How many pillars does the parthenon have

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. In the blinding morning sunlight the scratches are all but invisible, as I discovered to my initial frustration when I searched for them.

After the sun had swung around and began grazing the surface, however, a delicate web of finely engraved lines started to emerge. Then, just above the outline of the column base, Haselberger noticed a pattern of horizontal lines with a sweeping curve inscribed along one side.

Could this be related to entasis, also evident in the towering Didyma columns? After carefully plotting the pattern, the answer became clear: it was a profile view of a column with the vertical dimension—the height of the column—reduced by a factor of This scale drawing must have been a key reference for the masons as they carved out one column segment after another.

By measuring along the horizontal lines to the edge of the curve, they would know exactly how wide each segment would have to be to create the smooth, bulging profile. Manolis Korres believes that the ancient Athenians probably relied on a carved scale drawing similar to the one at Didyma in building the columns of the Parthenon.

The lines proved to be reference drawings for everything from the very slight inward lean of the walls to details of the lintel structure supported by the columns. There were even floor plans, drafted conveniently right on the floor. On the topmost floor, the builders marked out the positions of columns, walls and doorways.

Still, the Parthenon remains something of a miracle. The builders were steered by tradition, yet free to experiment. They worked to extreme precision, yet the final result was anything but rigid. A commanding building, with supple and fluid lines, emerged from a blend of improvised solutions. But the miracle was short-lived. Only seven years after the construction of the Parthenon was completed, war broke out with Sparta.

Within a generation, Athens suffered a humiliating defeat and a devastating plague. At the approximate position where the Parthenon was built later, the Athenians began the construction of a building that was burned by the Persians while it was still under construction in BCE.

It was presumably dedicated to Athena, and after its destruction much of its ruins were utilized in the building of the fortifications at the north end of the Acropolis. Not much is known about this temple, and whether or not it was still under construction when it was destroyed has been disputed. Its massive foundations were made of limestone, and the columns were made of Pentelic marble, a material that was utilized for the first time.

The classicalParthenon was constructed between BCE to be the focus of the Acropolis building complex. The architects were Iktinos and Kallikrates Vitruvius also names Karpion as an architect and it was dedicated to the goddess Athena Pallas or Parthenos virgin.

The temple and the chryselephantine statue were dedicated in , although work on the sculptures of its pediment continued until completion in BCE. The Parthenon construction cost the Athenian treasury silver talents. While it is almost impossible to create a modern equivalent for this amount of money, it might be useful to look at some facts. One talent was the cost to build one trireme, the most advanced warship of the era. Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, Dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the Parthenon sits high atop a compound of temples known as the Acropolis of Athens.

Throughout the centuries, the Parthenon withstood earthquakes, fire, wars, explosions and looting yet remains, although battered, a powerful symbol of Ancient Greece and Athenian culture. Built in the 5 century B. It was the largest and most lavish temple the Greek mainland had ever seen.

Today, it is one of the most recognized buildings in the world and an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece. The celebrated Greek statesman Pericles is credited with ordering the design and construction of the Parthenon as a temple for Athena—the goddess of wisdom, arts and literature and war—but it may not have been the first attempt to house the deity.

An earlier structure known as the Older Parthenon or Pre-Parthenon once existed on the site of the current Parthenon. Many historians believe the Older Parthenon was under construction in B. In B. The massive structure was dedicated in B. Sculpting and decorative work at the Parthenon continued until B. Pericles commissioned the renowned Greek architects Ictinus and Callicrates and the sculptor Phidias to design the Parthenon, which became the largest Doric-style temple of its time.

The structure has a rectangular floor plan and is built on a 23,square foot base, part of which was the limestone foundation of the Old Parthenon. Low steps surrounded each side of the building, and a portico of Doric columns standing on a platform create a border around it.

There are 46 outer columns and 19 inner columns. The columns are slightly tapered to give the temple a symmetrical appearance. The corner columns are larger in diameter than the other columns.

Incredibly, the Parthenon contains no straight lines and no right angles, a true feat of Greek architecture. Ninety-two carved metopes square blocks placed between three-channeled triglyph blocks adorn the exterior walls of the Parthenon. The metopes on the West side depict Amazonomachy, a mythical battle between the Amazons and the Ancient Greeks, and were thought to be designed by the sculptor Kalamis.

The metopes on the East side show Gigantomachy, mythical battles between gods and Giants. Most metopes on the South side show Centauromachy, the battle of mythical centaurs with the Lapiths, and the metopes on the North side portray the Trojan War. The frieze was carved using the bas-relief technique, which means the sculpted figures are raised slightly from the background.

Historians believe the frieze depicted either the Panathenaic procession to the Acropolis or the sacrifice of Pandora to Athena.

There are two sculpted, triangular-shaped gables known as pediments on each end of the Parthenon. The West pediment showed the conflict between Athena and Poseidon to claim Attica, an ancient region of Greece which included the city of Athens. A shrine within the Parthenon housed an extraordinary statue of Athena, known as Athena Parthenos, which was sculpted by Phidias. The statue no longer exists but is thought to have stood 12 meters high 39 feet.

It was carved of wood and covered in ivory and gold. Historians know what the statue looked like thanks to surviving Roman reproductions. The Athena statue depicted a fully-armed woman wearing a goatskin shield known as an aegis. She held a six-foot tall statue of the Greek goddess Nike in her right hand and a shield in her left hand that illustrated various battle scenes.

Two griffins and a sphinx stood on her helmet and a large snake behind her shield. It was undoubtedly an awe-inspiring sight for anyone who gazed upon it.