49 Fun Facts About Parthenon

The Parthenon stands in the capital of which modern country?

It crowns the Acropolis of Athens alongside the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike.

In which year BC did construction of the Parthenon begin?

The Delian League was at the height of its power, and the building was substantially complete by 432 as the Peloponnesian War loomed.

Which Athenian statesman initiated the building programme that produced the Parthenon?

The project lasted the whole second half of the fifth century and also produced the Propylaea, Erechtheion and Temple of Athena Nike.

The Parthenon's architects were Callicrates and which other man?

In their lost treatise they apparently called the building the Hekatompedos, the hundred-footer.

Which sculptor supervised the Parthenon's construction and its sculptural decoration?

He also made the colossal gold-and-ivory statue of Athena inside, dedicated in 439 or 438 BC.

The Parthenon is built of marble from which mountain?

The quarrymen knew how to work around the numerous faults in Pentelic marble, and the architects rejected substandard blocks.

The Parthenon's gable ends have how many columns, instead of the six usual for Doric temples?

The octastyle front and unusually wide cella make it unique among mainland Doric temples; there are seventeen columns down each side.

The Parthenon's platform bulges upward at the centre by roughly how much over its 70-metre length?

The 1/700 curve is echoed in the entablature; Francis Penrose's 1851 optical-correction theory remains the leading explanation.

The slight swelling of a column that tapers toward the top is known by what term?

The word comes from a Greek verb meaning to stretch tight; the Parthenon's version is subtler than earlier temples at Paestum.

The Parthenon's outer columns belong to which classical order?

The order's fluted columns stand directly on the platform with no base; Vitruvius linked it to masculine proportions.

The word Parthenon comes from the Greek parthenos, meaning what?

The name was later applied to the Virgin Mary when the temple became a church in the sixth century.

The Athena Parthenos statue was chryselephantine, meaning it was made of what?

The plates were fixed over a core probably of cypress wood; the statue vanished at an unknown date in the first millennium.

According to Thucydides, Pericles told Athenians the Parthenon statue's gold reserve contained how much pure gold?

That is roughly a tonne of gold, and it was all removable.

The back room of the Parthenon's cella held the treasury of which alliance?

The alliance against Persia gradually became the Athenian Empire, and its funds helped pay for the temple.

How many carved metopes originally ran around the Parthenon's exterior?

Fourteen on each end and thirty-two down each side; having every one carved was unprecedented and never repeated.

The metopes on the east side, above the main entrance, depict which mythical battle?

The other three sides show the Amazonomachy, the fall of Troy and the Centauromachy; the southern ones survive best.

The Parthenon frieze around the cella was about how long when complete?

About 80% survives, with 378 human figures and 245 animals in a procession usually read as the Panathenaic festival.

The frieze was a novelty for a Doric temple because it was carved in which order?

A continuous Ionic band replaced the Doric metopes that would have been expected over the porch.

Per Pausanias, the Parthenon's west pediment showed Athena's contest with which god?

The two fought to be patron of Athens; the west pediment figures have fully finished backs that no one could ever have seen.

The Older Parthenon was still under construction when which invaders sacked Athens in 480 BC?

The Greeks swore at Plataea not to rebuild sanctuaries the invaders destroyed, which may explain the 33-year wait.

In the late sixth century AD the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to whom?

The building was turned to face east, an apse was added, and iconoclasts mutilated the metopes on three sides.

After the Ottoman conquest of Athens in the 1450s the Parthenon became what?

One account says Mehmed II ordered the conversion as punishment for an Athenian plot against Ottoman rule.

Francesco Morosini, whose bombardment blew up the Parthenon, went on to hold which office?

He ruled Venice from 1688 to 1694 and also carried off the Piraeus Lion to the Venetian Arsenal.

What happened when Morosini's men tried to remove the west pediment's horses in 1688?

The Poseidon had been the largest sculpture on the pediment.

Agents of which British nobleman removed about half the surviving Parthenon sculptures in 1801-12?

He said he had permission from the Ottoman authorities; the legality is still disputed.

In 1816 a House of Commons committee recommended buying the marbles for how much?

Parliament approved the purchase by 82 votes to 30 and passed them to the British Museum on condition they stay together.

Which poet likened Elgin's removal of the sculptures to vandalism or looting?

Keats, by contrast, wrote a sonnet on seeing the marbles that praised their grandeur.

In which year did the Greek government formally ask Britain to return the marbles and list the dispute with UNESCO?

UNESCO called on the UK in 2021 to settle it at intergovernmental level.

As of 2025, how many frieze blocks did the British Museum hold, against 40 in Athens?

The frieze was made of 114 blocks in all; fragments are scattered among six other institutions.

Four Parthenon fragments have been repatriated to Athens: one from Sicily and three from where?

The Louvre, the National Museum of Denmark and Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum still hold pieces.

The new Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, was designed by which architect?

It stands on the old Makrygianni barracks site opposite the Theatre of Dionysus and was built around light and movement.

The Greek committee overseeing restoration of the Acropolis was established in which year?

An earthquake damaged the east facade in 1981; the fully restored west pediment was unveiled in June 2026.

A full-scale replica of the Parthenon stands in which American city?

The city's nickname, the Athens of the South, inspired its choice as centrepiece of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

The Tennessee replica's copy of the Athena Parthenos statue was completed in which year?

Sculptor Alan LeQuire made it; the temporary 1897 building was rebuilt in concrete between 1920 and 1931.

The Athena Parthenos statue held a spear and a large round shield, next to which sacred creature?

The room she stood in was about a hundred Athenian feet long with a ceiling 12.5 metres high.

The Parthenon was built partly in thanksgiving for the Greek victory over which enemy?

Greek writers even claimed Persian swords were among the treasures stored inside.

One theory holds that four young girls wove which garment for Athena each year in the Parthenon room?

The arrephoroi's woven robe was presented to the goddess at the Panathenaic festival.

What does Hekatompedos, the ancient architects' name for the Parthenon, mean?

The statue room was about a hundred Athenian feet long.

The Doric column shaft carries how many parallel flutes, each meeting at a sharp edge?

The sharp edge is called an arris; Ionic columns have 24 flutes separated by flat fillets.

The Doric triglyphs and guttae are thought to be stone memories of what?

They are skeuomorphs from the timber temples that came before stone ones.

The Mycenaean wall around the Acropolis is described by which term for its huge stones?

It ran 760 metres, stood up to 10 metres high and was up to 6 metres thick.

The Parthenon's dimensions are often wrongly claimed to follow which mathematical proportion?

Ernst Berger instead found a recurring unit of 858 mm underlying the main dimensions.

The Parthenon frieze contains how many human figures?

There are 245 animals as well, spread across 114 blocks in two parallel processions.

Which 450 BC agreement lifted the Athenians' oath not to rebuild the sanctuaries the invaders destroyed?

The oath was sworn before the Battle of Plataea in 479; construction of the new Parthenon began three years after the peace.

Which French artist sketched the Parthenon's sculptures in 1674, 13 years before the explosion?

His drawings are sometimes the only evidence of sculptures later destroyed, including the missing south metopes.

Which pirates sacked Athens in 276 AD, destroying most public buildings including the Parthenon?

A major fire had already gutted the roof and interior shortly after 250 AD; repairs came in the fourth century.

Which group commissioned Stuart and Revett's first measured drawings of the Parthenon?

The drawings appeared in 1787 in the second volume of Antiquities of Athens Measured and Delineated.

From which hill was the Venetian mortar round fired that blew up the Parthenon in 1687?

The Ottomans had been warned by a 1656 explosion at the Propylaea yet still stored gunpowder in the temple.

Who in 1436 became the first person since antiquity to describe the Parthenon and use its ancient name?

Earlier travellers had called the building the church of the Virgin Mary; he called it the temple of the goddess Athena.