The Parthenon and not to be confused with Pantheon in Rome (Still on by bucket list to visit since the day I went in September 2011 Rome had the worst thunderstorm in living memory and it was flooded!) is a temple on the Acropolis dedicated to the goddess Athena (The goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill – not a lot then!), whom the people of Athens worshipped as their patron deity. Its construction began in 447 BC and was completed in 438 BC, although the final decoration of the building was not finished until 432 BC. It is considered to be the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, and the pinnacle of the Doric order architecture. The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a programme of selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially ruined structure so you may find some scaffolding or cranes appearing in the photos.
After the Ottoman conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s and in September 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures, with the permission of the Ottoman Empire. These sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London (Another place to visit on my ‘bucket list’ – did I hear the cry Philistine?!!), where they are now displayed. Since 1983 (on the initiative of Culture Minister Melina Mercouri), the Greek government has been committed to the return of the sculptures to Greece.
The dimensions of the Parthenon are truly huge, the base is 69.5 metres by 30.9 metres (228.0 x 101.4 ft). The cella (The inner chamber) was 29.8 metres long by 19.2 metres wide (97.8 x 63.0 ft), with internal colonnades in two tiers, required to support the roof. On the exterior, the Doric columns measure 1.9 metres (6.2 ft) in diameter and are 10.4 metres (34.1 ft) high. The corner columns are slightly larger in diameter. The Parthenon had 46 outer pillars and 23 inner pillars in total and the roof was covered with large overlapping marble tiles.
The Photo is of the east pediment since the west end is currently undergoing restoration and is partially covered in scaffolding.
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