Older Parthenon
The Older Parthenon or Pre‐Parthenon, as it is frequently referred to,[1] constitutes the first endeavour to build a sanctuary for Athena Parthenos on the site of the present Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens. It was begun shortly after the battle of Marathon (c. 490–88 BC) upon a massive limestone foundation that extended and leveled the southern part of the Acropolis summit.[2] This building replaced a hekatompedon (meaning "hundred‐footer") and would have stood beside the archaic temple dedicated to Athena Polias.
The Old Parthenon was still under construction when the
If the original Parthenon was indeed destroyed in 480 BC, it invites the question of why the site was left a ruin for 33 years. One argument involves the oath sworn by the Greek allies before the battle of Plataea in 479 BC[7][8] declaring that the sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians would not be rebuilt, an oath the Athenians were only absolved from with the Peace of Callias in 450.[9] The mundane fact of the cost of reconstructing Athens after the Persian sack is at least as likely a cause. However the excavations of Bert Hodge Hill led him to propose the existence of a second Parthenon begun in the period of Kimon after 468 BC.[10] Hill claimed that the Karrha limestone step Dörpfeld took to be the highest of Parthenon I was in fact the lowest of the three steps of Parthenon II whose stylobate dimensions Hill calculated to be 23.51x66.888m.
One difficulty in dating the proto‐Parthenon is that at the time of the 1885
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Foundation of the Older Parthenon, below the platform of the newer Parthenon
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Older Parthenon column drum in the North wall of the Acropolis.
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Part of the archaeological remains called Perserschutt, or "Persian rubble": remnants of the destruction of Athens by the armies of Xerxes I. Photographed in 1866, just after excavation.
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Extant foundations of the Earlier and Later Parthenon
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Column drums of the destroyed Older Parthenon, reused in building-up the North wall of the Acropolis, by Themistocles.
See also
References
- ^ Ioanna Venieri. "Acropolis of Athens". Retrieved 2007-05-04.
- ^ Hurwit, The Parthenon and the Temple of Zeus, 135
- ^ Herodotus, Histories, 8.53
- ^ W Dörpfeld, Der aeltere Parthenon, Ath. Mitt, XVII, 1892, pp. 158–89.
- ^ W. Dörpfeld, Die Zeit des alteren Parthenon, AM 27, 1902, pp. 379–416.
- ^ P. Kavvadis, G. Kawerau, Die Ausgrabung der Acropolis vom Jahre 1885 bis zum Jahre 1890, 1906.
- ^ N. M. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions II, 1948, no. 204, lines 46–51.
- ^ The authenticity of this is disputed, however; P. Siewert, Der Eid von Plataia (1972) 98–102.
- ^ Minott Kerr, "The Sole Witness": The Periclean Parthenon Archived 2007-06-08 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bert Hodge Hill, The Older Parthenon, American Journal of Archaeology, XVI, 1912, 535–58
- ^ B. Graef, E. Langlotz, Die Antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen, Berlin 1925–33
- ^ W. Dinsmoor, The Date of the Older Parthenon, American Journal of Archaeology, XXXVIII, 1934, 408–48
- ^ W. Dörpfeld, Parthenon I, II, III, American Journal of Archaeology, XXXIX, 1935, 497–507.
- ^ W. Dinsmoor, American Journal of Archaeology, XXXIX, 1935, 508–9