Pediments of the Parthenon
The pediments of the Parthenon are the two sets of statues in Pentelic marble originally located as the pedimental sculpture on the east and west facades of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens. They were probably made by several artists, including Agoracritos. The master builder was probably Phidias. They were probably lifted into place by 432 BC, having been carved on the ground.
Pausanias, a Greek geographer, described their subjects: to the east, the birth of Athena, and to the west the quarrel between her and Poseidon to become the tutelary deity of Athens.
The pediments have been damaged multiple times by natural disasters, fire, religious conflicts, weathering and pollution. As the temple was in use for almost 1000 years, we must assume that some of the figures were repaired, modified or completely replaced during this phase.
Considered the archetype of classical sculpture, or even the embodiment of ideal beauty, several of the statues were removed from the building by Lord Elgin's agents in the early nineteenth century and transported to the British Museum in London. Some statues and many fragments are kept at the Acropolis Museum in Athens. Other groups of sculpture, both reliefs at a smaller scale, from the Parthenon are the Metopes of the Parthenon and the Parthenon Frieze.
Construction
The accounts of the construction of the Parthenon make it possible to know that the marble intended for the pediments began to be extracted from the quarries of Mount Pentelikon in 439–438 BC.; sculpture work starting the following year. The accounts also show that excavation and transportation expenses were annual. This could mean that different quarries would have been used each year to obtain the highest possible quality marble. The last marble purchases in the quarries are recorded in 434 BC. In the logic of the construction of the building, the sculptures of the pediments had to be installed almost at the very end, probably in 432 BC.Since Adolf Michaelis in 1871, the statues are designated from left to right by a letter: from A to W for the western pediment and from A to P for the eastern pediment.
Pausanias regularly informs about the authors of the works he describes. However, he gives no information on the "author" of the Parthenon pediments. A master builder for each of the pediments may even be possible. Due to the size of the construction site, many artists must have worked there, as the differences of style and techniques show. Thus, the western pediment seems more refined, more "artificial" than the eastern pediment. It is possible that there was one artist per statue or group of statues. The accounts of 434–433 indicate that the sculptors were paid 16,392 drachmas. It is difficult to know, however, whether this is the total wage or the salary for that year alone. For comparison, the total cost of each of the pediments of Asclepius Temple in Epidaurus was 3,010 drachmas. Robert Spenser Stanier proposed in 1953 an estimate of 17 talents for pediments and acroterions.
The statues are the largest pediment statues made in classical Greece and they are almost all in one piece. In addition, they were sculpted in the round. The same care was accorded to the front and the back, though the latter is hidden. It is possible that they were "exposed" on the site while waiting to be mounted on the Parthenon. The artists would then have chosen to finish them in their entirety. Nevertheless, the finish depends on the statues, and therefore the sculptors. On some, details, invisible from the ground were left unfinished, while on others, this was not the case. In addition, it was necessary to plane the back of some to make them fit their designated place.
Deep rectangular grooves at the corners of pediments could indicate the presence in these places of a lift-type mechanism for mounting statues.
File:West Pediments of the Parthenon.jpg|thumb|left|Triglyphs and metopes on the west pediment
Above the Doric frieze was an overhanging horizontal cornice of twenty-five blocks of marble. The ranking cornices were surmounted by a painted sima. Thus, was delimited a long space of 28.35 m and high of 3.428 m or 3.47 m to a depth of 0.90 m. All the statues were installed on the horizontal cornice which exceeded in overhanging of 70 cm, placed either on a plinth or on a laying bed. To install the statue is G, the cornice had to be dug out.
The pediments of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, about twenty years older, and seem to have been a major influence for the realization of the pediments of the Parthenon. The dimensions are relatively equivalent: 3.44 meters high to a depth of 1 meter at Olympia. In order to make them more visible, because of the angle of vision, some of the statues were inclined outwards, as in Olympia, and sometimes up to 30 cm above the void. Even the sitting statues had their feet protruding from the edge. The fixing systems of the statues at the horizontal cornice were nearly the same in Athens and Olympia. However, for the heaviest, the Parthenon sculptors had to innovate. They were held by iron props that sank to one side in the plinth of the statue and the other deep in the horizontal cornice and tympanum. These "L" props made the weight of the statue cantilevered on the cornice.
Description
The pediments of the Parthenon included many statues. The one to the west had a little more than the one to the east. In the description of the Acropolis of Athens by Pausanias, a sentence informs about the chosen themes: the quarrel between Athena and Poseidon for Attica in the west and the birth of Athena in the east. This is the only evocation in the ancient literature of the Parthenon's decoration. In addition, the traveler gives no detail outside the general theme while he describes in a very precise way the pediments of the temple of Zeus in Olympia. Perhaps he considered the Panhellenic sanctuary of the Peloponnese to be more important than the Parthenon, the latter perhaps being too "local", or simply Athenian.The number of statues and the very precise myths evoked makes Bernard Ashmole wonder if the contemporaries themselves were really capable of identifying all the characters.
West Pediment
To the west, on the "minor" facade, was the quarrel between Athena and Poseidon for Athens and Attica and the victory of the Virgin Goddess, one of the great local myths. The two divinities disputed sovereignty over the region. They decided to offer the most beautiful gifts to win. With one blow of his trident, the god of the seas caused a spring of salty water to spring up on the acropolis. The virgin goddess with a spearhead made the first olive tree appear. The sources do not agree on the identity of the referees. They chose Athena and her olive tree. This story is first recounted by Herodotus. This myth had hitherto been little represented: the artist who conceived the ensemble, as well as the sculptors, had a complete freedom.In the central space, the two gods were perhaps separated by the olive tree of Athena or even the lightning of Zeus. The representation on this pediment of an intervention of Zeus in the quarrel could be the first occurrence of this theme. It is then found on a vase from the end of the fifth century BC. preserved in the archaeological museum of Pella and in literature.
Image:Iris Parthenon BM.jpg|alt=Statue féminine en marbre blanc ; il manque la tête et les jambes|thumb|Iris.
It is difficult to determine where the gift of the two gods could be represented: emerging from the ground at the end of their weapon or the olive tree well in the center of the pediment, with the sacred serpent of Athena wrapped around. It seems that Poseidon's torso was used as a model for the Triton that adorn the Odeon of Agrippa in the ancient agora. The violence of the divine confrontation can be read in the tension of the tense bodies which are recoiling backward, as in the famous group Athena and Marsyas of Myron, dedicated on the acropolis a few years earlier. The movement also recalls that of the South metope XXVII.
Then came the chariots and their female charioteers. Nike leads that of Athena, but the statue has completely disappeared. Amphitrite is the usual charioteer of the sea god: on the drawing attributed to Carrey, she is identifiable thanks to the sea serpent at her feet, but she is found occupying this function elsewhere in the art and perhaps is on one of the east metopes. Amphitrite wears a peplos with a wide belt worn very high, just under the chest. The garment is open on the left side, floating behind in the wind, leaving the leg bare. The rearing horses allow an ideal occupation of the space between the cornices. The auriga is accompanied by the messenger gods: Hermes on the side of Athena and Nike; Iris of the other.
The head of Hermes disappeared between 1674 and 1749 suggest that it could be Cecrops and his daughter Pandrosus.
On the right side, two seated women carry children: west Q holds two babies, it could be Orithyia the daughter of Erechtheus, carrying the two sons she had of Boreas, Calais and Zetes. West T has an older child on the knees. The western U and V statues are highly damaged and fragmentary but do not appear to form a group.
The first figure on the left, male, and the last on the right, female, are symmetrical. By analogy with the pediments of Olympia, river deities have been identified: Ilissos or Cephis on the left and perhaps Callirrhoe on the right. The statue of the Ilissos is of very high quality in its rendering of the anatomical details and in its movement: it seems to be extracted from the ground while turning towards the central scene.
The composition of this pediment is inspired by that of the eastern pediment of Olympia. The idea of simple "spectator" statues sitting on the exteriors and then of river gods was also borrowed from the sanctuary in the Peloponnese. The western statues B, C, L, Q and perhaps W have been copied and adapted to adorn one of the pediments of the temple of Eleusis, completed in the second century and representing the abduction of Persephone.