Athena Parthenos is a lost massive chryselephantine sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena, made by Phidias and his assistants and housed in the Parthenon in Athens; this statue was designed as its focal point. Parthenos 'maiden, virgin' was an epithet of Athena. There have been many replicas and works inspired by the statue, in both ancient and modern times. Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom. It was the most renowned cult image of Athens, considered one of the greatest achievements of the most acclaimed sculptor of ancient Greece. Phidias began his work around 447 BC. Lachares removed the gold sheets in 296 BC to pay his troops, and the bronze replacements for them were probably gilded thereafter; it was damaged by a fire about 165 BC but repaired. An account mentions it in Constantinople in the 10th century.
Description
The ancient historian Pausanias described the statue: Its general appearance can be seen from images on coins, from [|miniature reproductions] used as votive objects, and from representations on engraved gems. The statue depicts Athena after winning in combat. With her left hand, she supports a shield with carvings of an Athenian battle against the Amazons. On her right rests the winged goddess of victoryNike. Her left knee is slightly bent, her weight slightly shifted to her right leg. Her peplos is cinched at the waist by a pair of serpents, whose tails entwine at the back. Locks of hair trail onto the goddess's breastplate. The Nike on her outstretched right hand is winged; whether there was a support under it in Phidias' original has been much discussed; evidence in surviving versions is contradictory. The exact position of Athena's spear, often omitted, is also not fully determined, whether held in the crook of Athena's right arm or supported by one of the snakes in the aegis, as N. Leipen restores it, following the "Aspasios" gem. The statue was 26 cubits tall and stood on a pedestal measuring 4 by 8 metres. The sculpture was assembled on a wooden core, covered with shaped bronze plates covered in turn with removable gold plates, save for the ivory surfaces of the goddess's face and arms; the gold weighed 44 talents, the equivalent of about ; the Athena Parthenos embodied a sizeable part of the treasury of Athens. According to Ian Jenkins in The Parthenon and Its Sculpturees "Athena was portrayed as a warrior resting after successful combat. A figure of winged victory alighted on the palm of her outstretched right hand, while her left hand supported a round shield. A spear rested against her left shoulder. The goddess was draped in the simplest form of tunic, the peplos, her shoulders and chest hung with the aegis, the snake fringed, fish-scaled poncho that had been the gift of her father Zeus and had protective powers".
Ancient copies
A number of ancient reproductions of all or part of the statue have survived.
The Varvakeion Athena, a 3rd-century CE Roman copy in marble is housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. This is generally considered the most faithful version.
A modern copy by Alan LeQuire stands in the reproduction of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. LeQuire, a Nashville native, was awarded the commission to produce the Parthenon's cult statue. His work was modeled on descriptions given of the original. The modern version took eight years to complete, and was unveiled to the public on May 20, 1990. The Nashville Athena Parthenos is made of a composite of gypsum cement and ground fiberglass. The head of Athena was assembled over an aluminumarmature, and the lower part was made in steel. The four ten-inch H beams rest on a concrete structure that extends through the Parthenon floor and basement down to bedrock, to support the great weight of the statue. LeQuire made each of the 180 cast gypsum panels used to create the statue light enough to be lifted by one person and attached to the steel armature. Nashville's Athena stands tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World. It stood in Nashville's Parthenon as a plain, white statue for twelve years. In 2002, Parthenon volunteers gilded Athena under the supervision of master gilder Lou Reed. The gilding project took less than four months and makes the modern statue appear that much more like the way that Phidias' Athena Parthenos would have appeared during its time. The 23.75-karat gold leaf on Nashville's Athena Parthenos weighs a total of and is one-third the thickness of tissue paper.
