Parthenon. East frieze. Block 7 (VII). Fragments

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Provision of image

Inventory number

Ακρ. 1258

Artist

Pheidias' workshop

Category

Architectural sculpture

Period

Classical Period

Date

442-438 BC

Dimensions

Fragment of the first parade marshal’s right leg: 0.146 x 0.125 x 0.135 m
Fragment of the second parade marshal’s head: 0.1 x 0.13 x 0.04 m

Material

Marble from Penteli

Location

Parthenon Gallery

Description
Bibliography

Lower left corner fragment from Block VII fitted into the plaster cast of the original one kept today in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Part of the right leg and foot of a parade marshal (teletarch) wearing a himation is preserved. A second fragment retaining the top of the second parade marshal’s head returned from the National Archaeological Museum in 2021 and was also fitted into the plaster cast (ΕΑΜ 16266).

As depicted on the rest of the block, the first parade marshal from the left carries with both hands a flat object, probably a ceremonial basket and welcomes a pair of girls who are clad in peplos and participate in the Panathenaia procession. Maybe the girls have already handed over to him the objects that the basket contained.

On the right, the second teletarch points with his left hand, apparently giving a command, to the next pair of maidens, usually identified as Ergastinai or kanephoroi ("basket-bearers"). Two more girls follow. The first holds a mesomphalos phiale in her right hand, whereas the maiden that follows turns back towards the next woman, depicted on Block VIII (Ακρ. 1189), in order to help the latter carry an incense burner (thymiaterion). All are ceremonial vessels for the sacrifice and libations to be performed on the Great Altar outside of the Temple of Athena Polias.

The frieze on the east side of the Parthenon shows the arrival on the Acropolis of the procession formed by the people of Athens during the festival of the Panathenaia in honour of the protectress of the city, Athena. The procession’s destination was the temple of Athena Polias. Its purpose was the transportation of the Panathenaic peplos destined to adorn the age-old xoanon of the goddess and the offer of a grand sacrifice of animals at the Great Altar outside of the temple.

The converging groups of women from both sides of the east frieze hold ritual vessels and are received by supervisors. The central scene, right above the temple's entrance, depicts the giving of the Panathenaic peplos and takes place in the presence of the Olympian gods who are rendered at a larger scale than the mortals. The gods are flanked with ten male figures, possibly the Eponymous Heroes of Attica, the mythical progenitors of the Athenian tribes.

The east frieze is relatively well preserved as the explosion of the Parthenon by the Venetians under the command of the general Francesco Morosini, in 1687, did not cause many damages on this side of the temple. The drawings attributed to the painter Jacques Carrey, who visited the Acropolis in 1674, just thirteen years before the bombardment by Morosini, help our understanding of a few missing parts of this side of the frieze.

The total length of the east frieze is 21.18 m. It is formed of eight blocks, but sometimes scholarly work refers to nine blocks as one of the slabs was initially treated as being made by two separate segments (Blocks VII and VIII). Today the so-called Block VII is in the Louvre Museum in Paris whereas the rest of them are divided between the Acropolis Museum and the British Museum in London, where they ended up after they were removed by Thomas Bruce, the lord of Elgin, in 1801-1804 when Greece was still under Ottoman occupation. In order to facilitate their transportation, Elgin's workmen, cut off with saws or crowbars only the external faces of the blocks that bore the relief decoration. The Acropolis Museum exhibition includes plaster casts of the blocks’ faces on which some of the original fragments that fell off the monument, and thus escaped the looting, have been adjusted.

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