Adventures in Unsell Land: September 2009

Friday, September 25, 2009

The Parthenon

While in Nashville, one of the things we saw was the replica of The Parthenon. It was great being able to see an exact replica of it.

The Parthenon in Athens was carved out of Pentelic marble and it took the Greeks approximately 10 years to construct the building, 447-438 B.C. Nashville's Parthenon was created from brick, stone, structural reinforced concrete, and cast concrete aggregate. It took the City of Nashville nearly 10 years to build their Parthenon, 1921-1931.

Nashville’s Parthenon is the only full-scale replica of the Greek Parthenon in existence. The City of Nashville first undertook the construction of a full-scale replica of the Parthenon for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition of 1897. The day we toured it they were setting up a wedding on the East Side of the building which is the tents you see in the pic here.

Like its predecessor in Greece, the Parthenon in Nashville faces east. In antiquity this would allow light to come into the building as the sun came up and the doors were opened. Until 1988 visitors entered Nashville's Parthenon through the doors at the west end of the building. Visitors now must enter the east end of the building at the sidewalk level. The east façade was considered the "front" of the building by the ancient Greeks.

The Parthenon is 65 feet high at its apex.

The columns of the building differ in diameter from the ones beside them and are all spaced slightly differently. This was amazing to us!

The peristyle consists of 46 Doric columns, 17 on each side, 6 on each end (not counting the corner columns twice). All of the exterior columns incline slightly inward. The corner columns are diagonally inclined; that is, they are angled toward both sides.

The interior of the Parthenon is divided into two rooms. The east room is called the Naos and it houses the statue of Athena seen here. The Naos is 93 feet long and 63 feet wide and has a two-story colonnade around three sides. The west room is 44 feet long by 63 feet wide and is called the Treasury Room. In antiquity this room housed the treasure of Athens and the Delian League.

Nashville's Athena stands 41'10" tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World. There are eleven snakes represented on Athena's breastplate, bracelets and belt.

The statue of Nike in Athena's right hand stands 6'4" tall. It did not seem that tall when viewing it in person. It was pretty amazing! Nike holds a wreath of victory preparing to crown Athena.

The Athena Parthenos in the ancient Parthenon was considered the greatest achievement of Pheidias, the most acclaimed sculptor of ancient Greece.

The Athena statue was constructed from 1982 to 1990. It stood in Nashville’s Parthenon as a plain, white statue for 12 years. In 2002 the Parthenon gilded Athena with Alan LeQuire and master gilder Lou Reed in charge of the project. The gilding project took less than 4 months and makes Athena appear that much closer to the ancient Athena Parthenos. In addition to gilding, the project included painted details on her face, wardrobe and shield.

There are about 12 inches between the top of her helmet and the ceiling beams. Her weight is estimated at 12 tons.

Our friend Cori from California who now lives in Nashville, with our Ally girl.

A normal sized door of today next to the Parthenons bronze doors. The bronze doors weigh 7.5 tons each. They measure 24' high, 7' wide and 1' thick. There are two sets (4 doors total) of these enormous doors in the Parthenon. This makes them the largest set of matching bronze doors in the world. The Parthenon doors in antiquity were only slightly lighter and were wooden with a bronze overlay.

They must have had pedicures in Ancient Greece! ;-)

..."charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy." 1 Timothy 6:17