Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: When did construction begin on the Parthenon?
The Parthenon (/ˈpɑːrθəˌnɒn,-nən/; Ancient Greek: Παρθενών; Greek: Παρθενώνας, Parthenónas) is a former temple[4][5] on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447BC when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438BC, although decoration of the building continued until 432BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the zenith of the Doric order. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and Western civilization,[6] and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments. To the Athenians who built it, the Parthenon and other Periclean monuments of the Acropolis were seen fundamentally as a celebration of Hellenic victory over the Persian invaders and as a thanksgiving to the gods for that victory.[7] As of 2007 the Greek Ministry of Culture was carrying out a programme of selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially ruined structure.[8]
In 480 BC, the Persians ransacked the Acropolis of Athens including the "pre-Parthenon" then under construction. After their victories at Salamis and Plataea the Athenians had sworn not to restore the destroyed temples, but to leave them as they are, in memory of the Persian "barbarism".
However, Greeks did carve marble, and a number of classical Greek marbles have survived; the famed Parthenon Marbles (also known as the Elgin Marbles), lasted "in situ" until the beginning of the 19th Century. In fact, many of the surviving classical Greek marbles are from an architectural context.
In March 2011, archaeologists announced that they had discovered five metopes of the Parthenon in the south wall of the Acropolis, which had been extended when the Acropolis was used as a fortress. According to Eleftherotypia daily, the archaeologists claimed the metopes had been placed there in the 18th century when the Acropolis wall was being repaired. The experts discovered the metopes while processing 2,250 photos with modern photographic methods, as the white Pentelic marble they are made of differed from the other stone of the wall. It was previously presumed that the missing metopes were destroyed during the Morosini explosion of the Parthenon in 1687.[67]
The west group B and C is very damaged because it remained on the Parthenon until 1977, as was the western female figure W. The western group B and C (probably Cecrops and Pandrose) was not swept away by the agents of Lord Elgin at the beginning of the nineteenth century because they believed that it was a repair of the first centuries of our era that had replaced the original group by a statue tribute to the emperor Hadrian and his wife Sabine. This erroneous assumption was made at the end of the seventeenth century in Jacob Spon's (1678) and George Wheler (1682). travel narratives. The head of the chariot horse Helios, east C, was removed from the Parthenon in 1988.
Parthenon is an unincorporated community in Newton County, Arkansas, United States. Parthenon is located on Arkansas Highway 327, southwest of Jasper. Parthenon has a post office with ZIP code 72666.
Around 500 BC the "Hekatompedon" was dismantled to make place for a new grander building, the "Older Parthenon" (often referred to as the "Pre-Parthenon", "early Parthenon"). For this reason, Athenians decided to stop the construction of the Olympieion temple which was connoted with the tyrant Peisistratos and his sons and, instead, used the Piraeus limestone destined for the Olympieion to build the Older Parthenon. In order to accommodate the new temple, the south part of the summit was cleared, made level by adding some 8,000 two-ton blocks of limestone, a foundation deep at some points, and the rest was filled with soil kept in place by the retaining wall. However, after the victorious Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the plan was revised and marble was used instead. The limestone phase of the building is referred to as "Pre-Parthenon I" and the marble phase as "Pre-Parthenon II". In 485 BC, construction stalled to save resources as Xerxes became king of Persia and war seemed imminent.
The Older Parthenon was still under construction when the Persians indeed invaded and sacked the city in 480 BC. The building was burned and looted, along with the "Ancient Temple" and practically everything else on the rock. After the Persian crisis had subsided, the Athenians incorporated many architectural parts of the unfinished temple (unfluted column drums, triglyphs, metopes, etc.) into the newly built northern curtain wall of the Acropolis, where they served as a prominent "war memorial" and can still be seen today. The devastated site was cleared of debris. Statuary, cult objects, religious offerings and unsalvageable architectural members were buried ceremoniously in several deeply dug pits on the hill, serving conveniently as a fill for the artificial plateau created around the classic Parthenon. This "Persian debris" is the richest archaeological deposit excavated on the Acropolis by 1890.
In 1827, Henning and his son created sculptures in the style of the Parthenon frieze for a screen erected at Hyde Park Gate in London. The following year, John Jr. confirmed that he would recreate a copy of the Parthenon frieze for London's Athenaeum Club. Although only just over half the length of the 524 feet long original this model was at the correct scale and was constructed from Bath stone in agreement with Decimus Burton, the club's architect.
The existence of both the proto-Parthenon and its destruction were known from Herodotus,[44] and the drums of its columns were plainly visible built into the curtain wall north of the Erechtheion. Further physical evidence of this structure was revealed with the excavations of Panagiotis Kavvadias of 1885–90. The findings of this dig allowed Wilhelm Dörpfeld, then director of the German Archaeological Institute, to assert that there existed a distinct substructure to the original Parthenon, called Parthenon I by Dörpfeld, not immediately below the present edifice as had been previously assumed.[45] Dörpfeld's observation was that the three steps of the first Parthenon consisted of two steps of Poros limestone, the same as the foundations, and a top step of Karrha limestone that was covered by the lowest step of the Periclean Parthenon. This platform was smaller and slightly to the north of the final Parthenon, indicating that it was built for a wholly different building, now completely covered over. This picture was somewhat complicated by the publication of the final report on the 1885–90 excavations, indicating that the substructure was contemporary with the Kimonian walls, and implying a later date for the first temple.[46]
In the mid-5th century BC, when the Athenian Acropolis became the seat of the Delian League and Athens was the greatest cultural centre of its time, Pericles initiated an ambitious building project that lasted the entire second half of the century. The most important buildings visible on the Acropolis today — the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Erechtheion and the temple of Athena Nike — were erected during this period. The Parthenon was built under the general supervision of the artist Phidias, who also had charge of the sculptural decoration. The architects Ictinos and Callicrates began their work in 447BC, and the building was substantially completed by 432, but work on the decorations continued until at least 431.
The original plans for the Centre were that it would have a concert hall, however the final design of phase 1 did not include one. Space had been left, though, for a concert hall to be built in the future when phase 1 of the Centre was opened in 2004, and construction on phase 2 was then due to begin early in 2005. However, construction of phase 2 did not actually begin until April 2007. Phase 2 was designed to fit into the Centre's curved slate frontage, with an upper part constructed from timber.
Church visited Greece in 1869 and spent several weeks in Athens, where he made numerous studies of the ruins of the Parthenon that later served as the basis for the work. In 1871 a commission from the financier and philanthropist Morris K. Jesup finally allowed Church to begin work on his "big Parthenon".
The first endeavour to build a sanctuary for Athena Parthenos on the site of the present Parthenon was begun shortly after the Battle of Marathon (c. 490–488BC) upon a solid limestone foundation that extended and levelled the southern part of the Acropolis summit. This building replaced a hekatompedon (meaning "hundred-footer") and would have stood beside the archaic temple dedicated to Athena Polias ("of the city"). The Older or Pre-Parthenon, as it is frequently referred to, was still under construction when the Persians sacked the city in 480BC and razed the Acropolis.[8][43]
No ancient Greek building has ever been adorned with so many metopes, neither before nor after the construction of the Parthenon. On the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, which pre-dates the Parthenon, only those of the interior porch were carved; on the Temple of Hephaestus, contemporary with it, only those of the east facade, and the last four (towards the east) on the north and south sides, have been carved.
While there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as far back as the fourth millennium BC, it was Pericles (c. 495 – 429 BC) in the fifth century BC who coordinated the construction of the site's most important present remains including the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. The Parthenon and the other buildings were damaged seriously during the 1687 siege by the Venetians during the Morean War when gunpowder being stored in the Parthenon was hit by a cannonball and exploded.
At the time of the Latin occupation, it became for about 250years a Roman Catholic church of Our Lady. During this period a tower, used either as a watchtower or bell tower and containing a spiral staircase, was constructed at the southwest corner of the cella, and vaulted tombs were built beneath the Parthenon's floor.[90]
In 1831, the Indiana General Assembly approved construction of a new statehouse. The building was to be funded by the sale of lots of land in Indianapolis. A commission was established and Commissioner James Blake offered a $150 prize to the architect who could design the best statehouse. The firm of Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis created the winning design. Their plans were for a structure that was inspired by the ancient Greek Parthenon. The building looked very much like the Parthenon except for a large central dome. Town and Davis was awarded the contract to construct the building, and completed it ahead of schedule in 1835.
When PASOK won the elections of 1981, Mercouri was appointed Minister for Culture of Greece, being the first female in that post. She would serve in that position for two terms until 1989, when PASOK lost the elections and New Democracy formed a cabinet. As Minister for Culture, Mercouri took advantage of her fame abroad and got in contact with great European leaders in order to promote Greece. She strongly advocated the return to Athens of the Parthenon Marbles, that were removed from Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, and are now part of the British Museum collection in London. In anticipation of the return of the marbles, she held an international competition for the construction of the New Acropolis Museum, designated to display them and finally established in 2008.
The accounts of the construction of the Parthenon make it possible to know that the marble intended for the pediments began to be extracted from the quarries of Mount Pentelikon in 439-438 BC.; sculpture work starting the following year. The accounts also show that excavation and transportation expenses were annual. This could mean that different quarries would have been used each year to obtain the highest possible quality marble The last marble purchases in the quarries are recorded in 434 BC. In the logic of the construction of the building, the sculptures of the pediments had to be installed almost at the very end (before the installation of the roof), probably in 432 BC.
The construction was gradual as additions were made by succeeding priests. The transept was added in 1835 under Father Francisco Valencia. The two lateral aisles together with the "media naranja" dome were added when Father Raimundo Cueto assumed the post of minister of Malabon in 1854. This was done in collaboration with architects Vina and Urquiza. In 1861, construction of the Parthenon-like facade and the twin towers began under the direction of Luciano Oliver and supervision of parish priest Fr. Martin Ruiz.
"Parthenon" simulates commerce in the Aegean Sea around 600 B.C. 3–6 players begin with control of two villages and a fleet of ships on an island within the Aegean. Each player develops their island through trade, adding villages and structures. A game represents three years of time, and each year is divided into four seasons of ten phases. The winner is the first to complete all structures.
The Old Parthenon was still under construction when the Persians sacked the city in the Destruction of Athens in 480 BC, and razed the acropolis during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The existence of the proto‐Parthenon and its destruction was known from Herodotus and the drums of its columns were plainly visible built into the curtain wall north of the Erechtheum. Further material evidence of this structure was revealed with the excavations of Panagiotis Kavvadias of 1885-1890. The findings of this dig allowed Wilhelm Dörpfeld, then director of the German Archaeological Institute, to assert that there existed a distinct substructure to the original Parthenon, called Parthenon I by Dörpfeld, not immediately below the present edifice as had been previously assumed. Dörpfeld’s observation was that the three steps of the first Parthenon consist of two steps of "poros" limestone, the same as the foundations, and a top step of Karrha limestone that was covered by the lowest step of the Periclean Parthenon. This platform was smaller and slightly to the north of the final Parthenon, indicating that it was built for a wholly different building, now wholly covered over. This picture was somewhat complicated by the publication of the final report on the 1885–90 excavations indicating that the substructure was contemporary with the Kimonian walls, and implying a later date for the first temple.
If the original Parthenon was indeed destroyed in 480 BC, it invites the question of why the site was left a ruin for 33 years. One argument involves the oath sworn by the Greek allies before the battle of Plataea in 479 BC declaring that the sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians would not be rebuilt, an oath the Athenians were only absolved from with the Peace of Callias in 450. The mundane fact of the cost of reconstructing Athens after the Persian sack is at least as likely a cause. However the excavations of Bert Hodge Hill led him propose the existence of a second Parthenon begun in the period of Kimon after 468 BC. Hill claimed that the Karrha limestone step Dörpfeld took to be the highest of Parthenon I was in fact the lowest of the three steps of Parthenon II whose stylobate dimensions Hill calculated to be 23.51x66.888m.
Disappointed tourists soon discovered that the Parthenon didn't exist on Hunter Street in 1974. It was a generic name used to cover all the Greek Milk Bars that were extremely popular in Newcastle at the time of the song. However, before long, an entrepreneur sensed an opportunity and the Parthenon Milk Bar opened for business in Hunter Street west, near the Cambridge Hotel. That Parthenon Milk Bar did become very popular with late night revellers in Newcastle and survived in Hunter Street west into the 1990s as a local business.
In 1456, Ottoman Turkish forces invaded Athens and laid siege to a Florentine army defending the Acropolis until June 1458, when it surrendered to the Turks.[91] The Turks may have briefly restored the Parthenon to the Greek Orthodox Christians for continued use as a church.[92] Some time before the close of the fifteenth century, the Parthenon became a mosque.[93][94]
Despite the alterations accompanying the Parthenon's conversion into a church and subsequently a mosque, its structure had remained basically intact.[99] In 1667 the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi expressed marvel at the Parthenon's sculptures and figuratively described the building as "like some impregnable fortress not made by human agency".[100] He composed a poetic supplication that it, as "a work less of human hands than of Heaven itself, should remain standing for all time".[101] The French artist Jacques Carrey in 1674 visited the Acropolis and sketched the Parthenon's sculptural decorations.[102] Early in 1687, an engineer named Plantier sketched the Parthenon for the Frenchman Graviers d’Ortières.[80] These depictions, particularly those made by Carrey, provide important, and sometimes the only, evidence of the condition of the Parthenon and its various sculptures prior to the devastation it suffered in late 1687 and the subsequent looting of its art objects.[102]