Inventory number
Ακρ. 862
Artist
Pheidias' workshop
Category
Architectural sculpture
Period
Classical Period
Date
442-438 BC
Dimensions
Height: 1.02 m
Length: 1.22 m
Width: 0.62 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
Parthenon Gallery
Block XXXVI depicts four riders galloping to the viewer’s left. The dominant figure of the rider in the middle of the block who turns his head toward the viewer overlaps, not only, with the two preceding horsemen, but also, with the last one. He is clad in a sleeveless chiton belted around his waist. The last rider, dressed in a chiton with long sleeves, fixes a band around his head. All horses are depicted galloping, with the exception, of the animal in the middle of the scene which jumps and speeds ahead in an attempt, to surpass the other horses. The horses’ reins and bridles were added, made out of bronze. The forelegs of the first horse as well as the leg of his rider are shown on the preceding Block XXXV (Ακρ. 861), while in front of the last rider’s horse one can see the forelegs of the next horseman’s steed that was depicted on the following Block XXXVII (ΜΑ ΑΝΤ. 028), kept today in the British Museum in London.
The frieze on the north side of the Parthenon depicts part of the procession formed by the people of Athens during the Panathenaic festival in honour of the protectress of the city, Athena. The procession's destination was the Temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis. 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.
On the north frieze the procession moves along the Panathenaic Way. On its head are youths that lead young cows and rams for the sacrifice followed by more young men who carry water and offerings. Behind them come musicians with flutes and guitars, elders, perhaps officials, holding olive branches, eleven chariots that participate in an equestrian event and finally sixty horsemen divided in ten groups.
The north frieze is fragmentarily preserved due to the explosion of the Parthenon by the Venetians under the command of general Francesco Morosini, in 1687, which damaged mostly the middle part of the long sides of the temple. The drawings attributed to the painter Jacques Carrey, who visited the Acropolis in 1674, just thirteen years before its bombardment by Morosini, are an invaluable resource for our understanding of a few parts of this side of the frieze (Blocks Ι-ΧΙΧ). Three blocks (X, XVIII and XXVI) were removed during the conversion of the Parthenon into a Christian church so that windows would be opened in the blocks' positions. Some of these blocks' fragments were later found on the Acropolis.
The initial length of the north frieze was 58.70 m and consisted of 47 blocks. Today the surviving blocks 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 faces of the blocks that bore the relief decoration. The Acropolis Museum exhibition includes the plaster casts of the faces of these blocks. On these casts some of the original fragments that fell off the monument, and thus escaped the looting, have been adjusted.
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