Inventory number
ΜΑ ΑΝΤ. 040
Category
Architectural sculpture
Period
Modern times
Date
19th cent.
Dimensions
Height: 1.34 m
Length: 1.36 m
Material
Plaster
Location
Parthenon Gallery
Plaster cast of metope 5 which is exhibited in the British Museum in London, except from the Centaur’s head that is located at the University Museum of Würzburg in Germany. A Centaur with short chlamys that billows behind him, attacks a Lapith that would have been depicted on the right side of the metope. According to a drawing, attributed to the painter Jacques Carrey, the Lapith was standing and raising his hand to fend off his opponent.
The main theme of the thirty two metopes on the south side of the Parthenon is the Centauromachy, the mythical battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The Centaurs, half-human creatures with a horse's body from the waist down, while attending the wedding feast of king Peirithoos, close friend of Theseus, became drunk and attempted to carry off the Lapith women.
Each metope on the south side depicts either a fight between a Centaur and a Lapith or the seizing of a Lapith woman by a Centaur. However, the nine central metopes (nrs. 13-20), portray different subjects which still cannot be easily interpreted. Some scholars connect them with Athens' mythical past, but it seems more probable that they are scenes of the marriage from inside the palace of Peirithoos in Thessaly.
The south metopes were not damaged as severely as those on the other sides of the temple. The bombardment of the monument by Francesco Morosini in 1687 broke fourteen of them into fragments (nrs. 11, 13-25). In the beginning of the 19th cent. fifteen out of the eighteen best preserved were forcibly detached by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, when Greece was under Ottoman occupation, and ended up in the British Museum in London (nrs. 2-9 and 26-32). Metope 10, which had originally fallen on the ground, after its many adventures, ended up in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Some smaller metope fragments have been dispersed in other museums abroad. The Acropolis Museum houses metopes 1 and 12 as well as fragments of nine further metopes, which were found scattered on the Acropolis and the surrounding area (nrs. 11, 13, 16, 17, 19-22 and 24). Their reconstruction was achieved with the help of the drawings attributed to the painter Jacques Carrey, who visited Athens in 1674, just thirteen years before its bombardment by Morosini.
Pαγκαβής, A., Σύνοψις των Πρακτικών της Aρχαιολογικής Eταιρείας των Aθηνών: ανατύπωση τευχών 1-6 και δημοσίευση των Πρακτικών των ετών 1837-1846/7, β΄ έκδοση, 1846, σελ. 204, 298, 304-307
Bowie, Th., Thimme, D. (εκδ.), The Carrey Drawings of the Parthenon Sculptures, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1971, σελ. 45, 47, πίν. 6
Jenkins, I., «Acquisition and Supply of Casts of the Parthenon Sculptures by the British Museum, 1835-1939», Annual of the British School at Athens 85, 1990, σελ. 90, 106-108
Mαλλούχου-Tufano, Φ., H αναστήλωση των αρχαίων μνημείων στην Eλλάδα (1834-1939). Το έργο της εν Aθήναις Aρχαιολογικής Eταιρείας και της Aρχαιολογικής Yπηρεσίας. Β΄ έκδοση, Αθήνα, 2008, σελ. 32-33, 299-300
Μανιδάκη, Β., «Η αντικατάσταση των γλυπτικών αρχιτεκτονικών μελών στα μνημεία της Ακρόπολης. Εκμαγεία, αντίγραφα και αυθεντικά μέλη», Τεχνικές Αναστήλωσης, υλικά και προβλήματα εφαρμογής, Πρακτικά Ημερίδας, Εταιρεία έρευνας και προώθησης της επιστημονικής αναστήλωσης των μνημείων (ΕΤΕΠΑΜ), Θεσσαλονίκη 20/11/2010, ψηφιακός δίσκος, 2010, σελ. 1, 3 και υποσημ. 5
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