127-571: The Acropolis Museum ( Greek : Μουσείο Ακρόπολης , Mouseio Akropolis ) is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens . The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece . The Acropolis Museum also lies over the ruins of part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens . The museum
254-418: A peplos that was presented to Athena during Panathenaic Festivals . Christopher Pelling asserts that the name "Parthenon" means the "temple of the virgin goddess", referring to the cult of Athena Parthenos that was associated with the temple. It has also been suggested that the name of the temple alludes to the maidens ( parthénoi ), whose supreme sacrifice guaranteed the safety of the city. In that case,
381-575: A Turkish house in 1801 and is currently held in the British Museum . The anterior portion was revealed by Ross in 1835 and is now held in the Acropolis Museum of Athens. Every statue on the west pediment has a fully completed back, which would have been impossible to see when the sculpture was on the temple; this indicates that the sculptors put great effort into accurately portraying the human body. The only piece of sculpture from
508-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
635-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
762-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
889-407: A flowing river. Next to the left river god, there are the sculptures of the mythical king of Athens ( Cecrops or Kekrops ) with his daughters ( Aglaurus , Pandrosos , Herse ). The statue of Poseidon was the largest sculpture in the pediment until it broke into pieces during Francesco Morosini 's effort to remove it in 1688. The posterior piece of the torso was found by Lusieri in the groundwork of
1016-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
1143-476: A loss of much valuable information. An attempt to make sense of the potsherds found on the Acropolis came with the two-volume study by Graef and Langlotz published in 1925–1933. This inspired American archaeologist William Bell Dinsmoor to give limiting dates for the temple platform and the five walls hidden under the re-terracing of the Acropolis. Dinsmoor concluded that the latest possible date for Parthenon I
1270-410: A new museum was held in 1976 and was limited to participants from Greece. Both the 1976 competition and one that followed it in 1979 failed to produce any results mainly because the plots of land selected for the proposed constructions were deemed unsuitable. In 1989, a third competition for the design of the new Acropolis Museum was announced that would be international. A choice of three possible sites
1397-462: A sanctuary for Athena Parthenos on the site of the present Parthenon was begun shortly after the Battle of Marathon ( c. 490 –488 BC) upon a solid limestone foundation that extended and levelled the southern part of the Acropolis summit. This building replaced a Hekatompedon temple ("hundred-footer") and would have stood beside the archaic temple dedicated to Athena Polias ("of
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#17327654042111524-591: A sloping floor, resembling the ascension to the rock. Following the hall is a large trapezoidal hall that contains the archaic findings. On the same floor, there are artifacts and sculptures from the other Acropolis buildings such as the Erechtheum , the Temple of Athena Nike , and the Propylaea and findings from Roman and early Christian Athens. Visitors are intended to see the latter during descent in order to keep
1651-768: A small number of the original sculptures remain in situ . Most of the surviving sculptures are at the Acropolis Museum in Athens and (controversially) at the British Museum in London (see Elgin Marbles ). Additional pieces are at the Louvre , the National Museum of Denmark , and Vienna . In March 2022, the Acropolis Museum launched a new website with "photographs of all the frieze blocks preserved today in
1778-618: Is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis , Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena . Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Greek art , and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece , democracy, and Western civilization . The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian Empire invaders during
1905-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
2032-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
2159-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
2286-579: Is known from other images. The decorative stonework was originally highly coloured. The temple was dedicated to Athena at that time, though construction continued until almost the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 432. By the year 438, the Doric metopes on the frieze above the exterior colonnade and the Ionic frieze around the upper portion of the walls of the cella had been completed. Only
2413-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
2540-1086: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Parthenon The Parthenon ( / ˈ p ɑːr θ ə ˌ n ɒ n , - n ən / ; Ancient Greek : Παρθενών , romanized : Parthenōn [par.tʰe.nɔ̌ːn] ; Greek : Παρθενώνας , romanized : Parthenónas [parθeˈnonas] )
2667-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
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#17327654042112794-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
2921-490: Is surrounded by columns ('peripteral') carrying an entablature . There are eight columns at either end ('octastyle') and seventeen on the sides. There is a double row of columns at either end. The colonnade surrounds an inner masonry structure, the cella , which is divided into two compartments. The opisthodomos (the back room of the cella) contained the monetary contributions of the Delian League. At either end of
3048-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
3175-405: Is the concave shaft carved into the column form.) The roof was covered with large overlapping marble tiles known as imbrices and tegulae . The Parthenon is regarded as the finest example of Greek architecture. John Julius Cooper wrote that "even in antiquity, its architectural refinements were legendary, especially the subtle correspondence between the curvature of the stylobate, the taper of
3302-702: The Acropolis . Bernard Tschumi has been showing photographic images of the space in front of the museum edited to remove the two buildings and nearby four-story-tall trees. The Greek Government had the two buildings de-listed historically although one is Neo-Classical and the other an example of Art Deco architecture. Protests against the proposed demolition came from international agencies such as INTBAU and ICOMOS . [REDACTED] Media related to Acropolis Museum at Wikimedia Commons Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
3429-528: The Dipylon Gate in the Kerameikos to the Acropolis . In this procession held every year, with a special procession taking place every four years, Athenians and foreigners participated in honouring the goddess Athena by offering her sacrifices and a new peplos dress, woven by selected noble Athenian girls called ergastines . The procession is more crowded (appearing to slow in pace) as it nears
3556-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
3683-666: The Eastern Roman Empire after Constantinople , Ephesos , and Thessaloniki . In 1018, the emperor Basil II went on a pilgrimage to Athens after his final victory over the First Bulgarian Empire for the sole purpose of worshipping at the Parthenon. In medieval Greek accounts it is called the Temple of Theotokos Atheniotissa and often indirectly referred to as famous without explaining exactly which temple they were referring to, thus establishing that it
3810-598: The Greco-Persian Wars . Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury . Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC; work on the artwork and decorations continued until 432 BC. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire . In the final decade of
3937-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
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4064-622: The Museum of the Center for the Acropolis Studies . The fourth competition had made no provision for the preservation of the ancient site. These were met to a degree only after local and international ( ICOMOS ) campaigners exposed this oversight and it became the final competition. The new plans were adjusted so that the building was elevated above ground, on pillars. Competition was open only to architectural practices by invitation and it
4191-471: The Peloponnesian War when Sparta's forces were first preparing to invade Attica, Pericles , in an address to the Athenian people, said that the statue could be used as a gold reserve if that was necessary to preserve Athens, stressing that it "contained forty talents of pure gold and it was all removable", but adding that the gold would afterward have to be restored. The Athenian statesman thus implies that
4318-564: The Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire , decreed in 435 that all pagan temples in the Eastern Roman Empire be closed. It is debated exactly when during the 5th century that the closure of the Parthenon as a temple was put into practice. It is suggested to have occurred in c. 481 –484, on the order of Emperor Zeno , because the temple had been the focus of Pagan Hellenic opposition against Zeno in Athens in support of Illus , who had promised to restore Hellenic rites to
4445-452: The naos walls, and the entasis of the columns". Entasis refers to the slight swelling, of 4 centimetres (1.6 in), in the center of the columns to counteract the appearance of columns having a waist, as the swelling makes them look straight from a distance. The stylobate is the platform on which the columns stand. As in many other classical Greek temples, it has a slight parabolic upward curvature intended to shed rainwater and reinforce
4572-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
4699-444: The "unmarried women's apartments" in a house, but that in the Parthenon it seems to have been used for a particular room of the temple. There is some debate as to which room that was. The lexicon states that this room was the western cella of the Parthenon. This has also been suggested by J.B. Bury. One theory is that the Parthenon was the room where the arrephoroi , a group of four young girls chosen to serve Athena each year, wove
4826-556: The 19th century. Parthénos was also applied to the Virgin Mary ( Parthénos Maria ) when the Parthenon was converted to a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the final decade of the 6th century. Although the Parthenon is architecturally a temple and is usually called so, some scholars have argued that it is not really a temple in the conventional sense of the word. A small shrine has been excavated within
4953-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
5080-575: The 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary . After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-15th century, it became a mosque . In the Morean War , a Venetian bomb landed on the Parthenon, which the Ottomans had used as a munitions dump, during the 1687 siege of the Acropolis . The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon. From 1800 to 1803,
5207-640: The 7th Earl of Elgin controversially removed many of the surviving sculptures and subsequently shipped them to England where they are now known as the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon marbles. Since 1975, numerous large-scale restoration projects have been undertaken to preserve remaining artefacts and ensure its structural integrity. The origin of the word "Parthenon" comes from the Greek word parthénos ( παρθένος ), meaning "maiden, girl" as well as "virgin, unmarried woman". The Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon states that it may have referred to
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5334-517: The Acropolis Museum, the British Museum and the Louvre". The frieze of the Parthenon's entablature contained 92 metopes , 14 each on the east and west sides, 32 each on the north and south sides. They were carved in high relief, a practice employed until then only in treasuries (buildings used to keep votive gifts to the gods). According to the building records, the metope sculptures date to
5461-421: The Acropolis was used as a fortress. According to Eleftherotypia daily, the archaeologists claimed the metopes had been placed there in the 18th century when the Acropolis wall was being repaired. The experts discovered the metopes while processing 2,250 photos with modern photographic methods, as the white Pentelic marble they are made of differed from the other stone of the wall. It was previously presumed that
5588-627: The Acropolis, more closely associated with the Great Altar of Athena. The High Priestess of Athena Polias supervised the city cult of Athena based in the Acropolis , and was the chief of the lesser officials, such as the plyntrides , arrephoroi and kanephoroi . The colossal statue of Athena by Phidias was not specifically related to any cult attested by ancient authors and is not known to have inspired any religious fervour. Preserved ancient sources do not associate it with any priestess, altar or cult name. According to Thucydides , during
5715-736: The Church of the Parthenos Maria (Virgin Mary) or the Church of the Theotokos ( Mother of God ). The orientation of the building was changed to face towards the east; the main entrance was placed at the building's western end, and the Christian altar and iconostasis were situated towards the building's eastern side adjacent to an apse built where the temple's pronaos was formerly located. A large central portal with surrounding side-doors
5842-402: The Doric order. The continuous frieze in low relief around the cella and across the lintels of the inner columns, in contrast, reflects the Ionic order. Architectural historian John R. Senseney suggests that this unexpected switch between orders was due to an aesthetic choice on the part of builders during construction, and was likely not part of the original plan of the Parthenon. Measured at
5969-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
6096-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
6223-495: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
6350-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
6477-685: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
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#17327654042116604-455: The Parthenon known to be from the hand of Phidias was the statue of Athena housed in the naos . This massive chryselephantine sculpture is now lost and known only from copies, vase painting, gems, literary descriptions, and coins. A major fire broke out in the Parthenon shortly after the middle of the third century AD. which destroyed the roof and much of the sanctuary's interior. Heruli pirates sacked Athens in 276, and destroyed most of
6731-600: The Parthenon was originally called the Hekatompedon . Based on literary and historical research, he proposes that "the treasury called the Parthenon should be recognized as the west part of the building now conventionally known as the Erechtheion ". Because the Parthenon was dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena it has sometimes been referred to as the Temple of Minerva , the Roman name for Athena, particularly during
6858-522: The Parthenon's more obviously curved predecessors than with a notional rectilinear temple. Some studies of the Acropolis, including of the Parthenon and its facade, have conjectured that many of its proportions approximate the golden ratio . More recent studies have shown that the proportions of the Parthenon do not match the golden proportion. The cella of the Parthenon housed the chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos sculpted by Phidias and dedicated in 439 or 438 BC. The appearance of this
6985-502: The Parthenon, one on the east front, one on the west. The triangular sections once contained massive sculptures that, according to the second-century geographer Pausanias , recounted the birth of Athena and the mythological battle between Athena and Poseidon for control of Athens. The east pediment originally contained 10 to 12 sculptures depicting the Birth of Athena. Most of those pieces were removed and lost during renovations in either
7112-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
7239-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
7366-414: The architects would reject them. The marble was worked with iron tools – picks, points, punches, chisels, and drills. The quarrymen would hold their tools against the marble block and firmly tap the surface of the rock. A big project like the Parthenon attracted stonemasons from far and wide who travelled to Athens to assist in the project. Slaves and foreigners worked together with the Athenian citizens in
7493-521: The back of the left chariot, while the defenders of Poseidon are shown trailing behind the right chariot. It is believed that the corners of the pediment are filled by Athenian water deities, such as the Kephisos river, the Ilissos river, and nymph Kallirhoe . This belief emerges from the fluid character of the sculptures' body position which represents the effort of the artist to give the impression of
7620-498: The building against earthquakes. The columns might therefore be supposed to lean outward, but they actually lean slightly inward so that if they carried on, they would meet almost exactly 2,400 metres (1.5 mi) above the centre of the Parthenon. Since they are all the same height, the curvature of the outer stylobate edge is transmitted to the architrave and roof above: "All follow the rule of being built to delicate curves", Gorham Stevens observed when pointing out that, in addition,
7747-406: The building of the Parthenon, doing the same jobs for the same pay. Temple building was a specialized craft, and there were not many men in Greece qualified to build temples like the Parthenon, so these men would travel and work where they were needed. Other craftsmen were necessary for the building of the Parthenon, specifically carpenters and metalworkers. Unskilled labourers also had key roles in
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#17327654042117874-438: The building of the Parthenon. They loaded and unloaded the marble blocks and moved the blocks from place to place. In order to complete a project like the Parthenon, many different labourers were needed. The Parthenon is a peripteral octastyle Doric temple with Ionic architectural features. It stands on a platform or stylobate of three steps. In common with other Greek temples, it is of post and lintel construction and
8001-496: The building project that lasted the entire second half of the century. The most important buildings visible on the Acropolis today – the Parthenon, the Propylaia , the Erechtheion and the temple of Athena Nike – were erected during this period. The Parthenon was built under the general supervision of Phidias , who also had charge of the sculptural decoration. The architects Ictinos and Callicrates began their work in 447, and
8128-483: The building was substantially completed by 432. Work on the decorations continued until at least 431. The Parthenon was built primarily by men who knew how to work marble. These quarrymen had exceptional skills and were able to cut the blocks of marble to very specific measurements. The quarrymen also knew how to avoid the faults, which were numerous in the Pentelic marble . If the marble blocks were not up to standard,
8255-400: The building, on the site of an older sanctuary probably dedicated to Athena as a way to get closer to the goddess, but the Parthenon apparently never hosted the official cult of Athena Polias, patron of Athens. The cult image of Athena Polias, which was bathed in the sea and to which was presented the peplos , was an olive-wood xoanon , located in another temple on the northern side of
8382-443: The building, the gable is finished with a triangular pediment originally occupied by sculpted figures. The Parthenon has been described as "the culmination of the development of the Doric order". The Doric columns, for example, have simple capitals, fluted shafts, and no bases. Above the architrave of the entablature is a frieze of carved pictorial panels ( metopes ), separated by formal architectural triglyphs , also typical of
8509-514: The chronological order: they will first be directed to the top level, which displays the Parthenon marbles. The top level of the Museum sits askew on the lower levels to achieve the same cardinal orientation of the ancient temple on the Acropolis. The spacing of the columns of the Parthenon hall is the same as that of the ancient temple and the use of glass walls on all four exterior walls allows
8636-469: The city"). The Older or Pre-Parthenon , as it is frequently referred to, was still under construction when the Persians sacked the city in 480 BC razing the Acropolis. The existence of both the proto-Parthenon and its destruction were known from Herodotus , and the drums of its columns were visibly built into the curtain wall north of the Erechtheion . Further physical evidence of this structure
8763-635: The construction of a new museum was when the Greeks made requests for the repatriation of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum during the 20th century, it was suggested by the museum's officials that Greece had no suitable location where they could be displayed. Creation of a gallery for the display of the Parthenon Marbles has been key to all recent proposals for the design of a new museum. The first architectural competition to design
8890-453: The display of the Parthenon marbles. For ease of viewing, the pediment marbles are displayed at eye level in front of the end columns; the metopes are displayed on the columns, two per column, but not as high as in the ancient temple; and the frieze are displayed behind the metopes, forming a continuous band around the walls of a rectangular space set inside the columns, as in the ancient temple but not as high, again for ease of viewing. From
9017-417: The distance without mishap. Greek officials expressed their hope that the new museum will help in the campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles. The museum is located by the southeastern slope of the Acropolis hill, on the ancient road that led up to the "sacred rock" in classical times. Set only 280 meters (310 yd), away from the Parthenon , and a 400 meters (440 yd) walking distance from it,
9144-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
9271-475: The eighth or the twelfth century. Only two corners remain today with figures depicting the passage of time over the course of a full day. Tethrippa of Helios is in the left corner and Selene is on the right. The horses of Helios's chariot are shown with livid expressions as they ascend into the sky at the start of the day. Selene's horses struggle to stay on the pediment scene as the day comes to an end. The supporters of Athena are extensively illustrated at
9398-596: The entire building comes from the fourth century BC orator Demosthenes. In the 4th century BC and later, the building was referred to as the Hekatompedos or the Hekatompedon as well as the Parthenon. Plutarch referred to the building during the first century AD as the Hekatompedos Parthenon . A 2020 study by Janric van Rookhuijzen supports the idea that the building known today as
9525-618: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
9652-693: The final great event of the Athenian Bronze Age , the war of Erechtheus and Eumolpos . She argues a pedagogical function for the Parthenon's sculptured decoration, one that establishes and perpetuates Athenian foundation myth, memory, values and identity. While some classicists, including Mary Beard , Peter Green , and Garry Wills have doubted or rejected Connelly's thesis, an increasing number of historians, archaeologists, and classical scholars support her work. They include: J.J. Pollitt, Brunilde Ridgway, Nigel Spivey, Caroline Alexander, and A. E. Stallings . The first endeavour to build
9779-485: The final report on the 1885–1890 excavations, indicating that the substructure was contemporary with the Kimonian walls, and implying a later date for the first temple. If the original Parthenon was indeed destroyed in 480, it invites the question of why the site was left as a ruin for thirty-three years. One argument involves the oath sworn by the Greek allies before the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC declaring that
9906-481: The first Parthenon consisted of two steps of Poros limestone, the same as the foundations, and a top step of Karrha limestone that was covered by the lowest step of the Periclean Parthenon. This platform was smaller and slightly to the north of the final Parthenon, indicating that it was built for a different building, now completely covered over. This picture was somewhat complicated by the publication of
10033-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
10160-423: The fourth competition. Tschumi's design revolved around three concepts: light, movement, and a tectonic and programmatic element. The collections of the museum are exhibited on three levels while a fourth middle-level houses the auxiliary spaces such as the museum shop, the café, and the offices. On the first level of the museum, there are the findings of the slopes of the Acropolis. The long and rectangular hall has
10287-404: The frieze shows the celebration of the birth of Ion, who was a descendant of Erechtheus . This interpretation has been rejected by Catharine Titi , who agrees with St Clair that the mood is one of celebration (rather than sacrifice) but argues that the celebration of the birth of Ion requires the presence of an infant but there is no infant on the frieze. Two pediments rise above the portals of
10414-400: The gods on the eastern side of the temple. Joan Breton Connelly offers a mythological interpretation for the frieze, one that is in harmony with the rest of the temple's sculptural programme which shows Athenian genealogy through a series of succession myths set in the remote past. She identifies the central panel above the door of the Parthenon as the pre-battle sacrifice of the daughter of
10541-481: The half-man, half-horse Centaurs ). Metopes 13–21 are missing, but drawings from 1674 attributed to Jaques Carrey indicate a series of humans; these have been variously interpreted as scenes from the Lapith wedding, scenes from the early history of Athens, and various myths. On the north side of the Parthenon, the metopes are poorly preserved, but the subject seems to be the sack of Troy . The mythological figures of
10668-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
10795-536: The king Erechtheus , a sacrifice that ensured Athenian victory over Eumolpos and his Thracian army. The great procession marching toward the east end of the Parthenon shows the post-battle thanksgiving sacrifice of cattle and sheep, honey and water, followed by the triumphant army of Erechtheus returning from their victory. This represents the first Panathenaia set in mythical times, the model on which historic Panathenaic processions were based. This interpretation has been rejected by William St Clair , who considers that
10922-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
11049-484: The location of the new museum was rather straightforward: the large lot of the unused "Camp Makrygianni " gendarmerie barracks , opposite the Theater of Dionysus . The barracks were built on public land and a limited number of expropriations of surrounding private houses were needed to free up the necessary space. The main building of the old barracks, the neoclassical "Weiler Building", has been renovated and houses
11176-640: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
11303-502: The metal, obtained from contemporary coinage, could be used again if absolutely necessary without any impiety. According to Aristotle, the building also contained golden figures that he described as "Victories". The classicist Harris Rackham noted that eight of those figures were melted down for coinage during the Peloponnesian War. Other Greek writers have claimed that treasures such as Persian swords were also stored inside
11430-580: The metopes of the East, North, and West sides of the Parthenon had been deliberately mutilated by Christian iconoclasts in late antiquity. The metopes present examples of the Severe Style in the anatomy of the figures' heads, in the limitation of the corporal movements to the contours and not to the muscles, and in the presence of pronounced veins in the figures of the Centauromachy . Several of
11557-411: The metopes still remain on the building, but, with the exception of those on the northern side, they are severely damaged. Some of them are located at the Acropolis Museum , others are in the British Museum , and one is at the Louvre museum. In March 2011, archaeologists announced that they had discovered five metopes of the Parthenon in the south wall of the Acropolis, which had been extended when
11684-526: The missing metopes were destroyed during the Morosini explosion of the Parthenon in 1687. The most characteristic feature in the architecture and decoration of the temple is the Ionic frieze running around the exterior of the cella walls. The bas-relief frieze was carved in situ and is dated to 442–438. One interpretation is that it depicts an idealized version of the Panathenaic procession from
11811-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
11938-514: The museum is the largest modern building erected so close to the ancient site, although many other buildings from the last 150 years are located closer to the Acropolis. The entrance to the building is on Dionysiou Areopagitou Street and directly adjacent to the Akropoli metro station the red line of the Athens Metro . The design by Bernard Tschumi was selected as the winning project in
12065-406: The natural light to illumine the Parthenon marbles as they do on the ancient temple. Unlike the British Museum's Duveen Gallery, where the Parthenon marbles are displayed looking inwards, in the Acropolis Museum, the pediments, metopes and frieze are displayed facing outwards, as they did on Parthenon. The 48 columns in the Parthenon hall mark the outline of the ancient temple and form a colonnade for
12192-437: The north side of the Parthenon hall, one can see the ancient temple above on the Acropolis. As the museum is built over an extensive archaeological site, some parts of the floor uses glass to allow visitors to see the excavations below. Part of this site is accessible to the public through the museum's courtyard. The museum also has an amphitheatre, virtual theatre, and hall for temporary exhibitions. A controversy erupted over
12319-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
12446-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
12573-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
12700-515: The period of Humanism ; Cyriacus of Ancona was the first after antiquity to describe the Parthenon, of which he had read many times in ancient texts. Thanks to him, Western Europe was able to have the first design of the monument, which Ciriaco called "temple of the goddess Athena", unlike previous travellers, who had called it "church of Virgin Mary": ...mirabile Palladis Divae marmoreum templum, divum quippe opus Phidiae ("...the wonderful temple of
12827-459: The plans of the new museum and whether it was appropriate to build it on the archaeological site in Makrygianni neighborhood. Another concern was whether a large modern building would fit well into the landscape. In 2007, another controversy erupted over the proposed demolition of two historic buildings. These are in front of the museum, numbers 17 and 19, Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, facing
12954-475: The presence of the surrounding angles of the building. Striving for perfection, the designers may have added these curves, compensating for the illusion by creating their own curves, thus negating this effect and allowing the temple to be seen as they intended. It is also suggested that it was to enliven what might have appeared an inert mass in the case of a building without curves. But the comparison ought to be, according to Smithsonian historian Evan Hadingham, with
13081-489: The public buildings there, including the Parthenon. Repairs were made in the fourth century AD, possibly during the reign of Julian the Apostate . A new wooden roof overlaid with clay tiles was installed to cover the sanctuary. It sloped at a greater angle than the original roof and left the building's wings exposed. The Parthenon survived as a temple dedicated to Athena for nearly 1,000 years until Theodosius II , during
13208-448: The removal and dispersal of some of the sculptures. Sometime after the Parthenon was converted to a Christian church, the metopes of the north, west and east facades of the Parthenon were defaced by Christians in order to remove images of pagan deities. The damage was so extensive that the images on the affected metopes often can't be confidently identified. The Parthenon became the fourth most important Christian pilgrimage destination in
13335-427: The room originally known as the Parthenon could have been a part of the temple known today as the Erechtheion . In 5th-century BC accounts of the building, the structure is simply called ὁ νᾱός ( ho naos ; lit. "the temple"). Douglas Frame writes that the name "Parthenon" was a nickname related to the statue of Athena Parthenos, and only appeared a century after construction. He contends that "Athena's temple
13462-709: The sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians would not be rebuilt, an oath from which the Athenians were only absolved with the Peace of Callias in 450. The cost of reconstructing Athens after the Persian sack is at least as likely a cause. The excavations of Bert Hodge Hill led him to propose the existence of a second Parthenon, begun in the period of Kimon after 468. Hill claimed that the Karrha limestone step Dörpfeld thought
13589-469: The soil to the underlying bedrock and float on roller bearings able to withstand a Richter scale magnitude 10 earthquake. As construction work neared completion, the operation to move the historic artifacts the 280-meter (310 yd ) distance from the Acropolis rock to the new museum started in October 2007, took four months, and required the use of three tower cranes to move the sculptures across
13716-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
13843-474: The stylobate, the dimensions of the base of the Parthenon are 69.5 by 30.9 metres (228 by 101 ft). The cella was 29.8 metres long by 19.2 metres wide (97.8 × 63.0 ft). On the exterior, the Doric columns measure 1.9 metres (6.2 ft) in diameter and are 10.4 metres (34 ft) high. The corner columns are slightly larger in diameter. The Parthenon had 46 outer columns and 23 inner columns in total, each column having 20 flutes. (A flute
13970-432: The temple. Some scholars, therefore, argue that the Parthenon should be viewed as a grand setting for a monumental votive statue rather than as a cult site. Archaeologist Joan Breton Connelly has argued for the coherency of the Parthenon's sculptural programme in presenting a succession of genealogical narratives that track Athenian identity through the ages: from the birth of Athena, through cosmic and epic battles, to
14097-465: The temples that were still standing. At some point in the fifth century, Athena's great cult image was looted by one of the emperors and taken to Constantinople , where it was later destroyed, possibly during the siege and sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 AD. The Parthenon was converted into a Christian church in the final decades of the fifth century to become
14224-426: The west front was built at a slightly higher level than that of the east front. It is not universally agreed what the intended effect of these "optical refinements" was. They may serve as a sort of "reverse optical illusion". As the Greeks may have been aware, two parallel lines appear to bow, or curve outward, when intersected by converging lines. In this case, the ceiling and floor of the temple may seem to bow in
14351-827: The years 446–440. The metopes of the east side of the Parthenon, above the main entrance, depict the Gigantomachy (the mythical battle between the Olympian gods and the Giants ). The metopes of the west end show the Amazonomachy (the mythical battle of the Athenians against the Amazons ). The metopes of the south side show the Thessalian Centauromachy (battle of the Lapiths aided by Theseus against
14478-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
14605-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
14732-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
14859-535: Was founded in 2003 while the Organization of the Museum was established in 2008. It opened to the public on 20 June 2009. More than 4,250 objects are exhibited over an area of 14,000 square metres. The first museum was on the Acropolis; it was completed in 1874 and underwent a moderate expansion in the 1950s. However, successive excavations on the Acropolis uncovered many new artifacts which significantly exceeded its original capacity. An additional motivation for
14986-434: Was indeed well known. At the time of the Latin occupation , it became for about 250 years a Roman Catholic church of Our Lady . During this period a tower, used either as a watchtower or bell tower and containing a spiral staircase, was constructed at the southwest corner of the cella, and vaulted tombs were built beneath the Parthenon's floor. The rediscovery of the Parthenon as an ancient monument dates back to
15113-417: Was made in the wall dividing the cella, which became the church's nave , and from the rear chamber, the church's narthex . The spaces between the columns of the opisthodomos and the peristyle were walled up, though a number of doorways still permitted access. Icons were painted on the walls, and many Christian inscriptions were carved into the Parthenon's columns. These renovations inevitably led to
15240-526: Was never officially called the Parthenon and she herself most likely never had the cult title parthénos ". The ancient architects Iktinos and Callicrates appear to have called the building Ἑκατόμπεδος ( Hekatómpedos ; lit. "the hundred footer") in their lost treatise on Athenian architecture. Harpocration wrote that some people used to call the Parthenon the " Hekatompedos ", not due to its size but because of its beauty and fine proportions. The first instance in which Parthenon definitely refers to
15367-562: Was no earlier than 495 BC, contradicting the early date given by Dörpfeld. He denied that there were two proto-Parthenons, and held that the only pre-Periclean temple was what Dörpfeld referred to as Parthenon II. Dinsmoor and Dörpfeld exchanged views in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1935. In the mid-5th century BC, when the Athenian Acropolis became the seat of the Delian League , Pericles initiated
15494-476: Was provided. This competition was won by the Italian architects, Manfredi Nicoletti and Lucio Passarelli. After delays throughout the 1990s, work on the construction of the museum based on this third design progressed to the stage of excavations for the foundations, but these were stopped due to apparently sensitive archaeological remains on the site, leading to annulment of the competition in 1999. In retrospect,
15621-497: Was revealed with the excavations of Panagiotis Kavvadias of 1885–1890. The findings of this dig allowed Wilhelm Dörpfeld , then director of the German Archaeological Institute , to assert that there existed a distinct substructure to the original Parthenon, called Parthenon I by Dörpfeld, not immediately below the present edifice as previously assumed. Dörpfeld's observation was that the three steps of
15748-404: Was the highest of Parthenon I was the lowest of the three steps of Parthenon II, whose stylobate dimensions Hill calculated at 23.51 by 66.888 metres (77.13 ft × 219.45 ft). One difficulty in dating the proto-Parthenon is that at the time of the 1885 excavation, the archaeological method of seriation was not fully developed; the careless digging and refilling of the site led to
15875-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
16002-420: Was won by New York–based architect, Bernard Tschumi , in collaboration with the Greek architect Michael Photiadis. Excavation has revealed two layers of modest, private roadside houses and workshops, one from the early Byzantine era and another from the classical era. Once the layout and stratigraphy of the findings were established, suitable locations for the foundation pillars were identified. These traverse
16129-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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