Elgin Marbles — The Parthenon Sculptures
As Europe begins to reopen to travelers, it’s more exciting than ever to think about the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of the great joys of travel is meeting great art in person – which I’ve collected in a book. Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here is one of my favorites:
For 2,000 years, the Parthenon Temple in Athens remained almost intact. But in 1687, at the Siege of Athens, the Parthenon was used to store a huge cache of gunpowder. (See where this is going?) Pow! A huge explosion sent large chunks of the Parthenon flying everywhere. Then in 1801, the British ambassador, Lord Elgin, shipped the most precious surviving pieces of carved stone to London, where they wow visitors to this day – the “Elgin Marbles.”
The British Museum in London displays the sculptures and relief panels that once adorned the now bare exterior of the Parthenon. Carved around 430 BC, the reliefs are part of a 500-foot-long frieze that once rang the temple’s bell. They show 56 snapshots from ancient Athens’ most festive occasion: a grand parade up the Acropolis hill to celebrate the city’s birthday.
The parade begins with men on horseback, struggling to rein in their excited riders. This is followed by musicians playing flutes, while women dance. Honorable citizens ride in chariots, children run alongside, and priests lead ceremonial bullocks for sacrifice. At the center of the procession is a group of teenage girls. Dressed in beautiful gaudy clothing, they bustle along carrying gifts for the gods, such as incense burners and jugs of wine.
The girls were handed the most important gift of the parade: a pleated dress. As the parade ended inside the Parthenon, the girls symbolically presented the temple’s 40-foot-tall gold and ivory statue of Athena.
The realism is incredible: the well-defined muscles of the men, the bulging veins of the horses. The girls’ intricate costumes make them look as stable as fluted columns, but they emerge naturally – human forms emerging from stone. These panels were originally painted in bold colors. Amid the flurry of details, there is one unifying element in the frieze—all the heads are on the same level, facing the same direction, forming a single ribbon of humanity around the Parthenon.
The main entrance of the Parthenon was decorated with a magnificent scene depicting the moment when the city of Athens was born. These sculptures are enclosed within a triangular pediment above the doorway. It shows the Greek gods roaming around at an Olympian banquet. Suddenly, there is a flurry of activity. The gods turn to a miraculous event: Zeus has just opened his head to reveal Athena, symbol of the city. (Unfortunately, that key scene is missing – it’s the empty space at the top of the triangle.)
These pediment sculptures are realistic and three-dimensional, reclining in perfectly natural and relaxed poses. Women’s dresses naturally cling and flow, revealing their perfect anatomy.
A final set of relief panels (called metopes) depict a Greek legend that sums up the entire Parthenon. They show the ancient Greeks contending with brutal centaurs. It’s free for hair pulling, chokes, kicks to the shins, and knees to the waist. Eventually, the humans gain the upper hand – a symbol of how the civilized Athenians triumphed over their barbarian neighbors.
In real life, the Greeks came out of a brutal war, and capped their recovery by building the Parthenon. The precious Elgin marbles represent the cream of the crop of this greatest of Greek temples. And they capture the moment in human history when civilization triumphed over barbarism, rational thought over animal whims, and order over chaos.
