Parthenon. West frieze. Block 6 (VI)
Inventory number
Ακρ. 20020
Artist
Pheidias' workshop
Category
Architectural sculpture
Period
Classical Period
Date
442-438 BC
Dimensions
Height: 1.01 m
Length: 1.385 m
Width: 0.64 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
Parthenon Gallery
Block VI depicts a pair of riders. The one on left is riding his leaping horse which is depicted with its feet in the air. The rider is clad in a short chiton and a tight cuirass decorated with a gorgoneion rendered in relief and shoulder patches in the shape of lionheads. His Attic-type helmet is adorned with an eagle also in relief that holds a snake in its claws. The second horseman has not mounted his horse yet and turns to the opposite direction of the on-coming procession resting his left foot on a rock and fastening his sandal. He wears a chlamys and an Attic-type helmet. The horse bridle and rein as well as the raised cheek pieces of the two young men’s helmets were once made of bronze but are now lost. Today only the holes in which they were attached are preserved.
The frieze on the west side of the Parthenon shows the riders preparing to take part in the procession of the Athenian people 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.
The horsemen on the west frieze are in the Kerameikos district, where the procession started. Some converse, some others fasten their sandals, some of them bridle their horses or try to soothe them, while a few horsemen are already galloping in loose formation.
The west frieze is preserved almost intact as the bombardment of the Parthenon by the Venetians under the command of the general Francesco Morosini in 1687 did not affect this side of the temple. Its total length is 21.18 m and is composed of sixteen blocks. Fourteen of them are displayed in the Acropolis Museum after they were removed from the Parthenon in 1993 and kept in the old Acropolis Museum for fifteen years. Blocks I and II are in the British Museum in London, where they ended up after they were forcibly removed by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, between 1801 and 1804, when Greece was still under Ottoman occupation.
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