Image Details

From Ancient Greece

Athenian youths carry offering jars in this relief from the Parthenon’s 524-foot-long frieze. Set in the entablature (see box) of the inner colonnade, which enclosed the core of the Parthenon, the frieze was obscured by the entablature of the outer colonnade—making it very difficult for visitors to view the carvings. The frieze may have depicted the Greater Panathenaea, a procession held every four years in which a new peplos (an ancient garment) was draped over the statue of Athena in the Old Temple of Athena. In the early 19th century, Lord Elgin removed 247 feet of the frieze to the British Museum, where it remains on display to this day.