as a universal regulator of life.

This is far from full analysis development of the Doric tradition in the Parthenon, but it already reveals this temple as a complex, harmoniously balanced spatial-temporal system, containing both archaic and later, modern for its builders, ideas about the world order.

In the Parthenon, a person, having ascended the steps of the stylobate, found himself not only in sacred space, but also in sacred time, confirmed by the rhythm of the columns and the flow of flutes flowing to the floor.

About the Parthenon as a monument of its era and the features of its composition

N.I. Brunov

Moscow, “Art”, 1973

1. 
   The Parthenon was a treasury depository, a state bank.
   Various proceeds flowed into the treasury of the goddess Athena on the acropolis: precious metal vessels, income from the lands that belonged to the goddess, parts of military booty, a tenth of the production of silver mines. In total, this amounted to a very large sum, which constituted the state fund. The treasury of Athena was actually at the disposal of the state. The goddess was a banker...

1. 
   The main building material of the Parthenon is Pentelic marble, the quarries of which are located near Athens in the Pentelikon mountain range. The changes that this marble undergoes under the influence of sun rays. In the quarry it is white, similar in color to sugar. The surface of the stone is crystalline, fine-grained, transparent, so that the eye penetrates a little deeper, which gives the stone a unique transparent texture. Due to the fact that there are microscopic pieces of metal inside marble, and microscopic mosses develop in it under the influence of sunlight, the stone turns golden-yellowish in air when exposed to air, which is very beautiful and gives it a warm tint...
2. Architectural and artistic composition of the Parthenon
   • 
     The dismemberment of the architectural mass of the Parthenon is the fruit of analytical architectural thinking. What is most significant for the architecture of the Parthenon is that this analysis is combined with a holistic emotional perception architectural composition. This is the similarity of the Parthenon architecture with the architecture of eastern despotism, and this is its difference from many works of architecture of subsequent eras...
   • 
     In the Parthenon, the relationship between the column and the human figure, observed in other classical temples, is expressed with particular conviction. In this respect, the Greek column continues a tradition dating back to the distant past. ultimately to a primitive vertical stone placed as a funerary monument or a monument erected in memory of some event...
   • 
     Pentelic marble in a quarry, in nature, or even a piece of it exposed to sunlight, is significantly different from what the architects did with it in the building itself. They, of course, deeply took into account the natural properties of Pentelic marble and those changes. Which subsequently causes the action of sunlight in it. However, depending on the inclusion of Pentelic marble in the architectural and artistic composition, its figurative quality has undergone significant changes. In accordance with the three-part dialectical structure of the Parthenon, it is necessary to separately consider the interpretation building material in the crepides, columns and entablature...
   • 
     A characteristic feature of archaic and classical peripters, especially clearly expressed in the Parthenon thanks to its system of eight columns on the end sides, is the compactness of the outer volume, the main part of which is not adjacent to any additional volumes. In ancient times, this feature must have been especially evident, since a complex asymmetrical composition dominated in urban residential buildings...
   • 
     What is new in the Parthenon, compared to geometricism in Egyptian architecture, is the synthetic combination of geometricity and organicity. In classical Greek architecture a living sense of matter is very strongly expressed...
   • 
     The peripteral form of the building creates an interpenetration of mass and surrounding space. The latter is integrated into the architectural volume, forming external porticoes. It is impossible to tear them away from the surrounding space and from the landscape, to which beautiful views open in all directions from the porticoes. True, both when contemplating the Parthenon from the outside, and when looking at nature from the porticoes, the massive column trunks dominate the spaces between them, the columns come to the fore and squeeze the intercolumnia with their volume. However, the columns are arranged in relationship with the space surrounding the temple, and with the opening landscapes, which serve as the necessary background for the perception of the columns themselves...
   • 
     In the Parthenon, the process of crystallization of the unity of the outer volume of the peripterus, which began in the archaic era, was completed... The unity of the volume of the Parthenon is greatly enhanced by the inclination of the columns towards the naos, giving the entire volume a slightly tapering upward shape. This narrowing increases in a more vertical form from the ground to the three steps of the crepida, continues and ends with flatter slopes of the roof. The result is a curving curve of the silhouette of the building...
   • 
     The architectural forms of the Parthenon evoke in the viewer a certain idea of ​​the size of the human figure for which they are intended. If we forget about the actual height of a person and try to imagine his height based on architectural forms, it turns out that architecture evokes, when contemplating it, the image of a person approximately twice as tall as he actually is. When perceiving the Parthenon, the viewer has a clear idea of ​​an enlarged human figure, towards which the dimensions of the architectural forms are oriented. At the same time, the viewer perceives the building and its parts in relationship with himself. Therefore, the viewer identifies with himself the image of a person enlarged in size, generated by architecture, that is, he mentally grows in size, seems to himself larger and stronger than he really is...
   • 
     Along with the ideological and figurative content, which is inherent in all classical Greek peripters, the Parthenon contains ideas expressed through the means of art, characteristic of Athens in the mid-5th century. BC e., which found their most complete and perfect expression in him. The ideas common to all classical temples include the dominance of man over nature and his connection with it, as well as the principle of humanity, the humanistic principle expressed in the language of architecture...

Sources:

• Brunov N.I. "Monuments of the Athens Acropolis. Parthenon and Erechtheion", Moscow "Art" 1973
• Ikonnikov A.V. The artistic language of architecture M.: Art, 1985, ill.
• "Greek Architecture" by Allan Marquand, Ph.D., L.H.D. Professor of ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY IN RINCETON UNIVERSITY New York THE MACVILLAN COMPANY 1909
• K.I. Ronchevsky "Samples of ancient Greek architectural orders" Moscow, 1917
• P.P. Gnedich “General History of Arts. Painting. Sculpture. Architecture". Modern version Moscow “Eksmo”, 2009

The main feature in the design of the Parthenon is the combination of features of the Dorian and Ionian orders in a single design. As is known, these orders had significant differences in general proportions, types of capitals, appearance of columns, and the nature of the entablature. Dorian in its main features, the Parthenon, as we remember, also had some features taken from the Ionian order. It is typical for Dorian temples to have not eight (as in the Parthenon), but six columns on the facade. The lighter proportions of the order and the continuous frieze are also features that came from Ionics. Let's not forget about the four Ionian columns in the treasury. Such a combination of two orders in the architecture of one building is a fundamentally new phenomenon, practically never seen before in Greek architecture. The reasons for the appearance of this feature, as many scientists quite rightly believe, are not only artistic, but also ideological.

Greek people ancient era was divided into several groups (they are usually called tribes), the most important among which were the Dorians (Dorians) and the Ionians (Ionians). According to the ideas that existed at that time, the difference between them was revealed not only in the fact that each of these tribes had its own dialect, but also in the presence of certain character traits supposedly characteristic of these tribes. The Dorians were considered more simple, straightforward, and stern, while the Ionians were considered more refined, prone to elegance and luxury in everyday life, more committed to various innovations than the traditional Dorians. Although, from the point of view modern science, these differences within the ancient Greek ethnos have no more than a ten-degree significance; the Greeks themselves considered them very important.

The Athenian Maritime League was originally a union of only Ionian poleis. In addition to the real power of Athens, their leading role in the war with the Persians, the circumstance that helped create this association was the old tradition, according to which Athens was considered the metropolis (homeland) of all the Ionians, the center from where they spread to the islands of the Aegean Sea and Asia Minor. Subsequently, many Dorian policies also joined the union. The desire to present Athens as a natural center for the unification of all Greeks, regardless of their tribal affiliation, became one of the leading lines in the politics of the Athenian polis. Thus, the Parthenon, which was intended to be the main temple of the union, turned out to be a building in which the features of the two orders organically merged. The Athenians wanted the Parthenon to be considered their temple by all Greeks.

Let us now turn to the Parthenon sculpture. Let us remember that the main task of the temple was to store the chrysoelephantine statue of Athena. Despite the importance of this statue, the “sculptural component” of the temple was not limited to it. It included two large pediment compositions from a number of sculptures, separate sculptural groups executed in high relief on the metopes (on all four sides) and an Ionian frieze in low relief. The entire sculpture located on the temple is made of Pentelicon marble, but some details (weapons and images of horse harness) are made of metal. A number of details and the background were painted.

Plutarch, talking about the construction of the temple, was amazed at the speed with which it was built (Plut., Pericl., XIII, 2)212. But no less surprising is the speed with which the sculpture was created. Since both the metopes and the frieze were integral parts of the structures, they had to be completed before the construction was completed. Since the cornice and roof, judging by the reports we mentioned above, were completed in 438 BC, one can think that the creation of sculptural groups on the metopes and frieze covered the time from 447 to 438. BC. At the time of the consecration of the temple in 438, the compositions on the pediments were not yet completed, and the work on their manufacture and installation was completed only in 432.213

Previously, it was a very popular opinion that Phidias personally supervised and supervised all sculptural work, but today this opinion is abandoned. The work of producing such a significant number of sculptures (2 pediment compositions, 92 metopes and the entire frieze) in such a short time(until 438) required, of course, participation large group masters In addition, it was at this time that Phidias was busy making a chrysoelephantine statue of Athena. Most likely, Phidias participated in the discussion of the subjects of the metopes, frieze and pediments, but he is unlikely to have created sketches for many of them, although it cannot be considered that he completely withdrew from this work.

The Parthenon is richly decorated with sculpture. Olympian gods and heroes, battles of the Greeks with Amazons and centaurs, battles of gods with giants, episodes of the Trojan War and solemn processions are depicted on its pediments, metopes, and friezes. The feelings and mood of the Greeks during the heyday of Athens were embodied in plastic images. That is why fiction here is perceived as reality, and plots inspired by life acquire the character of a special sublime ideality. The Parthenon sculpture contains deep meaning. The greatness of man is revealed in clearly visible images - an idea that is also expressed in the architecture of the temple 37.

Metopes of the Parthenon. Metopes were placed above the outer colonnade of the temple. Previously, relief metopes were usually located only on the eastern and western sides. They also decorated the Parthenon from the north and south (ill. 39). On the western side, the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons was depicted in the metopes; in the south - Greeks with centaurs; on the north - scenes from the Trojan War; in the east - the battle of gods and giants 38.

The metopes on the western side of the Parthenon are badly damaged. The northern metopes are also poorly preserved (out of thirty-two, only twelve): this part of the colonnade was badly damaged by a gunpowder explosion. This is all the more unfortunate because here, apparently, the reliefs were especially well executed, since they were most often in plain sight. Along this side of the Parthenon there was a solemn procession along the Acropolis.

The sculptor who decorated the metopes on the northern side with reliefs took this into account, and he coordinated the direction of the general movement and the development of action on the northern metopes with the movement of people along the temple. Indeed, on the first metope on the northern side (if you walk along the Parthenon from the Propylaea) the sun god Helios was depicted, as if opening events, and on one of the last, the final ones, the goddess of the night Nyux. These images corresponded to the beginning and end of the action. The middle metopes showed preparations for the campaign, farewell of the soldiers, departure, and scenes of the Trojan War. The entrance to the temple was from the east, and in the decorations of this side the sculptors represented the most significant events. The eastern metopes showed the struggle and victory of the Olympian gods over the giants.

Southern metopes. Battles of the Greeks with the centaurs. 18 (out of 32) metopes on the south side of the Parthenon facing the cliff are the best preserved. The proximity of the cliff obviously made it difficult for a person standing on the Acropolis near the temple to perceive them. They were clearly visible from a distance, from the city below. Therefore, the masters made the figures especially voluminous.

The reliefs differ in the nature of their execution; there is no doubt that different masters worked on them. Many have not reached us, but those that have survived amaze with their masterful depiction of the battle. These metopes represent the battle between the Greeks and the centaurs 39 . The square frames show scenes of fierce life-and-death fights, various struggle situations, and complex body positions.

There are many tragic themes here. Often centaurs triumph over defeated people. In one of the metopes, the Greek tries in vain to defend himself from the advancing enemy, in the other, a Hellene is shown prostrate on the ground and a centaur triumphant over him. In such slabs, the deep drama of the event can be heard loudly - the death of a hero in a fight with a terrible evil force (ill. 40, 41). The victorious Greeks are also depicted: one has grabbed the weakening enemy by the throat, the other has swung at the centaur and is about to deal him a decisive blow (ill. 42, 43). Sometimes it is impossible to predict who the winner will be. In one metope, a Greek and a centaur are likened to two high waves colliding with each other.

Classical masters bring countervailing forces in metopes into balance and achieve a generally harmonious impression from each monument. Classical sculptors always show the inner boiling of passions, complex, sometimes tragic conflicts in an outwardly calm, restrained form. Each individual image is excited and dynamic, but as a whole the whole scene is usually brought into a state of compositional harmony.

Each metope has its own, unique theme - sometimes tragic, sometimes victorious and bravura, sometimes filled with the tension of inhuman struggle, sometimes calm. The nature of feelings is expressed with crystal clarity and purity. These images are infinitely far from the theatrical pathos, insincerity, and meaningful reticence that will appear in the art of later centuries. Classics are extremely truthful when they depict something terrible and tragic; it remains whole and harmonious even in the expression of great suffering. Masters of high classics are able to show with restraint, with deep calm, what artists of later eras will narrate with trembling voices.

Frieze of the Parthenon. The frieze (zophorus) of the Parthenon (ill. 44), with a total length of 160 meters and a width of about a meter, is a particularly solid work, harmonious with the deep interconnectedness of all its images.

In the third year of each Olympiad (quadrennial), around the end of July according to our calendar, after gymnastic and musical competitions, a solemn procession to the Acropolis began. For this day, the girls were preparing fabric for the ancient wooden statue of Athena. The fabric was secured to the mast of the ship, which was carried by hand. The ship was followed by priests, city rulers, noble Athenians, and ambassadors. Chariots moved through the streets and riders galloped on horses.

The frieze shows the procession of the Athenians on the day of the Great Panathenaia. Movement on the reliefs starts from the southwestern corner of the temple and goes in two streams. One part of the people depicted on the frieze goes east on the southern side of the Parthenon, the other goes first along the western side, then turns and walks along the northern side of the temple to the eastern frieze, where the gods are shown. Participants in the actual procession, passing near the Parthenon, saw these reliefs - a generalized, ideal image, an echo of real life.

West side of the frieze. On the relief slabs you can see how the horsemen prepare for the procession: they talk to each other, tie their sandals, saddle and slowly lead their horses, and tame too hot horses. The images are full of vitality, especially the scene where, near two young men talking, a horse drives away a horsefly or fly from its leg. Next, the riders begin their movement, following each other (ill. 45, 46, 47). The composition of the western part is the beginning of the entire frieze: the movement of the procession will move to the northern side of the temple. At the same time, it is perceived as a completely finished relief, since along the edges, as if framing it, stand the figures of calm young men. Depicted near the northwestern corner, it seemed to stop the riders for a moment, who the next moment would continue their journey on the reliefs of the northern side.

The procession goes from right to left. It is noteworthy that the remains of figures on the western metopes can speak of a general movement on them, on the contrary, from left to right. Thus, the actions on the frieze and metopes seemed to cancel each other out. This balance corresponded to the end side of the temple, along which the path of the solemn procession did not go. To avoid monotony in the depiction of galloping horsemen, the master interrupts the movement in two places. Thus, he shows on one of the slabs a dismounted young man, facing the opposite direction, with his foot on a stone (ill. 47). The sculptor, as it were, gives the viewer’s eye an opportunity to rest, and after a pause the movement begins again. The distribution of actions on the metopes and frieze of the western facade, as well as the features of the composition, convince us of the consistency of the work of the sculptors and architects of the Parthenon, of the deep unity of architecture and plasticity of this beautiful classical structure.

North side frieze. The frieze on the northern side of the temple is longer. It shows not only horsemen, but also chariots, priests with sacrificial animals, musicians, and young men with sacred gifts. The movement at the beginning is faster than on the western part and uneven. The horses gallop, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Riders sometimes get close to each other, and it seems that they are crowded (ill. 48). Sometimes they are placed more freely. One gets the impression of a pulsating, intense rhythm, as if one can hear the fractional clatter of horse hooves. Sometimes the procession is stopped by a figure appearing against the flow. And again the horses are galloping after her. The beauty of the composition of the northern frieze is enhanced by smooth, flexible contour lines and low, seemingly breathing relief forms.

In front of the horsemen, the flower of Athenian youth, representatives of the best families of the city 40, chariots are shown, steadily drawn by powerful, beautiful horses. Sometimes the harness is not visible because it was painted with paint that has not survived. In this part of the frieze there are many smooth rounded contours - wheels, the croup of horses, the curves of their bodies, the hands of charioteers. The mood is calm, movements are measured.

The movement of the chariots gradually slows down. An oncoming figure seems to stop them. From quickly galloping horsemen and the slow movement of chariots, the master moves on to the calm procession of elderly Athenians who carry olive branches in their hands. Their gestures are restrained. Some talk to each other, others turn back, as if looking at the procession following them.

In front of the elders, four young men carry hydrias - water vessels - on their shoulders (ill. 49). On the right, one bends down and picks up a jug from the ground. The figures are placed freely, dispersed. The sacrificial rams are led by priests talking to each other (ill. 50). One of them affectionately strokes the ram on the back. In front of them are shown musicians in long robes, with flutes and lyres, then strangers with gifts - baskets filled with fruits and bread. At the end of the northern frieze you can see priests with sacrificial bulls. One of the bulls lifted his muzzle and seemed to roar pitifully. The beautiful figures of the drivers express sadness - their heads are bowed, one is tightly wrapped in a cloak (ill. 51). The last, corner figure completes the frieze, as if closing the composition and stopping the movement.

Everything is brought into harmonious harmony in the picture of the festive Panathenaic procession. At first the figures were filled with tension. Closer to the eastern part of the frieze, the procession participants walk solemnly. The masters of the classics did not like the raggedness of action, lack of agreement, they preferred clarity and logical completeness. The procession on the frieze of the longitudinal side of the temple also corresponded to the direction of action on the northern metopes.

Southern frieze. The southern frieze suffered more severe damage, but on it you can also see participants in a calm and majestic procession. Riders ride three deep, but there is no crowding or commotion. The master shows young men in smart leather boots with cuffs, short armor, and sometimes in cloaks. They seem amazed at the solemn celebration; obviously, this is the first time they are participating in it. As on the northern side, chariots and drivers with sacrificial animals move here. Some bulls walk obediently, others, mooing plaintively, are restrained by the servants (ill. 52, 53). The group, which shows two priests walking behind a bull, is impeccable in the beauty of its composition and rhythm. One of the priests turned around as he walked and, bending slightly, looked back.

East frieze. Traffic on the northern and southern friezes is directed towards the eastern part of the temple. The eastern frieze depicts seated gods. Noble Athenians are coming towards them from right and left. The Olympians meet the procession in two groups. The left faces the characters of the southern frieze. Right - to those approaching from the north. The closer to the center, the less often the figures are shown.

The Athenians talk decorously with each other, as if all the time remembering the proximity of their patrons. Here are girls with bowls and jugs in their hands, stately women. Their figures are slender. The flowing folds of the cloaks are like the grooves of the Parthenon columns. Sublime and significant ideas embodied in the architectural forms of the temple are, as it were, repeated in its details, in the decor, in the simple and ordinary - in the beautiful folds of people’s clothes (ill. 54).

The gods seated on their thrones are significantly larger than the mortal Athenians. If the gods wanted to stand up, they would not fit on the frieze. In this they differ from ordinary people, who are otherwise similar to the wonderful Olympians. On the left sit Zeus on a throne with a backrest, Hera, who turned her face to him, Iris and Eros, Ares, Demeter, Dionysus and Hermes. On right side- Athena, Hephaestus, then Poseidon, Apollo, Peytho 41 and then Aphrodite. In the center of the frieze above the entrance to the temple are depicted the priest and priestess of the goddess Athena (ill. 55,56).

It is noteworthy that the placement of the gods on the eastern frieze is consistent, with some exceptions, with the placement of the gods on the eastern metopes, where they fought the giants. It is also no coincidence that the movement in the eastern metopes and in the eastern part of the frieze is directed towards the center from the corners. This gives the sculptural decoration of the temple unity and a deep connection with the architecture. The Parthenon frieze is the creation of a genius. There is reason to believe that Phidias took a direct part in its execution.

Pediments. The pediment compositions of the Parthenon are the pinnacle in the development of this type of Greek sculpture after the sculptures of the temples of Artemis on Corfu, Athena on the island of Aegina and Zeus in Olympia. The statues, attached with lead for strength, were at a great height and therefore had a slight tilt of the upper part forward, so that when viewed from below they were better visible (ill. 57). Over two and a half millennia they have suffered greatly, and what is now kept in museums is only the remains of beautiful sculptures. Most of them remained in ruins.

On many statues one can see traces of rain streams that poured through the cornice openings for centuries 42. But even in this state, these ancient sculptures make an indelible impression.

West pediment of the Parthenon. Athena and Poseidon argued, according to myth, for primacy in Attica. They were supposed to bring gifts to the city. Poseidon, striking the ground with his trident, carved out a source. Athena, thrusting a spear into the ground, created the olive, a tree that bears fruit - olives. The Greeks gave preference to the goddess, and she became the patroness of their city. This dispute was depicted in the center of the west pediment of the Parthenon (ill. 71).

To imagine how the figures on the pediment were located in ancient times, researchers had to do a lot of work. Surviving descriptions of ancient authors, random sketches of travelers - everything was taken into account. Before the explosion of the Parthenon, the western side (ill. 58) was in better preservation than the eastern, judging by the famous drawings of the artist Carrey, who accompanied it in the 17th century. French ambassador on a trip to Greece 43 (ill. 59, 60). Ancient authors also left descriptions of the Parthenon statues.

On the western pediment were located from left to right the following statues: Cephisus, Nymph, Kekrop, his three daughters and son, Nike, Hermes, Athena, Poseidon (part of this statue is in Athens, part of it in London), Iris, Amphitrite, three daughters and grandson Erechthea, Ilis (in Athens), Callirhoe. Apparently, the babies of Boread were also presented, as well as sculptures of the olive tree planted by Athena, the source of Poseidon, the horses and chariots on which the gods arrived 44 .

The deities of the rivers flowing in Athens - Ilis and Kephis, shown in the corners in the form of young men, indicate the scene of action. On the left is the god of the river Cephisus. The outline of his figure resembles the elastic bend of a wave. This impression is helped by the smoothly flowing folds of clothes flowing from his hands, like streams of water (ill. 61, 62).

The statue of the Ilisa River in the right corner is much worse preserved. The river god is also full of life and tension. However, if Kephis showed open and brightly impetuous movement, then Ilis is restrained and withdrawn. Different interpretation The images are not accidental and are caused by the location of the figures on the pediment. Kefis, with his dynamic impulse, seemed to point to the unfolding composition. Ilis, which completed it and was located near the cliff of the Akronol rock, stopped a person’s attention and returned him to the center of the pediment.

In front of Cephisus was Kekrop, the ancient Attic deity of the earth, the mythical founder of cities in Attica, which is why Attica is sometimes called Kekropia, and the Athenians - Kekrop. According to legend, he was the first king and under him there was a dispute between Athena and Poseidon. Usually depicted as a man with a snake's tail instead of legs, he sits on its rings, leaning on them with his hand. His daughter gently pressed herself against his shoulder (ill. 63, 64). His daughters were the goddesses of dew and saviors from drought 45, the closest companions of Athena - Aglaurus, Pandros, Herse 46. The most ancient Attic hero Erechtheus, son of the earth, pupil of Athena, the ancient deity of earthly fertility, whose cult later merged with the cult of Poseidon, is shown on the right side of the pediment, not far from Ilis. Here are the daughter of Erechtheus Creus with her son Ion, as well as Leucothea with the baby Polemon.

The statues of deities are full of life. Even the poorly preserved marble torso of Poseidon’s wife Amphitrite convinces of the former perfection of her sculptural image. The plasticity of the forms testifies to the hand of a great master. The movements of the goddess of the seas are confident, noble and leisurely (ill. 65). The goddess of the rainbow Iris, connecting heaven and earth, a mediator between the Olympians and people, quickly rushes forward towards a strong, gusty wind 47. She is wearing a short and light, as if wet, chiton, tightly adhered to the body and forming many small beautiful folds (ill. 66-68). The peculiarity of the classical composition, in which individual figures are dynamic and the overall action is balanced, is also manifested in the pediments of the Parthenon. Despite the strong contrast between the actions of various characters, the overall impression of the entire ensemble of the statue remains harmonious. Each figure seems to exist in space, lives independently, without touching the others, but still has a very strong effect on them.

Athena and Poseidon. The middle of the Parthenon pediments is not marked, as in earlier temples, by a single figure. The central statue in such compositions appeared in archaic buildings, with an odd number of columns at the ends. The tallest figure on the pediment then corresponded to the middle column. Gradually, the architects moved from an odd number of columns at the ends to an even number. But the sculptural compositions of the pediments of the temple of Athena on the island of Aegina, as well as Zeus in Olympia, still retained, according to ancient traditions, the main figure of the deity in the center. Only in the Parthenon the sculptural composition of the pediments fully corresponds to the architecture of the temple. Only fragments of the statues of the arguing gods Athena and Poseidon located in the center have survived, but they are also very expressive. Greek masters knew how to permeate all the elements of a work with a single and integral feeling. Even part of a broken statue therefore preserves its mood and idea. Thus, in a small fragment of the statue of Athena, the majesty of the goddess appears in a proud turn of her head, in a strong turn of her shoulders (ill. 69).

Poseidon's hand, striking with the trident, was raised. This can be understood even from that insignificant fragment of the statue, which time has not spared (ill. 70). The formidable strength of the Olympian, his power is embodied in the generalized and integral forms of the torso. Every muscle of Poseidon seems to be saturated with life. General ideal ideas about the power of the deity are conveyed here in the forms of the human figure. The Greek sculptor, who sought to show the perfection of God, thereby simultaneously affirmed the limitless possibilities of man with the harmony of his spiritual and physical development. In a visually clear, tangible image taken from life, not private and small, but integral and deep feelings and thoughts were expressed. The idea that excited humanity happily found a concrete form of expression in art at this time.

East pediment of the Parthenon. On the eastern pediment, mainly since the entrance to the Parthenon was from the east (ill. 72), a great event for the Hellenes is represented - the birth of Athena (ill. 73). This is a pan-Hellenic plot, more significant than the dispute between Athena and Poseidon 48 . In the center are depicted the gods on Olympus, in the corners there are no longer the Athenian rivers Cephisus and Ilis, but the sun god Helios and the goddess of the night Nyux in the waters of the Ocean. On the left, Helios rode out in a chariot; on the right, it was night—Nyux was hiding in the Ocean with her horse. With the birth of Athena, the sunny day began for the Hellenes and the night ended.

The central figures - Zeus on the throne, Athena flying out of his head, Hephaestus, the goddess Ilithyia helping at birth, Nike laying a wreath on the head of the born Athena - were not preserved due to later alterations of this part of the temple. The pediment sculptures showed how the world reacts to a great event. Iris 49 stormily rushes forward, reporting the news of the birth of wise Athena (ill. 74). She is greeted by the Mountains sitting in front of her - the daughters of Zeus, opening and closing the gates of heaven (ill. 75). Their heads have not been preserved, and it is impossible to judge from their faces how they perceive Iris’s message, but the plasticity of movement reveals their feelings and attitude to what they heard. The one located closer to Iris clasped her hands in joy and recoiled slightly, as if in amazement at this news. The other, sitting further, moved towards the messenger of the gods. It’s as if she hasn’t heard everything yet and wants to find out what Iris is saying.

By varying the degree of reaction of these characters sitting nearby, the master wants to emphasize that from the center of the pediment to its corners it is as far as from Olympus to the waters of the Ocean. Therefore, the young man sitting further from the Mountains, Cephalus 50, does not seem to hear the message of Iris (ill. 76). He turns his back to Olympus and looks at Helios leaving the Ocean. The harmony of forms in this statue is impeccable. In the interpretation of a strong, strong neck and compact volume of the head, in the modeling of muscles that well convey the movement of the body, there is no rigidity characteristic of early classical statues; The calm state of an active, strong person is expressed. The usual image of a youthful figure takes on a special sublimity. The ancient Greek master knows how to see and show a simple phenomenon of life as beautiful and significant, without resorting to spectacular poses and gestures in his compositions.

The statue of Cephalus captures attention with the complexity and at the same time clarity of the movement presented. Although the young man sits with his back to Olympus, the master managed to convey the desire to turn around in his seemingly calm body. The beginning of the slow movement is noticeable in the position of his left leg. The figure is plastic and three-dimensional; it rather lives independently in space rather than being connected to the flat background of the pediment. The statue of Cephalus, like other images of the Parthenon, is not as strongly subordinated to the plane of the pediment as the statues on earlier temples.

To the left is Helios riding out on a chariot. The quadriga would have cluttered the corner, and the sculptor limited himself to depicting two horse faces protruding from the waters of the Ocean. The plasticity of the marble sculptures, the beautiful lines of the proud bend of the horses’ necks, the majestic tilt of the horses’ heads, as in a poetic metaphor, embodies the feelings of contemplating the solemnly and smoothly ascending luminary 51 (ill. 77). The head of Helios and his horses are matched on the right by the half-figure of the goddess of the night Nyux and the head of her horse, plunging into the waters of the Ocean. The horse's muzzle is shown with its lip hanging over the lower border of the pediment. She seemed to be snoring from fatigue and hurried to the cool water. Goethe admired her, saying that the horse is depicted as it came from the hands of nature itself (ill. 78).

Moira statues. The statues of the goddesses of fate - Moira are located on the right side of the pediment near the torso of Nux 52. Despite the damage, they captivate people with their beauty. Parts of the statues preserve the feeling that once lived in the whole work, and are as expressive as excerpts from the majestic Greek epic or the tender lines of an ancient lyric poet (ill. 79, 80, 81). Moirai live in the complex organism of the pediment and are subordinate to its composition. Their connection with the triangular shape of the frame appears, in particular, in the fact that the figures are placed on benches that gradually rise towards the central part. The closer to the birthplace of Athena, the more mobile the sculptural masses of the statues, the more dynamic, restless the poses, and the more intense the forms. The excitement of the images increases from the calm figures in the extreme corners to the pathos of the central scene.

The consistent increase in emotionality is noticeable not in the facial expressions, because Moira’s heads have not been preserved, but in the plasticity of their expressive movements. Right Moira lay down on a low bed, covered with folds of her wide clothes. The embodiment of peace and relaxation, she rested her elbow on her friend’s knees and pressed her shoulder to her chest. The middle one, sitting higher, is restrained in its movements.

She crossed her legs and leaned forward slightly towards the girl reclining at her knees. The left Moira, towering above them, seemed to have heard about the birth of Athena a moment ago and responded to it, rushing with her upper torso towards Olympus. Her whole being is permeated with trembling excitement. From the deep serene peace of the right Moira to the restrained and measured movements of the middle one, then to the agitation and impetuosity of the left one, a dynamic composition of the group, saturated with a rich inner life, develops.

The artistic power of most classical monuments of Greece is not lost, even if the subject or the names of those depicted are unknown. It is no coincidence that other goddesses are sometimes seen in Moira statues. The theme of such works is the consciousness felt and conveyed by the ancient master of the significance of man, the limitlessness of his capabilities, and deep admiration for his beauty. The statues of Moira are not an illustration of how the ancient Greek imagined the goddesses of fate. The sculptor embodied in them his idea of ​​​​various human states - serene rest, calm activity, intense emotional impulse.

The statues of Moira are large and seem larger than human ones. They are majestic not in size, but in the solemnity of their poses and strict harmony. Everything small and ordinary is alien to their images. At the same time, their greatness is not abstractly ideal. It is deeply vital. Moiras are beautiful with purely human, feminine beauty. The smooth contours of their figures are perceived as extremely earthly. Clothes in other similar statues of classical times become, as it were, an echo of the human body. Delicate shapes are emphasized by folds of light chitons. These folds run like streams after a violent rain from picturesque beautiful hills, flowing around the heights of the chest, gathering near the waist, framing the roundness of the legs, and flowing out in light streams from under the knees. Everything is covered with a living network of folds, only tight knees, rounded shoulders and chest protrude above the moving flows, sometimes fractional, sometimes heavy and viscous.

The plastic reality of marble forms gives vitality to Moira’s images. In the statues of maidens huddled close to each other, the cold stone acquires the tenderness and warmth of the human body. In the statues of ancient goddesses, the beauty of a perfect man, which illuminated the Greek master, found its expression. Moira miraculously combines complexity and simplicity. The universal and the personal, the sublime and the intimate, the general and the particular form an inextricable unity here. It is difficult to name another work in the history of world art in which these eternally conflicting qualities would be more holistically united.

The sculptural decoration of the eastern side of the Parthenon was carefully thought out. Above the metopes, depicting the battle of the Olympians with the giants, rose a pediment with the birth of Athena. Located deeper behind the outer colonnade, the frieze put a person in a solemn mood, as if preparing him to contemplate the statue of Athena Parthenos. The marble sculptures of the Parthenon are sublime and optimistic. They instill deep faith in human capabilities, in the beauty and harmony of the world 53 . The unity of architectural forms and sculptural decorations of the Parthenon embodies the great ideas of a great era so completely and brightly that even after millennia, with traces of barbaric destruction, this work is able to radiate impulses of noble feelings experienced by its creators. Contemplation of the Parthenon gives a person great joy, elevates him and ennobles him.

Literature

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• Georgios Dontas. Acropolis and its museum.– Athens, “Clio”, 1996
• Bodo Harenberg. Chronicle of humanity.– M., “Big Encyclopedia”, 1996
• History of world art.– BMM JSC, M., 1998
• Art of the Ancient World. Encyclopedia.– M., “OLMA-PRESS”, 2001
• Pausanias . Description of Hellas, I-II, M., 1938-1940.
• "Pliny on Art", trans. B.V. Warneke, Odessa, 1900.
• Plutarch . Comparative biographies, vol. I-III, M., 1961 -1964.
• Blavatsky V.D. Greek sculpture, M.-L., 1939.
• Brunov N. I. Essays on the history of architecture, vol. II, Greece, M., 1935.
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• Farmakovsky B.V. Artistic ideal democratic Athens, Pg., 1918.

The Parthenon is a symbol of Western civilization and one of the most famous buildings in the world. The temple was built in the 5th century BC. The Parthenon towers over Athens from its magnificent position atop the sacred Acropolis hill. The temple was built in honor of the patroness of the city - the goddess Athena. It was originally known as the Great Temple, but later received the name Parthenon.

History of the Parthenon

The current Parthenon was not the first temple created here in ancient times. Traces of two earlier temples, slightly smaller in size, remain - one of them was built of stone, the second of marble. Soon after the Persians destroyed all the buildings on the Acropolis in 480 BC, Pericles ordered the construction of a large new temple, appointing the architect and sculptor Phidias to oversee the project. The design of the Parthenon is attributed to Callicrates and Ictinus. Construction began in 447 BC. and the temple was completed only nine years later. Until 432, Phidias continued to work on the magnificent sculptures that decorated the temple.


After the ancient period, the Parthenon was converted into a church, and during the Ottoman occupation of Athens it was used as an arsenal. It fell into ruins only in 1687, when the Venetians besieging the Ottomans attacked the Acropolis from Philopappou Hill. During the attack, ammunition stored in the Parthenon exploded, destroying the roof, interior, and fourteen columns.

Parthenon Temple

The Parthenon was created as a peripterus - a temple surrounded by columns in the Doric order. The temple, measuring 30.86 by 69.51 meters, contained two cella (inner chambers). The eastern cella housed a large statue of the goddess Athena. The western cella was used exclusively by priests and contained the treasury of the Delian League (an alliance of Greek city-states).


The Parthenon was decorated with numerous sculptures and reliefs. There were approximately fifty sculptures on the pediments alone. Most of the surviving sculptures are on display at the British Museum in London, while some can be seen at the nearby Acropolis Museum. There were two friezes: an inner frieze in cellae and an outer frieze, which consisted of triglyphs (vertical stripes) and metopes (rectangular figures) with supporting sculptures. The internal frieze was designed by Phidias and depicted the Panathenaia, a festival in honor of the goddess Athena. Many metopes and parts of the internal frieze can also be found in the British Museum.


To achieve visual perfection, the creators of the Parthenon used optical tricks, defying the laws of perspective. The columns are slightly inclined inward and have a curved shape. As a result, horizontal and vertical lines the structures appear completely straight to the naked eye.
Most people think that ancient temples always had natural marble colors. But buildings and statues in the Ancient period were often very colorful. The Parthenon was no exception: the sculptures on the friezes, pediment and roof were painted in bright blues, reds and golds.

Statue of Athena in the Parthenon

The main purpose of the temple was to house the twelve-meter statue of Athena Parthenos, created by Phidias. The Athena statue is one of the most legendary Greek statues. It was made of gold and ivory around a wooden frame. Like all other Parthenon sculptures, the statue was painted in bright colors - predominantly blue and red. Athena was depicted as the goddess of war. There is a helmet on her head, left hand leaned on the shield, and in right hand she was holding a statue of winged Nike. Unfortunately, the original statue is lost, but a modern full-scale replica of the Athena Parthenos is located in Nashville (USA).

Parthenon

(Greek Παρθενών; English Parthenon)

Opening hours: from 8.30 to 19.00 every day except Monday.

The Parthenon is a temple dedicated to Athena Parthenos, the patroness of Athens, and is rightfully considered one of the greatest examples of ancient architecture, a masterpiece of world art and plastic arts. The temple was founded on the initiative of Pericles, the famous Athenian commander and reformer. Its construction proceeded quite quickly - the temple was built from 447 to 438 BC (under the leadership of the architects Ictinus and Kallicrates), and its sculptural design and decoration (under the leadership of Phidias) was completed in 432 BC.

The first known temple to Athena in modern times, the existence of which is recognized by most scientists in the world, was built on the Acropolis, probably under Pisistratus. It was called the same as later the naos of the modern Parthenon - Hekatompedon, but during the campaign of Xerxes it, like other buildings on the Acropolis, was destroyed. There is a version about the connection between the ancient meaning of the word “hekatompedon” and the custom of child sacrifices (Greek “hekaton” - “hundred”, tome - “dissection”, “paidos” - “child”). Later, with the abolition of this cruel custom (babies were laid in the foundation of the building for the sake of its strength), the concept of “one hundred child sacrifices” was transferred to the original measure of the length of the naos (sanctuary) of the temple.

During the reign of Pericles, Athens achieved its greatest glory. After the end of the Greco-Persian wars, already on the prepared site, it was decided to build a new, more majestic and luxurious temple. The victorious attitude was also reflected in wasteful urban planning plans, which were financed mainly by the tribute levied by Athens on its allies. The best artists of that time were involved in the construction and huge amounts of money were spent. The builders of the Parthenon were the ancient Greek architects Ictinus and Callicrates. Then there was a period of the highest rise of ancient culture, and the temple of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis hill, to this day, proudly reminds the whole world of this.

The Parthenon is located at the highest point of the Acropolis of Athens. Therefore, the beautiful temple of the goddess Athena is visible not only from all corners of the city, but also from the sea, from the islands of Salamis and Aegina. Main facade The temple is located at an angle to the Propylaea (entrance gate), which is located in the western part of the temple mount. Entirely permeated with light, the temple seems airy and light. There are no bright designs on the white columns, as is found in Egyptian temples.

The Parthenon is a Doric peripterus, with elements of the Ionic order. It is located on a stylobate (69.5 m long and 30.9 m wide) - three marble steps, the total height of which is about 1.5 meters, the roof was covered with a tiled roof. On the side of the main (western) façade, more frequent steps were cut, intended for people.

The building itself (cella) has a length of 29.9 m (width 19.2 m), which was 100 Greek feet, and is bordered along the entire perimeter by an external colonnade (peristele). There are only 46 of these columns, 8 from the end facades and 17 from the side facades. All columns are channeled, that is, decorated with longitudinal grooves. The height of the corner columns together with the capitals is 10.43 m (the same as in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia).

The lower diameter of the corner columns - embat, when proportioning the temple, was taken as the first module (1.975 m). For the vertical dimensions, the builders used the second module - the height of the abacus of the capital (0.3468 m). The amazing harmony of the building, which has been preserved to this day, despite the fact that only ruins remain of the great structure, is based, first of all, on the polyphony of relationships of quantities; the sizes of similar parts change depending on their place in the overall composition.

The columns of the Parthenon do not look like a continuous undivided mass, but are perceived as a row in which individual trunks are not lost. Hence the correlation of the colonnade with the rhythm of the triglyphs and metopes of the frieze, as well as with the rhythm of the figures of the Ionic frieze, which was located in the upper part of the walls of the naos, and on the internal colonnade of the porticoes.

The Parthenon was not only a temple, but also something of an art gallery or museum, and it provided an excellent backdrop for many works of plastic art. The sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was carried out under the leadership of the great master Phidias, and with his direct participation. This work is divided into four parts: the metopes of the outer (Doric) frieze, the continuous Ionic (inner) frieze, the sculptures in the tympanums of the pediments and the famous statue of Athena Parthenos.

The pediment and cornices of the building were decorated with sculptures. The pediments were decorated with the gods of Greece: the thunderer Zeus, the mighty ruler of the seas Poseidon, the wise warrior Athena, the winged Nike. For example, the western pediment represents the dispute between Athena and Poseidon for the possession of Attica. The judges decided to give victory to the god whose gift would be more valuable to the city. Poseidon struck with his trident and a salty spring gushed out of the rock of the Acropolis. Athena struck with her spear and an olive tree grew on the Acropolis. This gift seemed more useful to the Athenians. Thus, Athena emerged victorious in the dispute, and the olive tree became the symbol of the city.

Along the perimeter of the outer walls of the cella, at a height of 12 meters, the famous Parthenon frieze stretched like a ribbon, the details of which, however, were almost indistinguishable from below. This frieze is considered one of the peaks classical art. Of more than 500 figures of boys, girls, elders, on foot and on horseback, not one repeated the other; the movements of people and animals were conveyed with amazing dynamism. The figures are not flat, they have the volume and shape of the human body.

The metopes were part of the traditional, for the Doric order, triglyph-metope frieze, which encircled the outer colonnade of the temple. In total, there were 92 metopes on the Parthenon, containing various high reliefs. They were connected thematically, along the sides of the building. In the east the battle of the centaurs with the Lapiths was depicted, in the south - the battles of the Greeks with the Amazons (amazonomachy), in the west - probably scenes from the Trojan War, in the north - battles of gods and giants (gigantomachy). To this day, only 64 metopes have survived: 42 in Athens and 15 in the British Museum.

In general, the architectural appearance of the Parthenon takes its origins from wooden architecture: built of stone, the temple retained, in its outline, the lightness and grace of a wooden building. However, the external simplicity of these outlines is deceptive: the architect Iktin was a great master of perspective. He very accurately calculated how to create the proportions of the structure in order to make them pleasing to the eye of a person looking at the temple from bottom to top.

The Greeks built temples from limestone, the surface of which was covered with plaster and then painted. But the Parthenon is built of marble. During construction on the Acropolis, near Athens, on Mount Pentelikon, deposits of snow-white Pentelic marble sparkling in the sun were discovered. During production, it is white in color, but when exposed to the sun's rays it turns yellow. The northern side of the building is exposed to less radiation - and therefore, the stone there has a grayish-ashy tint, while the southern blocks have a golden-yellowish color. Using ropes and wooden sleds, marble blocks were transported to the construction site.

The masonry was carried out without any mortar or cement, that is, it was dry. The blocks were regular squares, they were carefully ground along the edges, adjusted to size to each other, and fastened with iron staples - pyrons. The column trunks were made from separate drums and connected with wooden pins. Only the outer edges of the stones were carefully trimmed, the inner surfaces were left untreated, “to be stolen.” The final finishing, including the flutes on the columns, was done after the stones were in place.

The roof was made of stone, rafter construction, reproducing earlier wooden floors, and covered with double-shaped marble tiles. The chiaroscuro on the deeply embedded flutes of the columns and in the intercolumns (between the columns) emphasized the spatiality of the building’s composition and its connection with the surrounding landscape.

The central hall of the temple was illuminated only by the light falling through the doorway and numerous lamps. In this twilight, in the center of the temple stood the statue of Athena Parthenos, which was made by Phidias himself. It was upright and about 11 m high, made in the chrysoelephantine technique (made of gold and ivory, on a wooden base), and the eyes were inlaid precious stones. According to ancient custom, the statue of a deity placed inside the temple should be facing east, towards the rising sun, which is why the entrance to the Parthenon was on the east side.

The ancient Greeks considered the Parthenon to be the home of the deity and believed that the goddess Athena descended from Olympus from time to time to be embodied in her statue. Every year, on the festival of Athena, a peplos (veil) woven by the Athenians was placed on the statue of the goddess. On it were woven pictures of the exploits of the goddess, especially her victories over the giants.

Phidias depicted Athena in long, heavy robes, with her left hand resting on a shield, under which the serpent Erichthonius was coiled. The shield that Athena held depicted scenes of the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons, and the battle of the gods with the giants. Among the characters in the first scene, Phidias depicted himself as a bald old man swinging a stone. Such courage was considered sacrilege. Added to this were accusations of abuses that Phidias allegedly committed with the gold and other jewelry he received to create a statue of Athena. As a result, in 431 BC, the great sculptor was imprisoned. According to some sources, Phidias died in captivity, according to others, he was sent into exile.

Plates of pure gold (1.5 mm thick), depicting the robe of the statue of the goddess Athena, were periodically removed and weighed - they formed part of the state treasury. According to Pericles, gold could be borrowed from the goddess if necessary, for example, to wage war, and then returned. Any citizen could donate his goods or weapons to the temple of Athena. Alexander the Great, after defeating the Persians on the Granicus River in 334 BC, sent 300 shields captured from the enemy to Athens. The temple was also used to store gifts to the goddess. Gold and silver caskets, figurines, weapons, and vessels were located in all rooms of the Parthenon - there were inventories for each room.

The statue of Athena is a great work antique sculpture, having existed for more than 900 years, perished in the storms of time, and it can only be judged by several unsuccessful copies. Today, the site where the statue of Athena stood is marked by several rectangular stones.

The Parthenon was thought out in the smallest detail, completely invisible to an outside observer, and aimed at visually lightening the load on the load-bearing elements, as well as correcting some errors in human vision. Architectural historians separately highlight the concept of curvature of the Parthenon - a special curvature that introduced optical corrections. Although the temple seems ideally rectilinear, in fact, there is almost not a single strictly straight line in its contours: the columns are not placed vertically, but slightly inclined into the building; the width of the metopes increases towards the center and decreases towards the corners of the building; the corner columns are somewhat thicker in diameter than the others, since otherwise they would appear thinner, and in cross section they are not round; the entablature slopes outward and the pediments inward. To compensate for the future reductions, the Greeks increased the size of the upper parts of the building and reduced those that are closer. It is also known that a horizontal line of considerable length in the middle appears concave. In the Parthenon, the lines of the stylobate and steps are made not straight, but slightly convex, which compensates for visual distortion.

The emphasized contours and ornament were also intended to enhance the readability of relief images at high altitudes. Lightness and flexibility distinguish the architecture of the Parthenon from its predecessors: the temples at Paestum, Selinunte, or the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The sizes of individual parts were determined “by eye,” varying them in such a way that, when viewed from below, they created a feeling of regularity and identical relationships. This principle is called the “law of angles” (meaning the angle of view of the observer). Our eye mentally continues the axes of the columns upward and connects them at one point, located somewhere high in the sky, above the temple. A person, under the shadow of the colonnade, in the openings of neighboring columns, as in a picture frame, sees landscapes arranged by architecture. From the outside, from all points of view, the Parthenon looks like a statue on a pedestal. When assessing the Parthenon, from an average distance (about 35 m), the temple looks harmonious and integral; up close it impresses with its monumentality and seems even larger than it actually is. The position of the temple building relative to the Acropolis hill is also important: it is moved to the southeastern edge of the rock, and therefore visitors see it as distant; in fact, the large Parthenon does not overwhelm with its size and “grows” as a person approaches it.

The popular belief that Greek temples were always white is actually wrong. In ancient times, the Parthenon was very colorful, and according to modern tastes, it was even almost clumsily painted. The tenia and undersurface of the echinus were red. The lower surface of the cornice is red and blue. The red background emphasized the whiteness, the narrow vertical projections that separated one frieze slab from the other stood out clearly in blue, and the gilding shone brightly. Painting was done with wax paints, which, under the influence of hot sunlight, impregnated the marble. This technique ensured an organic combination of the natural texture of marble and color; the stone was painted, but remained slightly translucent and “breathed.”

The greatest temple of Ancient Greece, the Parthenon, went through all the stages of its history with it. For some time, the Parthenon stood untouched, in all its splendor. With the decline of Greece began the decline of the temple.

In 267 BC, Athens was invaded by the barbarian tribe of the Heruli, who sacked Athens and started a fire in the Parthenon. As a result of the fire, the roof of the temple was destroyed, as well as almost all the internal fittings and ceilings. In the Hellenistic era (about 298 BC), the Athenian tyrant Lacharus removed the gold plates from the statue of Athena. After 429, the statue of Athena Parthenos disappeared from the temple. According to one version, the statue was taken to Constantinople and installed in front of the Senate building, and later it was destroyed by fire.

Due to the strengthening of the cult of the Mother of God, under Emperor Justinian I (527-565), the Parthenon was turned into the Church of the Holy Virgin Mary (“Parthenis Maria”). In general, ancient temples easily turned into Christian ones. The transition from a pagan temple to a church affected the architecture of the Parthenon. In ancient times, the entrance to the Parthenon was located in the eastern part under the pediment, the sculptures of which depicted the birth of Athena. However, it is in the eastern part of the Christian temple that the altar should be located. As a result, the temple was remodeled and the internal columns and some walls of the cella were removed, which is why the central slab of the frieze was dismantled. The sacred eastern part of the Christian temple could not be decorated with the birth scene of the goddess Athena. These bas-reliefs were removed from the pediment. The colonnades were filled with stones. Most of the sculptures of the ancient Parthenon were lost: those that could be adapted for Christian worship were left, but most of them were destroyed.

In 662, the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Atheniotissa (Our Lady of the Most Holy Athens) was solemnly transferred to the church. In 1458, after a two-year siege, the last Duke of Athens surrendered the Acropolis to the Turkish conquerors. In 1460, by order of Sultan Mohammed II, the Parthenon was turned into a mosque, the altar and iconostasis were destroyed, the paintings were whitewashed, and a high minaret was erected above the southwestern corner of the temple, the remains of which were demolished only after the Greek Revolution. The new ruler of Athens placed his harem in the Erechtheion. At the beginning of Turkish rule, Athens and the Acropolis disappeared from the routes of Western European travelers: a serious obstacle was the periodically renewed hostilities between the Venetians and the Ottomans in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Turks had no desire to protect the Parthenon from destruction, but they also did not have the goal of completely distorting or destroying the temple. Since it is impossible to accurately determine the time of overwriting the Parthenon metopes, the Turks could continue this process. However, overall, they carried out less destruction of the building than the Christians did a thousand years before Ottoman rule, who transformed the magnificent ancient temple into a Christian cathedral.

Beginning in 1660, there was a period of peace between the Venetians and the Ottomans, and travelers began to visit Athens again. Not only travel notes, but also studies of the Greek ancient heritage became widespread. But this peace turned out to be short-lived. A new Turkish-Venetian war began. Finally, in 1687, during the siege of Athens by the Venetians led by Francesco Morosini, a gunpowder warehouse was built in the temple. The cannonball that flew in through the roof on September 26 caused a huge explosion, and the Parthenon became ruins forever. After the explosion of the Parthenon, its further destruction no longer seemed reprehensible. Removing surviving fragments of sculptures and reliefs was considered not robbery, but salvation, because previously the Turks simply smashed sculptures and burned them into lime for construction. When a few days later the Turks surrendered and the Venetians entered the territory of the Acropolis, they decided to take to Venice, as trophies, the figure of Poseidon and the horses of his quadriga - the remains of the composition “The dispute between Athena and Poseidon” on the western pediment. When they began to remove them, the sculptures, which were barely holding on after the explosion, fell and broke.

A few months after the victory, the Venetians gave up power over Athens: they lacked the strength to further defend the city, and the plague made Athens a completely unattractive target for invaders. The Turks again established a garrison on the Acropolis, albeit on a smaller scale, among the ruins of the Parthenon, and erected a new small mosque. During the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Parthenon, having lost its protection, was increasingly destroyed.

The Parthenon's misfortunes ended only at the beginning of the 19th century, when the famous robber of ancient monuments, Lord Elgin, took to England 12 figures from the pediments, 56 slabs with reliefs from the Parthenon frieze, and a number of other fragments of the monument, and sold them to the British Museum, where they, are still the most valuable exhibits. Today, sculptures from the Parthenon are found in many museums around the world. In particular, the British Museum contains sculptures of Helios and Selene - corner fragments of the pediment “The Birth of Athena”. In recent decades, there has been a tendency towards the return of lost relics to the Parthenon. An important issue for the Greek government at the present stage is also the return of the Elgin marbles.

The idea of ​​recreating the Parthenon was brought to life in the USA. In the city of Nashville (Tennessee), architects W. Dinzmoor and R. Garth, in 1897, built a full-scale replica of the Parthenon, restored according to the latest scientific data of that era. Restoration of the temple began in the 19th century. In 1926-1929 the northern colonnade was restored. Following this, an attempt was made to restore the pediment sculptures, the originals of which were partly lost and partly ended up in foreign museums.

But despite constant restoration work, even today, the Parthenon continues to slowly but surely collapse. In recent years, the poisonous smog and suffocating stench of modern Athens, as well as the marks left here by hordes of tourists, have caused significant damage to the Parthenon marble.

In the eyes of contemporaries, the Parthenon was the embodiment of the glory and power of Athens. Today the Parthenon is rightfully considered one of the greatest examples of ancient architecture, a masterpiece of world art and sculpture. This is the most perfect creation of ancient architecture and even in ruins is an amazing, exciting monument...

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