Passing through the white marble ceremonial gateway of the Propylaea on the western slope of the Acropolis limestone plateau, 156 meters above sea level, both the ancient pilgrim and the modern visitor suddenly behold the monumental mass of the Parthenon rising against the clear sky of Attica. Mediterranean sunlight striking its sharply fluted Doric columns brings out the warm honey-gold hue of Pentelic marble caused by natural trace iron, transforming the entire temple into a colossal sculpture glowing above the city of Athens from the foothills of Mount Hymettus to the shores of the Saronic Gulf.
Begun in 447 BCE under the leadership of the statesman Pericles as a thanksgiving offering to the patron goddess Athena following the Greco-Persian Wars, the Parthenon embodies the geometric intellect, stone-working mastery, and civic religion of classical Athens. Having endured more than two and a half millennia of historical transformation, serving successively as a Greek temple, the Byzantine Church of the Virgin Mary, a Latin Catholic cathedral during the Crusades, and an Ottoman mosque, the monument retains its commanding presence atop the sacred rock.
ICivic worship of the patron goddess Athena Parthenos and polis identity
In the religious life of ancient Greece, every independent city-state (polis) bound its destiny, laws, and communal prosperity to a supreme tutelary deity (polias or poliouchos), playing a role closely comparable to the Eastern traditions of ancestral veneration, founding heroes, and city-guardian deities. For the inhabitants of Attica, the sovereign guardian of the state was the goddess Athena, born fully armed from the head of Zeus, personifying practical wisdom (metis), just defensive strategy, civic law, and skilled crafts such as weaving, pottery, shipbuilding, and metallurgy.
Across the summit plateau of the Acropolis, the worship of Athena was articulated through distinct sacred epithets tied to specific functions. While the Erechtheion on the northern side of the rock housed the ancient olive-wood cult statue (xoanon) of Athena Polias (Athena Guardian of the City) alongside the shrines of mythical ancestor-kings such as Cecrops and Erechtheus, the great temple at the center of the plateau honored Athena Parthenos, meaning Athena the Virgin or the Inviolable Maiden. The name Parthenon originally designated only the western chamber of the building (associated with the young noblewomen who served the goddess), before coming to denote the entire temple by the fourth century BCE.
According to the founding myth carved directly onto the western pediment of the Parthenon, in the primordial age of Attica the sea god Poseidon and the wisdom goddess Athena contended for patronage of the city before the arbitration of the snake-bodied ancestor-king Cecrops and the twelve Olympian gods. Poseidon struck the bedrock of the Acropolis with his trident to bring forth a salt-water spring symbolizing naval power, whereas Athena planted her spear in the earth to grow the first cultivated olive tree (Moria), providing oil for illumination, nourishing food, and an emblem of enduring peace and agricultural prosperity. King Cecrops and the native citizens chose Athena's gift, named their city Athenai in her honor, and consecrated the high rock as her eternal sanctuary.
The chryselephantine cult statue of Athena Parthenos by Phidias
The spiritual heart of the eastern cella (Hekatompedos Naos, the Hundred-Foot Hall) was the colossal cult statue of Athena Parthenos sculpted by the master artist Phidias (circa 480 to 430 BCE) and dedicated at the Great Panathenaia of 438 BCE. Unlike the outdoor bronze statue of Athena Promachos (Athena who fights in the front line), which stood some 9 meters tall between the Propylaea and the Erechtheion so sailors rounding Cape Sounion could see the tip of her spear gleaming in the sun, the indoor Athena Parthenos was crafted using the chryselephantine technique of gold and ivory mounted over a cypress-wood core.
According to the detailed descriptions of the second-century CE geographer Pausanias and Pliny the Elder, the statue together with its marble pedestal stood 26 cubits high (approximately 11.5 to 12 meters). Exposed flesh on the face, arms, and feet was fashioned from thinly planed plaques of ivory, while the entire peplos robe, the breastplate aegis bearing the head of Medusa, and the triple-crested helmet adorned with a sphinx and winged Pegasi were clad in removable plates of pure gold that could be detached and weighed for state audits. The historian Thucydides records in his History of the Peloponnesian War (Book II, 13) that the removable gold on the statue weighed 40 or 44 Attic talents, equivalent to roughly 1,140 kilograms of bullion, serving simultaneously as the sacred adornment of the goddess and the ultimate financial reserve of Athens and the Delian League.
The posture of the Athena Parthenos statue expressed the fifth-century Athenian ideal of victory united with civilized order. Standing upright with her left leg slightly relaxed, the goddess extended her right hand holding a winged figure of Victory (Nike) some 4 cubits (nearly 1.8 meters) tall offering a wreath. Her left hand rested lightly upon the rim of a circular shield over 4 meters in diameter, whose exterior was carved in relief with the battle of Greeks and Amazons (Amazonomachy) and whose interior was painted with the battle of Olympian gods and Giants (Gigantomachy). Coiled beneath the shield stood the sacred guardian serpent Erichthonios, embodying the ancestral kings born from the very soil of Attica (autochthony).
IIHistorical trajectory: From Mycenaean citadel to universal heritage monument
The limestone summit of the Acropolis was inhabited from the Neolithic period (fourth millennium BCE) thanks to its sheer natural cliffs and freshwater springs issuing from caves along its lower slopes. During the Late Bronze Age Mycenaean civilization (fourteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE), a fortified royal palace centered on a megaron hall and encircled by massive limestone boulders (Cyclopean walls measuring 4.5 to 6 meters thick) rose atop the rock, serving both as the seat of Mycenaean kings and as the earliest citadel sanctuary of the palace goddess.
In the Archaic period (sixth century BCE), under the rule of Peisistratos and his sons, a large limestone hundred-foot temple (Hekatompedon or Ur-Parthenon) was erected on the southern side of the plateau alongside the reorganization of the Great Panathenaic Festival in 566 BCE. Following the decisive Athenian victory over the Persian army at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, the Athenians began constructing an ambitious new temple entirely of Pentelic marble on the same site, known to archaeologists as the Older Parthenon or Pre-Parthenon. When its lower column drums had just been set in place, the Persian army of King Xerxes I invaded Attica in 480 BCE and burned every sanctuary on the Acropolis to the ground.
- 490 - 480 BCEConstruction of the Older Parthenon and the Persian destructionAfter the victory at Marathon in 490 BCE, Athenians began building the marble Older Parthenon over an immense limestone foundation platform. In 480 BCE, the Persian forces of King Xerxes I occupied Athens and burned the unfinished scaffolded temple.
- 454 BCETransfer of the Delian League treasury to the AcropolisOn the initiative of Pericles, the federal treasury of the Delian League of Aegean city-states was moved from the sacred island of Delos to the custody of Athena in Athens, with one-sixtieth of the annual tribute (Aparche) dedicated to the goddess.
- 447 - 438 BCEConstruction of the Classical Parthenon and dedication of the cult statueArchitects Ictinus and Callicrates began work on the new temple in 447 BCE under the general artistic direction of Phidias. The architectural shell and the gold-and-ivory statue of Athena Parthenos were dedicated at the Great Panathenaia in the summer of 438 BCE.
- 438 - 432 BCECompletion of the frieze and pedimental sculpturesThe workshops of Phidias completed the carving and installation of the free-standing marble statues in the eastern and western pediments in 432 BCE, just prior to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.
- 6th century CEConversion into the Byzantine Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of AthensDuring the Byzantine era, the temple was converted into the Christian church of the Parthenos Maria (Theotokos Atheniotissa). Its entrance was reversed to the west, an apse was built at the eastern end, and in 1018 Emperor Basil II worshipped here in thanksgiving.
- 1204 and 1458Latin Catholic Cathedral and Ottoman MosqueFollowing the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Frankish dukes turned the building into the Latin Catholic Cathedral of Notre-Dame. After Sultan Mehmed II entered Athens in 1458, it was converted into a mosque with a minaret added at the southwest corner.
- 26/09/1687Explosion of the gunpowder magazine during the Venetian siegeDuring the Morean War, a mortar shell fired by Republic of Venice forces under General Francesco Morosini struck the gunpowder magazine stored inside the Parthenon by the Ottoman garrison, blowing out the roof, cella walls, and 28 columns.
- 1975 and 1987Scientific Acropolis restoration program and UNESCO inscriptionThe Committee for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments (ESMA, later YSMA) was established in 1975 to conduct scientific anastylosis using original blocks, freshly quarried Pentelic marble, and non-corrosive titanium clamps. In 1987, the Acropolis was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
For more than three decades after 480 BCE, the Athenians left the burned ruins of the Older Parthenon untouched in accordance with the Oath of Plataea, by which the Greeks swore not to rebuild temples destroyed by the Persians as a permanent memorial of the invasion. Fire-scarred marble column drums from the unfinished temple were built into the exterior face of the northern defensive wall of the Acropolis as a war memorial visible from the Agora below, while broken archaic statues of maidens (Korai) and youths (Kouroi) were ceremonially buried in sacred pits (Perserschutt) within the rock so they would remain forever in the possession of the goddess.
Only after peace with Persia was concluded around 449 BCE did Pericles place before the popular Assembly (Ekklesia) his comprehensive plan to rebuild the sanctuaries of the Acropolis. Every annual financial account of the fifteen-year construction of the Parthenon (447 to 432 BCE) was chiseled onto marble stelae by the board of building overseers (epistatai) and erected on the Acropolis for public inspection, providing direct epigraphic testimony to the fiscal accountability of classical Athenian democracy.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, between 1801 and 1812, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, removed and shipped to London roughly half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, including 15 metopes, some 75 meters of the continuous frieze, and 17 pedimental figures. The sculptures that remained in Greece are conserved and displayed in exact spatial alignment with the temple on the top floor of the Acropolis Museum at the southern foot of the hill.
IIIOctastyle Doric architecture, optical refinements, and classical sculptural program
According to the Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise Ten Books on Architecture (De Architectura, Book VII), the chief architect Ictinus authored a theoretical book (together with Carpion) explaining the mathematical proportions of the Parthenon, while the architect Callicrates directed practical execution on site. Departing from the standard classical Doric temple plan of 6 columns across the front and rear facades (hexastyle, as seen in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia or the Hephaisteion overlooking the Athenian Agora), Ictinus expanded the Parthenon into an octastyle peripteral plan with 8 columns across the short ends and 17 columns along the flanks (following the canonical $2n + 1$ formula where $8 \times 2 + 1 = 17$).
The temple rests upon a massive limestone foundation platform capped by a three-stepped marble base whose top step (stylobate) measures 69.5 meters long by 30.9 meters wide. Roughly 100,000 tons of fine-grained white marble were quarried from Mount Pentelicus 16 kilometers northeast of Athens, hauled on wagons along a paved slipway, and hoisted onto the rock with pulley cranes. The ashlar wall blocks and column drums were assembled completely without mortar, ground to hair-thin contact along their outer margins (anathyrosis), and locked together internally with iron H-clamps and dowels encased in poured lead to prevent rust and absorb seismic shocks.
The crowning architectural achievement of the Parthenon is that virtually no strictly straight geometric line exists anywhere in the building: every horizontal and vertical element incorporates subtle curvatures known as optical refinements designed to counteract visual illusions that make a large rectilinear structure appear to sag at the center or lean outward. First, the marble platform (stylobate) curves gently upward toward its center, rising about 6 centimeters along the short eastern and western ends and about 11 centimeters along the long northern and southern flanks, a curvature repeated in the entablature above. Second, all 46 outer columns (standing 10.43 meters high) exhibit a slight swelling in diameter at roughly two-fifths of their height (entasis, curving outward by about 1.75 centimeters), imparting the elastic vitality of living muscle bearing the weight of the marble roof.
Third, the entire outer colonnade and the walls of the inner cella incline slightly inward toward the center of the building by 6.5 to 7 centimeters, if the axes of the four corner columns were extended upward into the sky, they would meet at a point roughly 2.4 kilometers above the temple. Fourth, because the four corner columns stand silhouetted against the bright sky and would otherwise appear thinner to the human eye than columns backed by shaded walls, the architects made the corner columns about 4.3 centimeters thicker in lower diameter (1.948 meters versus 1.905 meters) and contracted the intercolumnar spacing adjacent to the corners by roughly 25 centimeters.
Synthesis of the Doric and Ionic orders and layout of the inner cella
Within the surrounding Doric colonnade (peristasis), the walled core of the temple (sekos or cella) was divided by a solid cross-wall into two back-to-back chambers. The larger eastern hall was the Hekatompedos Naos (measuring 29.8 meters long by 19.2 meters wide), inside which a two-tiered Doric colonnade arranged in a Greek Pi (Π) shape framed three sides of Phidias's colossal statue of Athena Parthenos. Immediately in front of the statue lay a shallow basin paved in dark marble filled with water, which reflected morning sunlight upward onto the statue while maintaining ambient humidity to keep the ivory plaques from cracking.
The shorter western chamber was the Parthenon proper (or Opisthodomos), which housed sacred votive offerings, Persian war spoils (such as the silver-footed throne of Xerxes), and the silver chests of the Delian League treasury. To support the ceiling of this high room without crowding the floor space, Ictinus introduced four slender columns with volute capitals of the Ionic order rather than two-tiered Doric columns. This harmonious marriage of the austere mainland Doric order with the graceful Aegean Ionic order culminated in the continuous 160-meter Ionic frieze running around the top of the outer cella wall.
Comprising 46 outer columns (8 on the east and west ends, 17 on the north and south flanks) and 12 inner porch columns (Prostasis). Each column is built of 10 to 12 Pentelic marble drums carved with 20 sharp flutes, standing 10.43 meters tall with a base diameter of 1.905 meters (1.948 meters at the corners).
Set between the triglyphs of the outer entablature and carved in bold high relief depicting four mythical battles symbolizing the triumph of civilized order over chaos: the Gigantomachy (East), Centauromachy (South), Amazonomachy (West), and the Sack of Troy (North).
Running continuously for 159.4 meters (1 meter high) around the upper exterior wall of the cella, carved in low relief with 378 human and divine figures and more than 200 horses depicting the Panathenaic Procession presenting the sacred woven peplos before the twelve Olympian gods.
Around 50 larger-than-life statues carved fully in the round occupying the two triangular gables. The East Pediment portrayed the miraculous birth of Athena from the head of Zeus at dawn, while the West Pediment depicted the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the land of Attica.
The eastern hall featured a Pi-shaped two-tiered Doric colonnade framing the pedestal of the 12-meter gold-and-ivory Athena Parthenos, the western chamber (Opisthodomos) held four tall Ionic columns supporting the roof over the state treasury.
Surviving twelfth-century Christian wall paintings on the western marble walls of the cella and the base of the spiral staircase tower at the southwest corner, documenting more than a millennium of medieval liturgical use.
IVThe lie of the land and sacred orientation
Ancient Greek polytheism did not employ the terminology of East Asian geomancy, but sited and oriented its sanctuaries (temenos) according to cosmological principles tied to solar cycles, sacred mountain topography, and the placement of the open-air sacrificial altar (bomos). By ancient Hellenic convention, the main doorway of the cella and the facade of the temple faced East (aligned with the rising sun on the festival birthday of the deity in the local civic calendar), so that when the massive bronze doors were swung open at dawn on the feast day, the first rays of morning light cresting the eastern mountains shone directly onto the golden cult statue inside, while priests officiating at the outdoor altar to the east looked westward toward both sacrifice and deity. The following analysis uses the lens of traditional East Asian landform geomancy to examine the natural topography of the Attic basin and the citadel rock of the Acropolis.
Viewed across the macro-topography of the Attic peninsula at coordinates 37.9715 degrees North and 23.7266 degrees East, the basin of Athens forms a classic qi-gathering amphitheater enclosed on three sides by limestone and marble mountain ranges and open on the fourth side to the sea. To the north and northeast rise Mount Parnitha (1,413 meters) and Mount Pentelicus (1,109 meters), acting as the ancestral mountain and lesser ancestral mountain sending their rocky dragon vein down into the plain, to the southeast stands Mount Hymettus (1,026 meters) as a protective barrier screen, to the west curves the ridge of Mount Aegaleo. Rising independently from the center of this basin is a Cretaceous limestone ridge that forms the pointed cone of Mount Lycabettus (277 meters) to the northeast and the flat-topped citadel plateau of the Acropolis (156 meters above sea level, measuring roughly 300 meters long by 150 meters wide) at the heart of the city. In traditional landform classification, while the sharp peak of Lycabettus resembles a Fire-element brush-tip mountain, the flat-topped, sheer-walled rock of the Acropolis represents a quintessential Earth-element golden plateau (Earth tinh kim bàn), a sovereign throne commanding the entire plain.
In terms of water courses and flanking guardians, the foot of the ancient Acropolis was embraced by two streams rising in the northern and eastern mountains and flowing southwestward into Phaleron Bay on the Saronic Gulf: the Ilissos River curving along the southern and southeastern slopes of the rock, and the Eridanos River flowing past the Agora on the northern slope before joining the Cephissus River. To the west and southwest of the Acropolis stand three lower hills forming a protective chain of front screens and flanking attendants: the Areopagus (Hill of Ares, seat of the ancient high court), the Pnyx (meeting place of the democratic Assembly), and the Hill of the Muses (Philopappos Hill). Perched at the highest southern crest of the Acropolis plateau, the Parthenon itself sits backed to the West-Southwest and facing East-Northeast (its longitudinal axis oriented at an azimuth of approximately 77.7 degrees). This facade directly receives the morning vitality rising between Mount Pentelicus and Mount Hymettus during the summer solstice and the festival month of Hekatombaion, while its southern flank overlooks the vast shimmering expanse of the Saronic Gulf as its outer bright hall (Outer Bright Hall (Wai Ming Tang)).
VAncient civic festivals honoring the goddess Athena on the Acropolis
In the ancient lunisolar calendar of Athens (the Attic calendar, whose new year began on the first new moon following the summer solstice), civic life, poetic competition, and state ritual revolved around the sacred festivals offered to Athena atop the Acropolis. Foremost among them was the Panathenaia, celebrating the birthday of the goddess. While the Lesser Panathenaia was celebrated annually, every fourth year (in the third year of each Olympiad) the city staged the Great Panathenaia (Panathenaia ta Megala) spanning eight to twelve days at the close of the month of Hekatombaion (corresponding to late July or August).
Preceding the main feast day, competitions in musical performance, recitations of the Homeric epics (rhapsodes), equestrian and chariot races, athletics, wrestling, and armed shield dancing (pyrrhiche) were held across Athens. Victors were awarded painted two-handled clay jars (Panathenaic amphorae) bearing the figure of Athena on one side and the contest event on the other, each filled with roughly 36 liters of sacred olive oil pressed from the state-owned Moria olive groves. On the eve of the 28th of Hekatombaion, an all-night festival vigil (Pannychis) featured choral songs by maidens and a relay torch race (Lampadephoria) carrying sacred fire from the altar of Prometheus at the Academy up to the Acropolis.
At dawn on the 28th of Hekatombaion, the grand sacred procession (Pompe) set out from the Dipylon Gate in the Kerameikos quarter, marched through the Agora along the Panathenaic Way, and ascended to the Propylaea of the Acropolis. The centerpiece of the procession was the saffron-dyed woolen robe (peplos) woven over nine months by the noble maidens (Ergastinai and Arrephoroi) with scenes of Athena vanquishing the Giant Enceladus, during the quadrennial Great Panathenaia, a colossal tapestry peplos was hoisted like a sail upon the mast of a wheeled ceremonial ship rolled through the city streets to the foot of the rock. This very procession of cavalry horsemen, chariots, elders bearing olive branches (Thallophoroi), maidens carrying ritual baskets (Kanephoroi), aulos and kithara musicians, and sacrificial cattle was immortalized by Phidias across the 160-meter Ionic frieze of the Parthenon.
| Festival name | Date (Ancient Attic / Gregorian calendar) | Principal rituals and liturgical significance on the Acropolis |
|---|---|---|
| Great and Lesser Panathenaia (Παναθήναια) | 28th day of Hekatombaion (late July or August) | Celebrated the birthday of the goddess Athena with musical, rhapsodic, athletic, and equestrian games, a night torch race, and the grand procession from the Dipylon Gate up the Acropolis to present the newly woven peplos robe and offer a sacrifice of one hundred cattle (Hekatombe) at the great eastern altar. |
| Chalkeia Festival of Weaving and Metallurgy (Χάλκεια) | Last day of Pyanepsion (late October or November) | Honored Athena Ergane (Patroness of Crafts) and the smith-god Hephaestus. Priestesses and the young noble Arrephoroi girls formally set up the warp threads on the sacred loom to begin weaving the new peplos robe for the next Panathenaia. |
| Plynteria and Kallynteria Purification Rites (Πλυντήρια) | Late Thargelion (late May or June) | Rites of sweeping and purifying the sanctuary (Kallynteria) and removing the garments and ornaments of the ancient olive-wood statue of Athena Polias, which was escorted in secrecy down to the shore at Phaleron to be bathed in seawater by priestesses of the Praxiergidai clan. |
| Mystery Rite of the Arrephoria (Ἀρρηφόρια) | Month of Skirophorion (June or July) | Nocturnal rite concluding the one-year service of two young Arrephoroi girls (aged 7 to 11) residing on the Acropolis. Carrying sealed baskets containing unrevealed sacred objects on their heads, they descended an underground stairway to the sanctuary of Aphrodite in the Gardens and brought back wrapped tokens. |
| Festival of Synoikia (Συνοίκια) | 16th day of Hekatombaion (July) | Commemorated the mythical unification (synoecism) of the scattered towns and villages of Attica by the hero-king Theseus into a single political and religious commonwealth centered at Athens under the protection of Athena. |
| Byzantine Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos | August 15 (Medieval Byzantine liturgical calendar) | Throughout the medieval era from the sixth century to 1458, when the Parthenon served as the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of Athens (Panagia Atheniotissa), this feast drew Christian pilgrims from across southern Greece to the summit of the Acropolis. |
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Đồi thành Acropolis, Athens 105 58, vùng Attica, Hy Lạp (Ακρόπολη Αθηνών)
- Getting there
- From central Athens (Syntagma or Monastiraki Square), take Metro Line 2 (Red Line) to Akropoli Station, then walk 5 to 10 minutes along the tree-lined pedestrian promenade of Dionysiou Areopagitou Street to reach either the southeastern entrance (near the Theater of Dionysus) or the main western entrance below the Propylaea.
- Coordinates
- 37.9715, 23.7266
When stepping onto the limestone summit of the Acropolis and approaching the Parthenon, visitors must strictly observe archaeological conservation regulations: never touch, sit upon, or step onto any marble pedestal, column drum, or architectural fragment lying around the monument, and never remove even the smallest stone from the plateau. Because the ancient limestone and marble pathways have been polished smooth by millions of footsteps over the centuries and can be extremely slippery, please wear flat shoes with firm grip, bring a wide-brimmed hat, and carry drinking water, as the open summit offers no shade from the intense Mediterranean sun.
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?Quick Questions
What does the name Parthenon mean and which deity did the temple honor?
The word Parthenon derives from the ancient Greek noun parthenos (meaning virgin or unmarried maiden), referring to the cult epithet Athena Parthenos of the goddess of wisdom, handicrafts, and defensive strategy who protected the city-state of Athens. Originally the name designated only the western chamber of the building, but from the fourth century BCE onward it came to denote the entire temple on the Acropolis.
Why does the Parthenon contain virtually no straight lines in its architecture?
Architects Ictinus and Callicrates applied subtle optical refinements throughout the marble structure to correct visual illusions of the human eye. The three-stepped platform curves gently upward toward its center (rising about 6 cm on the short ends and 11 cm on the long sides), the columns swell slightly along their shafts (entasis), the entire outer colonnade leans inward by about 7 cm, and the four corner columns are built over 4 cm thicker than standard columns.
What happened to Phidias's gold-and-ivory statue of Athena Parthenos?
The nearly 12-meter-tall statue crafted of ivory and roughly 1,140 kilograms of removable gold plates by Phidias had its gold sheets stripped in 296 BCE by the ruler Lachares to pay troops, was later re-plated and repaired after a second-century BCE fire, and was eventually removed to Constantinople in the fifth century CE before being lost. Its appearance is preserved through the detailed account of Pausanias and ancient miniature marble copies such as the Varvakeion Athena in Athens.
How did the Parthenon lose its roof and central walls?
The ancient marble temple stood largely intact for more than 2,100 years across the Classical Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and early Ottoman periods. On September 26, 1687, during the Morean War between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, a mortar shell fired by Venetian forces under General Francesco Morosini penetrated the roof and ignited the gunpowder magazine that the Ottoman garrison had stored inside the cella, blowing out the roof, interior walls, and 28 columns.
Where are the original sculptures of the Parthenon preserved today?
The surviving sculptures of the Parthenon are primarily divided between two institutions: roughly half are displayed in exact orientation to the temple in the glass-walled Parthenon Gallery on the top floor of the Acropolis Museum in Athens (directly below the southern slope of the rock), and the other half (removed by Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1812) is housed in the British Museum in London, with smaller fragments in the Louvre and the Vatican Museums.