Why does the parthenon have 46 columns

The Parthenon is surely the most important monument of ancient Greece and is one of the most famous in the world. It was the most sacred of monuments, and was famous in antiquity as a Greek architectural masterpiece.

The monument was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. Arantxa Catlla Pundit. What makes the Parthenon unique? Another reason the Parthenon is special is the wonderful sculptures it was covered with.

There were 92 metopes which were all carved, as well as the pediments and the frieze on the outside of the cella. Grietje Moore Pundit. Do you have to pay to see the Parthenon? The cost of entrance to the Acropolis is about 20 euros and is good for the other sites in the area including the ancient agora, theatre of Dionysos, Kerameikos, Roman Agora, Tower of the Winds and the Temple of Olympian Zeus and is supposedly good for a week.

You can also buy individual tickets to these other sites. Teodula Galvin Pundit. How big is the Parthenon? Measured at the stylobate, the dimensions of the base of the Parthenon are The cella was Ayoze Bomhauer Pundit. Is the Parthenon being rebuilt? The Greek Central Archaeological Council KAS decided on Wednesday that a part of the Parthenon , now in ruins on the Athens Acropolis, is to be rebuilt using mostly materials which are now lying on the ground.

Maristela Weinert Pundit. What is the Parthenon used for today? Aouicha Wolfarth Teacher. What's inside the Parthenon? Also, the quality of the craftsmanship and how the sculptures portray the history of Greeks are outstanding.

The temple is crowning the city with its richness till date. Skip to content The Arch Insider. July 1, July 3, by Sneha Dewani. Parthenon-Sitting at the crown of Acropolis. The current condition of the iconic Greek Temple. Revival of the one of the greatest Greek Symbols.

There have been some bravura feats of engineering. The explosion knocked one of the massive columns out of position and badly damaged its bottom segment. A serious earthquake in damaged it further, and theentire column appeared at risk of toppling.

The obvious procedure was to dismantle the column, one segment after another, and replace the crumbling section. In the early s, after the careful removal of the overhead blocks and lintels, the collar was suspended by turnbuckles adjustable connectors inside a mounted, rectangular steel frame. By tightening the turnbuckles, the team raisedthe ton column less than an inch.

They then removed the bottom segment—which they repaired with fresh marble to an accuracy of one-twentieth of a millimeter—and slid it back into position. Finally, they lowered the rest of the column into place on top of the repaired segment. There is hardly a straight line to be found in the temple.

Experts argue over whether these refinements were added to counter optical illusions. But that fails to explain why the same curvingprofile is repeated not only in the floor but in the entablature above the columns and in the invisible buried foundations.

This graceful curve was clearly fundamental to the overall appearance and planning of the Parthenon. And then there are the columns, which the Athenians built so that they bulged slightly outward at the center.

This swelling was termed entasis, or tension, by Greek writers, perhaps because it makes the columns seemas if they are clenching, like a human muscle, under the weight of their load. Again, some scholars have long speculated that this design might compensate for another trick of the eye, since a row of tall, perfectlystraight-sided pillars can appear thinner at the middle than at the ends.

Still, how could each column segment be measured so that all would fit together in a single, smoothly curving profile? The likely answer was found not in Athens but nearly miles away in southwestern Turkey. In the town of Didyma rises one of the most impressive relics of the ancient world, the Temple of Apollo. The wealthy trading city of Miletus commissioned the temple in the age of Alexander the Great, around years after completion of the Parthenon.

The gigantic ruins testify to a project of grandiose ambition: it was never finished despite years of construction efforts. But thanks to its unfinished state, crucial evidence was preserved on temple walls that had not yet undergone their final polishing. He noticed what seemed to be patterns of faint scratches on the marble walls. Built in the 15 year period between BC this ancient Greek temple was designed as a replacement for a temple destroyed by the Persians in BC.

To build a temple of this size x ft. The leading politician of the day and the man behind the construction project was Pericles. According to Plutarch, the great Greek biographer writing centuries after the building was completed; one of the main reasons for the construction of the Parthenon and the other temples which surrounded it was the need to deal with growing unemployment.

By embarking on a major public works program for the acropolis the towering hill in Athens where the Parthenon and other temples dedicated to the gods were located Pericles hoped to provide jobs for ordinary Athenians- carpenters, stonemasons, ivory-workers, painters, enamellers, pattern-makers, blacksmiths, rope-makers, weavers, engravers, merchants, coppersmiths, potters, shoemakers, tanners, laborers, etc.

At the same time and more importantly, he envisioned the Parthenon as an architectural masterpiece that would make a statement to the world about the superiority of Athenian values, their system of governance and their way of life. Because of this, only the best building materials were good enough- the finest stone, bronze, gold, ivory, ebony, cypress-wood- and the best artists and craftsmen. It was to be a building for the ages. Men of the future will wonder at us, as all men do today.

The new construction project was not welcomed by everyone. Many were also upset that the monies to build the Parthenon were being supplied, reluctantly, by Athenian allies who had originally handed over this money for use in any future conflict against the Persians. Pericles argued that as long as the Athenians honored their commitment to defend these allies against Persian aggression, then the allies had nothing to complain about.

And the majority of people supported Pericles. In fact his most vocal opponent was ostracized banished for ten years by a popular vote leaving the way clear to proceed with construction. The Parthenon building program was carried out under the general direction of Pericles himself. He chose three men at the top of their professions to collaborate on the design and execution of the project.

Although we don't know everything that each did, it seems that Ictinuswas the chief architect, Callicratus acted as the project contractor and technical coordinator while Phideas was responsible for overseeing and integrating all artistic elements.

He also personally created the enormous gold and ivory sculpture of the city goddess and produced some of the various sculptural groupings while supervising the production efforts of a small army of artists and craftsmen. Phideas was recognized at the time as being the greatest sculptor of his era but is acknowledged now as the greatest Greek sculptor of all time.

The collaboration of the threesome was an enduring success. There is no denying that the Parthenon construction project was expensive. The cost, according to public accounts engraved in stone, was silver talents. Attempts to translate that into a modern equivalent aren't entirely satisfactory. The main building material was Pentelic marble quarried from the flanks of Mt.

The old Parthenon, the one destroyed by the Persians while it was partway through construction was the first temple to use this kind of marble. The huge pieces of stone had to be hauled to the building site by oxcart. This structure was, by no means, the largest but what distinguishes the Parthenon from most other temples is the quality and extent of the sculptures.

Many of the sculptures were made of the more expensive Parian marble, from the island of Paros, which most sculptors proclaimed the best kind of marble for their work.

As a collection that shows Greek art at its zenith the Parthenon marbles sculptures are simply without peer. The building itself is a work of art incorporating a number of aesthetic refinements calculated to make it appear as visually perfect as possible.

This thickening in the middle made it look as though the columns were straining a bit under the weight of the roof, thus making the temple less static, more dynamic. Although the lines and distances in the Parthenon appear to be straight and equal, the geometry has been altered to achieve that illusion.

The Parthenon is a Doric temple, which artfully incorporated selected Ionic features to produce a building that many, including some of the world's top architects, have called perfect. The Doric style uses thicker columns and has a more massive appearance sometimes called masculine than the Ionic feminine style. This may have been a politically inspired choice by Pericles, symbolically uniting Greeks of Dorian and Ionian backgrounds in one transcendent building.