The ParthenonGreek

Architecture

The Parthenon is one temple that is very famous and beautiful. Built between 447 and 438 BC, it was the first building to be constructed on the widely known Acropolis.

Sacrificial Altars

All the gods demanded they be satisfied by sacrifice, and so sacrifices were made at the temples. For this there was a great altar outside the east porch of every temple. The Eastern side of every temple was the front of the building.

The Parthenon is recognisably Greek because of the huge columns which surround its walls and separate sections inside the temple. These three columns represent the three styles of Greek architecture.

Doric, Ionic and Corinthian Columns

The western side of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens.

Notice the Doric columns with their wider ridges and less ornate plinths. The structure of the Parthenon was quite simple in style and design.

The Acropolis of Athens is the best known in the world . Acropolis means high city, or The "Sacred Rock”. The Acropolis is a flat-topped rock which rises 150 m above sea level in the city of Athens.

Site plan of the Acropolis at Athens showing the major archaeological remains

The Parthenon metopes that were visible on the exterior of the temple were made in deep relief and surrounded the temple on all sides. Most Greek temples had few decorated metopes, but in the Parthenon all ninety-two metopes were decorated on all sides with scenes from Greek mythology.

Metopes and Sculpture

Phidias Showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his Friends, 1868 painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Archeologists now have proof that the metopes and friezes adorning the Parthenon were illuminated with both paint and metal so they would stand out against the buildings façade.

Detail of the West metopes, illustrating the current condition of the temple in detail after 2,500 years of war, pollution, erratic conservation, pillage and vandalism.

the Propylaea

the Erechtheum

The Cost of the Parthenon by R.S. Stanier

“We see expenditure on quarrying at Pentelikos , transport of stone from Pentelikos (which probably means hauling stone up the Akropolis), payment for workmen and labourers, salaries, something about pillars, something made of wood, doors, purchases of ivory, pay for goldsmiths and silversmiths, marble for the pediments, payment for those who make the trolleys for transporting the marble and for those who put the marble on the trolleys and those who carve the marble.”