Parthenon. East pediment. Pair of horses

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Provision of image

Inventory number

Ακρ. 19052

Artist

Pheidias' workshop

Category

Architectural sculpture

Period

Classical Period

Date

437-432 BC

Dimensions

Height: third horse 0.89 m
Height: fourth horse 1.08 m
Length: 1.3 m
Width: 0.51 m

Material

Marble from Penteli

Location

Parthenon Gallery

Description
Bibliography

Horses from the quadriga that Helios (Ακρ. 1215) drives. The animals tilt their heads backwards as the chariot dashes out of the sea waves. On both sides of their mouths metal bridles now lost fitted into drills. The back side of the last inner horse is flat in order to facilitate its placing into the pediment tympanum in contrast to the back sides of the other horses which are worked in the round.

Both pediment’s inner horses are originals and were removed from the Parthenon in 1988. The outer horses are plaster casts of the prototypes exhibited in the British Museum in London after they were forcibly removed by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, who in 1801-1804 when Greece was under Ottoman occupation carried off most of the sculptures that he found in their original places on the pediment.

The east pediment portrayed the miraculous birth of Athena from the head of her father Zeus. The scene takes place on Mt Olympus in the presence of the other gods who watch standing, sitting or half-reclining. The pediments' corners contained the chariots of Helios (Sun), which emerges from the sea, and Selene (Moon), which sinks in the ocean waves, indicating thus that the goddess' birth takes place at dawn. The centre of the scene was occupied by the statues of Zeus and Athena. Due to the misadventures suffered by the Parthenon over the following centuries, many of the temple's sculptures have been destroyed; some survive in mutilated form, while others are represented only by small fragments.

The two Parthenon pediments are adorned with about fifty oversized statues. The sculptures perfectly worked even on their unseen sides present scenes from the myths of the goddess Athena.

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Brommer, F., «Studien zu den Parthenongiebeln I», Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Athenische Abteilung 69/70, 1954/55, σελ. 65-66, εικ. 29.1-2
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