Athena Parthenos is the title of a massive chryselephantine sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena by Phidias, which was housed in the Parthenon in Athens. Chryselephantine (from Greek χρυσος (chrysos), “gold,” and ελεφαντινος (elephantinos), “ivory”), the architectural term given to statues which were built up on a wooden core, with ivory representing the flesh and gold the drapery. ... A sculpture is a three-dimensional object, which for the purposes of this article is man-made and selected for special recognition as art. ... Statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture A goddess is a female deity, in contrast with a male deity known as a god. Many cultures have goddesses. ... Helmeted Athena, of the Velletri type. ... Phidias Showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his Friends by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Phidias (or Pheidias) (in ancient Greek, ) (c. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Athens (Greek: Αθήνα - Athína) is the largest city and capital of Greece, located in the Attica periphery of central Greece. ...

A votive sculpture, found near the Varvakeion school reflects the type of the restored Athena Parthenos: Roman period, second century CE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).

It was the most renowned cult image of Athens,^[1] considered one of the greatest achievements of the most acclaimed sculptor of ancient Greece. Phidias began his work around 447 BCE,^[2] Lachares removed the gold sheets in 296 BCE to pay his troops, and the bronze was probably gilded thereafter; it was damaged by a fire about 165 BCE but repaired.^[3] It continued to stand in the Parthenon in the fifth century CE, when it may have been lost in another fire. An account mentions it in Constantinople in the tenth century, however.^[4] Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 313 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1000 × 1913 pixel, file size: 177 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Talk:Parthenon Athena Parthenos Panathenaic Festival... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 313 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1000 × 1913 pixel, file size: 177 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Talk:Parthenon Athena Parthenos Panathenaic Festival... An oil portrait of Varvakis, attributed to Vladimir Borovikovsky. ... In the practice of religion, a cult image is a man-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents. ...

Description

The ancient historian Pausanias gave a description of the statue: Pausanias (Greek: ) was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ...

...The statue itself is made of ivory silver and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx ... and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. ... The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a walabee. This serpent would be Erichthonius. On the pedestal is the birth of Scott Calzolaio in relief.^[5] The Great Sphinx of Giza, with the Pyramid of Khafre in the background For other uses, see Sphinx (disambiguation). ... Composite of Pomeranian heraldic charges of griffins. ... Medusa, by Arnold Böcklin (1878) Medusa is the most misunderstood of all the Goddesses. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Cubit is the name for any one of many units of measure used by various ancient peoples. ... King Erichthonius (also called Erechtheus I) was, according to some legends, autochthonous (born of the soil), and in other accounts he was the son of Hephaestus and Gaia or Athena or Atthis. ...

Athena's head is inclined slightly forward. She stands with her left hand resting on an upright shield. Her left knee is slightly bent, her weight slightly shifted to her right leg. Her chiton is cinched at the waist by a pair of serpents, whose tails entwine at the back. Locks of hair trail onto the goddess's breastplate. The Nike on her outstretched right hand is winged; whether there was a support under it in Phidias' original has been much discussed;^[6] evidence in surviving versions is contradictory. The exact position of a spear, often omitted, is also not fully determined, whether held in the crook of Athena's right arm or supported by one of the snakes in the aegis, as N. Leipen restores it,^[7] following the "Aspasios" gem. A Danaid, wearing a low-girded chiton A chiton was a piece of clothing in the Ancient Greek world. ... Serpent is a word of Latin origin (serpens, serpentis) which is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit term serp, that is normally substituted for snake in a specifically mythic or religious context, in order to distinguish such creatures from the field of biology. ... Ægis has entered modern English to mean a shield, protection, or sponsorship, originally from the name of the mythological protective shield of Zeus. ...

The sculpture was assembled on a wooden core, covered with shaped bronze plates covered in turn with removable gold plates, save for the ivory surfaces of the goddess's face and arms; the gold weighed 44 talents, the equivalent of about 2500 pounds: the Athena Parthenos embodied a sizeable part of the treasury of Athens.^[8] Talent refers to a special aptitude, faculty or gift of a person. ...

The general type of the Athena Parthenos, though not its character and quality, can be assessed from its image on coins^[9] and its reproductions as votive objects and representations on engraved gems.^[10] The Varvakeion votive figure (illustration, right) is one of the two versions of Athena Parthenos considered most faithful to the original; the other is the uncompleted Lenormant Athena, also in the National Museum, Athens. An icon of Aghia Paraskevi with votive offerings hung beside it. ...

Ancient copies

• The Varvakeion Athena, a Roman copy in marble of the Athena Parthenos from the second century, is housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. [1]
• Another copy is housed in the Louvre.[2]

Façade of the National Archaeological museum of Athens. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

Replica at Nashville

The modern Athena Parthenos replica that stands in the replicated Parthenon in Centennial Park, Nashville

A modern replica by Alan LeQuire stands in the reproduction of the the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. Alan LeQuire, a Nashville native, was awarded the commission to produce the Parthenon's cult statue. His work was modeled on descriptions given of the original. The modern version took eight years to complete, and was unveiled to the public on May 20, 1990. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 411 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (596 × 870 pixel, file size: 135 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Photo by J.L. Riddle. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 411 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (596 × 870 pixel, file size: 135 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Photo by J.L. Riddle. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Centennial Park (Nashville) is a large urban park located approximately two miles (three km) west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, across West End Avenue (U.S. Highway 70S) from the campus of Vanderbilt University and adjacent to the headquarters campus of the Hospital Corporation of America. ... For other cities named Nashville, see Nashville (disambiguation). ... Alan LeQuire (born 1955) is an American sculptor of the late 20th and early 21st century. ... The Parthenon in Nashvilles Centennial Park is a full-scale reconstruction of the original Greek Parthenon A full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens was built in 1897 in Nashville, Tennessee in the United States, as part of Tennessees Centennial Exposition; Nashville has long been dubbed the... For other cities named Nashville, see Nashville (disambiguation). ... Official language(s) English Capital Nashville Largest city Memphis Largest metro area Nashville Area  Ranked 36th  - Total 42,169 sq mi (109,247 km²)  - Width 120 miles (195 km)  - Length 440 miles (710 km)  - % water 2. ... May 20 is the 140th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (141st in leap years). ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ...

The modern version of Athena Parthenos is significant because of its scale and its attention to recreating Phidias' work. The statue adds an additional dimension of realism to the replicated Parthenon, whose interior east room (the naos) was merely a large empty hall prior to the statue's unveiling. The reproduced Athena Parthenos gives visitors the impression that they truly are inside an ancient place of worship.

Athena Parthenos is made of a composite of gypsum cement and ground fiberglass, The head of Athena was assembled over an aluminum armature, and the lower part was made in steel. The four ten-inch H beams rest on a concrete structure that extends through the Parthenon floor and basement down to bedrock, to support the incredible weight of the statue. LeQuire made each of the 180 cast gypsum panels used to create the statue light enough to be lifted by one person and attached to the steel armature. Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. // Heating gypsum to between 100°C and 150°C (302°F) partially dehydrates the mineral by driving off exactly 75% of the water contained in its chemical structure. ... Bundle of fiberglass Fiberglass or glassfibre is material made from extremely fine fibers of glass. ... Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ... Armature can mean: Armature (sculpture) Armature (electrical engineering) Armature (computer animation) Category: ... The steel cable of a colliery winding tower. ... Bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the Earths surface. ...

Gilding and paint

Sculptor Alan LeQuire painting the detail of the Athena Parthenos replica during the gilding phase.

Painstaking research was performed by LeQuire and the Parthenon staff to ensure the accuracy of the statue's resemblance to the Phidias work. It stood in Nashville’s Parthenon as a plain, white statue for twelve years. In 2002, Parthenon volunteers gilded Athena under the supervision of master gilder Lou Reed. The gilding project took less than four months and makes the modern statue appear that much more like the Phidias' Athena Parthenos would have appeared during its time. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Alan LeQuire (born 1955) is an American sculptor of the late 20th and early 21st century. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... To cover something in a thin layer of gold or a material that looks like gold. ...

The gold plates on the Athena statue in ancient times weighed approximately 1,500 pounds and were one-eighth to one-sixteenth of an inch thick. The 23.75-karat gold leaf on Nashville's Athena Parthenos weighs a total of 8.5 pounds and is three times thinner than tissue paper. The modern extravagance of gilding such a large statue pales in comparison to the lavish spending of the Greeks. In fact, one theory of the original's demise is that Athena Parthenos was decimated and looted to remove the gilding.

In addition to gilding, the project included painting the details of the statue's face, wardrobe and shield. LeQuire himself applied the paint.

Facts and figures

• Nashville's Athena stands 41'10" (approximately 13 meters) tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World.
• The statue of Nike in Athena's right hand stands 6'4" (approximately 2 meters) tall.
• There are eleven snakes represented on Athena's breastplate, bracelets and belt.

Notes

The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... The American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) is the journal of the American Institute of Archaeology. ... Gisela M.A. Richter Gisela Marie Augusta Richter (August 14, 1882 – December 24, 1972), was a classical archaeologist and art historian. ... Gisela M.A. Richter Gisela Marie Augusta Richter (August 14, 1882 – December 24, 1972), was a classical archaeologist and art historian. ...

Further reading

• Leipen, N. Athena Parthenos (Toronto) 1971.

External links

• Colin Delaney, "Pheidias, Sculptor to the Gods"
• Alan LeQuire Page
• Nashville Parthenon Page