This reverence for Pandora is a likely reason Phidias felt comfortable with depicting her birth on the base of the Athena Parthenos statue in the Parthenon. This project was funded by the Athenian government. Since the original no longer exists I will be relying on a interpretation created by Alan LeQuire for the Nashville Parthenon. The original would have been made with an armature overlaid with chryselephantine, gold and ivory. Ivory was used for the body of Athena and the figure Nike, resting in Athena’s right hand, with gold being used in ornamentations such as the garment Athena is wearing, her sandals, and helmet. The exterior of the shield (Fig. 4b) depicts the battle of the Athenians and Amazons. On the inside of the shield (Fig. …show more content…
All these depictions match the decoration in the metopes of the Parthenon which also depicted battle scenes . The overall theme of the Parthenon is the Athenians ability to conquer and control the “uncivilized”. While the base of the Athena Parthenos, which is at eye level for those visiting, is the birth of Pandora (figures 4d). One reason for this has to do with the similarities Pandora and Athena share and by extension Athens. While most city-states in Greece viewed Pandora as evil, Athens still revered her as she once was earth-goddess with similarities to their own patron goddess Athena. Both were born fully grown, the gods attended the creation of Pandora, just as they were present for the birth of Athena. Pandora is made of earth and water resulting in clay, terracotta presumably, a mixture associated with the craftsmen of Athens. An attribute of Athena was protector of potters, and in short anything created from terracotta such as Pandora. In her role as Athena Ergane, she was the goddess of work. Pandora was believed to have help humankind learn many crafts and if we follow Hesiod’s writings Pandora is the reason men have work. There are also links in the cults of Athena and
In ancient times, shields spoke yields of their owner and their beliefs. Sometimes, they even showed their owner’s eminent fate. In the Iliad and the Aeneid, the shields of heroes—Achilles and Aeneas—are described both similarly and differently. There are many similarities in their shields: both having received the shields from their goddess mothers. Both shields were made by Hephaestus/Vulcan. The shields were also described in depth, making the shields seem comparable. However, they differed in the images on the shields. In the end, the Iliad’s description of the shield was the more effective symbol of the two stories.
There is an ongoing debate on whether the Parthenon Marbles, now located in London, England, should be returned to their original homeland of Athens, Greece. The marbles were removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin from 1801-1812 and transported to England. They were sold to the British government in 1816 and put in the British Museum where they have been for the last 200 years. I believe that the marbles should now be returned to Greece, not only because of the method and circumstances surrounding their removal, but because they are original pieces of the oldest and most symbolic structure in Greek history that epitomizes the pinnacle of Ancient Classical Greece and the beginning of western democracy through artistic ingenuity.
Hesiod tells the story of how the curse of Pandora came to be in his writing. In his two works Hesiod, Works and Days and Hesiod, Theogony that contain the story of Pandora are both writing in a slightly different perspective. However, at the end both have the same meaning to them. That Zeus created women as a punishment for men. In developing this meaning in both poems Hesiod uses a few different things in each story as oppose to telling the same story for both. Hesiod, Works and Days and Hesiod Theogony have the same meaning and most of the same plot but different in some aspects.
During Classical Greece the Parthenon was built as temple to the Goddess Athena, as symbol of the state’s wealth and superiority, along with serving as the treasury. The architecture uses a bit of both Doric and Ionic orders. On the outside rim of the temple Doric columns, triglyphs and metopes are used but on the inside of the temple Ionic friezes were used. Both the metopes and friezes were completely filled with painted sculptures depicting the gods, Athenians, and conquered enemies. The themes center on gods or Athenians being victorious over chorus. One of the main stories shown in the Parthenon is the story of the Goddess of Wisdom, Athena being chosen as the patron Goddess of Athens over the Sea God, Poseidon. Poseidon was a war god who offered the people a beautiful but useless saltwater spring while Athena offered an olive tree. The people of Athens choose the olive tree symbolizing their culture valuing peace and prosperity over the chorus of war. The Parthenon also shows the Ancient Greeks value in mathematics and idealized perfection. The columns were carved to bulge slightly as well as tilting inwards, which creates the illusion that the columns were both straighter and taller than they were. Other illusions they used to give the appearance of perfection included arching in the middle just enough to ensure what would not pull and stop the eye from seeing the ends of the steps rise. Ancient Greeks valued their gods, perfection, mathematics, wealth and
The Parthenon was built to honor the goddess of wisdom, Athena. When structures are built using straight lines they tend to look slightly distorted due to the science of optics. The architects Iktos and Kallikretes were skilled architects of their time and they used illusory tactics to create an ideal aesthetic for The Parthenon. The architects compensated for these visual illusions by counteracting them in their design. The end result is a structure that is not composed of straight lines, but when viewed by the human eye, looks perfectly straight. Plato would have mentioned one of his famous dictums, ?That which changes least is most real.? He would have viewed Iktos and Kallikretes designs as less real than other designs that do not u...
This is a copy of the sculpture of Athena Parthenos, dressed in battle attire, that was originally created by Phidias during the period of 447-39 B.C. The statue of Athena Parthenos was to be constructed, not of bronze, but of gold and ivory. The face, arms, and feet of the statue were to be made of ivory and the clothing, of thickly plated gold. The statue was an enormous size that towered thirty-three feet tall. The costly nature of the materials out of which it was designed was intended to overwhelm the viewer, creating a sense of religious awe.
According to the ancient myths and the secondary sources read throughout this course in relation to women, it is suggested that women in ancient Greece were treated as less than their male counterparts because of the contrast present in being both praised and abhorred for their innate sexuality. This innate sexuality is seen as uncontrollable specific to negative traits associated with it like deception and madness, which manifested itself in enforced ideals and a patriarchal system that feared women. This fear of the female nature led to men controlling them and was reinforced in daily life and ritualistic practices. This assumption is supported by the myths Hesiod’s Myth of Pandora and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite as well as the secondary
also the goddess of war and the patroness of arts and crafts. Which led her to be a great leader
The country of Greece has opened a state of the art museum to house the Parthenon Sculptures, just steps away from their original home on the Acropolis Hill. However, only half of these important sculptures, inscriptions and architectural columns have been placed within the museum. Due to a series of unfortunate events including an explosion in the 1600's, the sculpture and marble structures sat in disrepair for over 200 years. In 1816, an English gentleman named Lord Elgin purchased them from the ruling Ottoman Empire and brought them back to London where they have been on display in the British Museum. Although saving them from further harm and ruin in the 1800s and 1900's, Greece is now ready to take them back, embracing their all important ancient identity.
depicts the two cities and the happenings within, as well as Agamemnon's kingly. estate. The. To gain insight into the details and intricacies of the shield, one must. look at the shield itself, the cities depicted within the shield, and the King's.
Humanism was important to the Greek culture because they believed focusing on human values were key to life. The cella frieze in the Parthenon reflects this way of thinking. It’s located in the interior of the Parthenon, adorning the area above the columns. The cella frieze is one continuous ionic frieze that wraps around the entire room. Scholars believe it depicts Athenians celebrating the Greater Panathenaia, which was a celebration to the Goddess, Athena, performed every four years. Blaise Nagy, a writer of the American Journal of Archeology states, “…the most commonly held view among scholars is that the frieze depicts a contemporary version of the festival. According to F. Brommer, author of the magisterial Der Parthenonfries, the frieze ought to be regarded as a kind of document for celebrations of the Panathenaia from the period of the construction of the Parthenon” (56). In this depiction, Poseidon and Apollo are bestowing their blessings on the celebration. With both immortal, worthy Gods, and mortal, unworthy Athenians on the cella frieze together, it confirms the Greek’s belief in humanism. To have the Gods and mortals in the same depiction together was something that had never been done before. Professor Jeffrey M. Hurwit from the University of Oregon s...
The Parthenon was built during the Golden age in Athens, Greece. The Parthenon is made of mainly columns; there is a 9:4 ratio. It was almost destroyed in war; the ruins that remained were dedicated to Athena. The purpose of the Parthenon was to house the statue of Athena, made of ivory and gold, and also Athena’s treasure. The ratios and the equations used to make the Parthenon were used as a sign of the harmony in the natural world around us. The mathematical harmony in the world shows how we can work with the world rather than destroy to make it what we want. The Parthenon also has no straight lines. The columns of the Parthenon are angled going up getting smaller the higher they get. This was done so that you could get the best lighting
On the right and left of the entrance are niches that may have held sacred representations of the different gods; the influx of peoples and cultures resulted in their worship and the dedication of this temple, to all the gods of Rome, may have served to unify differences.
Pygmalion in Greek mythology was a Cypriot sculptor who constructed a woman out of ivory and named her Galatea. According to Ovid’s translation, after seeing the Propoetides prostituting themselves in public for their defiance against the gods, he became uninterested in women; however his statue was so beautiful and realistic that he fell in love with it. After a short time, Aphrodite's festival day came, and Pygmalion made several offerings at the shrine of Aphrodite. Pygmalion was too scared to admit his true desire at the altar, so he quietly wished for a bride who would be "the living likeness of my ivory girl". When he returned home, he kissed his Galatea, and found that the statue’s lips felt warm. He kissed it again and found that the ivory had become flesh. Aphrodite had granted Pygmalion's wish. Pygmalion married the ivory sculpture changed to a woman under Aphrodite's blessing. In Ovid's translation, they had a son named Paphos, and in some other translations, they also had a daughter.