Elgin Marbles — The Parthenon Sculptures – Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

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Elgin Marbles — The Parthenon Sculptures – Rick Steves’ Travel Blog


Elgin Marbles — The Parthenon Sculptures – Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

As Europe begins opening as much as vacationers once more, it’s extra thrilling than ever to consider the cultural treasures that await. For me, one of many nice joys of journey is having in-person encounters with nice artwork — which I’ve collected in a guide referred to as Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s considered one of my favorites:   

For 2,000 years, the Parthenon temple in Athens remained nearly completely intact. But in 1687, with Athens underneath siege, the Parthenon was used to retailer an enormous cache of gunpowder. (See the place that is going?) Pow! A large explosion despatched big chunks of the Parthenon all over the place. Then in 1801, the British ambassador, Lord Elgin, carted probably the most treasured surviving bits of carved stone off to London, the place they wow guests to this present day — the “Elgin Marbles.” 

London’s British Museum reveals off the statues and reduction panels that after adorned the highest of the Parthenon’s now-bare exterior. The reliefs, carved in about 430 BC, are a part of the 500-foot-long frieze that after ringed the temple. They present 56 snapshots from historical Athens’ most festive event: a grand parade up the Acropolis hill to have a good time town’s birthday. 

The parade begins with males on horseback, struggling to rein of their spirited steeds. Next come musicians enjoying flutes, whereas girls dance. Distinguished residents journey in chariots, children scamper alongside, and clergymen lead ceremonial oxen for sacrifice. At the center of the procession is a gaggle of teenage women. Dressed in elegant pleated robes, they shuffle alongside carrying presents for the gods, like incense burners and jugs of wine. 

The women have been entrusted with the parade’s most vital present: a folded-up gown. As the parade culminated contained in the Parthenon, the ladies symbolically offered the gown to the temple’s 40-foot-tall gold-and-ivory statue of Athena.  

The realism is unbelievable: the boys’s well-defined muscle tissues, the horses’ bulging veins. The women’ intricately pleated robes make them look as steady as fluted columns, however they step out naturally — the human kind rising from the stone. These panels have been initially painted in daring colours. Amid the bustle of particulars, the frieze has one unifying factor — all of the heads are on the identical degree, headed the identical path, making a single ribbon of humanity across the Parthenon. 

The Parthenon’s important entrance was adorned with a grandiose scene depicting the second when town of Athens was born. These statues nestled contained in the triangular-shaped pediment over the door. It reveals the Greek gods lounging round at an Olympian banquet. Suddenly, there’s a stir of exercise. The gods flip towards a miraculous occasion: Zeus has simply had his head break up open to disclose Athena, the image of town. (Unfortunately, that key scene is lacking — it’s the empty area on the peak of the triangle.)  

These pediment statues are lifelike and three-dimensional, reclining in utterly pure and relaxed poses. The girls’s robes cling and rumple naturally, revealing their good anatomy beneath.  

A remaining set of reduction panels (the so-called metopes) depict a Greek legend that sums up your entire Parthenon. They present the primeval Greek folks brawling with brutish centaurs. It’s a free-for-all of hair-pulling, throat-grabbing, kicks to the shin, and knees to the groin. Finally, the people get the higher hand — symbolizing how the civilized Athenians triumphed over their barbarian neighbors. 

In actual life, the Greeks rallied from a brutal struggle, and capped their restoration by constructing the Parthenon. The treasured Elgin Marbles signify the cream of the crop of that best of Greek temples. And they seize that second in human historical past when civilization triumphed over barbarism, rational thought over animal urges, and order over chaos. 

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