Parthenon Frieze - Construction

Construction

Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, 13.4–9, informs us “the man who directed all the projects and was overseer for him was Phidias... Almost everything was under his supervision, and, as we have said, he was in charge, owing to his friendship with Perikles, of all the other artists”. The description was not architekton, the term usually given to the creative influence behind a building project, rather episkopos. But it is from this claim, the circumstantial evidence of Phidias’s known work on the Athena Parthenos and his central role in the Periclean building programme that he is attributed authorship of the frieze. The frieze consists of 378 figures and 245 animals. It was 160 meters in length (524 ft) when complete, as well as 1 meter in height, and it projects 5.6 cm forward at its maximum depth. It is composed of 114 blocks of an average 1.22 meters in length, depicting two parallel files in procession. It was a particular novelty of the Parthenon that the cella carries an Ionic frieze over the hexastyle pronaos rather than Doric metopes as would have been expected of a Doric temple. Judging by the existence of regulae and guttae below the frieze on the east wall this was an innovation introduced late in the building process and replaced the ten metopes and triglyphs that might otherwise have been placed there.

The marble was quarried from Mt. Pentelikon and transported 19 km to the acropolis of Athens. A persistent question has been whether it was carved in situ. Just below the moulding and above the tenia there is a channel 17 mm high that would have served to give access to the sculptor's chisel when finishing the heads or feet on the relief; this scamillus or guide strip is the best evidence there is that the blocks were carved on the wall. Additionally, on practical grounds it is easier to move a sculptor than a sculpture, and to crowbar them into place could have potentially chipped the edges. No information is recoverable on the workshop, but estimates range from three to 80 sculptors on the basis of style, however Jenifer Neils suggests nine on the grounds that this would be the least number necessary to produce the work in the time given. It was finished with metal detailing and painted. No colour, however, survives, but the background was perhaps blue judging by comparison with grave stelae and the paint remnants on the frieze of the Hephaisteion. Possibly figures held objects that were also rendered in paint such as Poseidon’s trident and the laurel in Apollo’s hand. The many drill holes found in Apollo’s and Hera’s heads indicate that a gilded bronze wreath would probably have crowned the gods.

The system of numbering the frieze blocks dates back to Adolf Michaelis's 1871 work Der Parthenon, and since then Ian Jenkins has revised this scheme in the light of recent discoveries. The convention, here preserved, is that blocks are numbered in Roman and figures in Arabic numerals, the figures are numbered left to right against the direction of the procession on the north and west and with it on the south.