Parthenon, Greece Facts & Worksheets

The Parthenon is an ancient temple that can be found at the Athenian Acropolis, Greece. The architectural site was dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patroness. In Classical Greek architecture, the Parthenon is the most important surviving building, generally considered the zenith of the Doric order.

See the fact file below for more information on the Parthenon, or alternatively, you can download our 22-page Parthenon worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Etymology

• The name Parthenon was derived from one of Athena’s many epithets: Athena Parthenos, which means Virgin. In the 5th century BCE, Parthenon means ‘house of Parthenos’, which was given to the chamber inside the temple which housed the cult statue.  
• The architectural site itself was known as the large temple or ‘mega neos’. Alternatively, it is commonly known as Hekatompedos neos, which refers to the length of the inner cella, which is 100 ancient feet. 
• The whole building acquired the name Parthenon during the 4th century BCE.

Historical Setting

• In 447 BCE, the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power when the work began on Parthenon.
• Until 432 BCE, the work on the temple continued, the Parthenon, then, is a representation of the tangible and visible efflorescence of Athenian imperial power, slowed down by the damage of the Peloponnesian War.
• It also represents the might and stature of Perikles, an Athenian politician who pushed for the building’s construction.
• Some historians contend that two years before the construction of the Parthenon started, in 449 BCE, Athens signed a peace agreement with Persia. This is significant because it shows that the Delian League and the Attic Empire persisted even after their original purpose—a mutual defense alliance against the Persians—was no longer justified.
• In other words, it was now openly admitted that Athens was genuinely an imperial ruler over other Greek kingdoms rather than just the head of the Greek military league. A similar conclusion can be drawn from the Athenians’ choice in 454 BCE to relocate the League Treasury from the Panhellenic shrine at Delos to the Athenian Acropolis.
• Since League money was used to construct the Parthenon, the structure can be interpreted as the Athenians’ display of trust in this newly exposed imperialism. The religious significance of this project, however, should not be understated. The Persians had destroyed the temples on the Athenian acropolis in 480, and Bury said that the Athenians rebuilt them to pay their due gratitude to heaven for the defeat of the Mede.

Function

• Although it is often referred to as a temple and is a temple in terms of architecture, some academics have contended that the Parthenon is not a true temple in the traditional sense of the word.
• There is no evidence that Phidias’ enormous statue of Athena was connected to any particular ancient worship or aroused an ardor for religion.
• One of the main reasons for the construction of the Parthenon and the other temples that surrounded it, according to Plutarch, the great Greek biographer writing centuries after the building was completed, was the need to deal with growing unemployment.
• Pericles hoped that by embarking on a major public works program for the Acropolis, he would provide jobs for ordinary Athenians (the towering hill in Athens where the Parthenon and other temples dedicated to the gods were located). Carpenters, stonemasons, ivory-workers, painters, enamellers, pattern-makers, blacksmiths, rope-makers, weavers, engravers, merchants, coppersmiths, potters, shoemakers, tanners, laborers, etc., were the ones who worked on the construction of Parthenon. 
• At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, he envisioned the Parthenon as an architectural masterpiece that would proclaim to the world the superiority of Athenian values, governance, and way of life.
• As a result, only the finest building materials—the finest stone, bronze, gold, ivory, ebony, cypress wood — and the best artists and craftsmen—were acceptable.
• It was to be a structure for the ages.

Older Parthenon

• A strong limestone foundation that extended and flattened the southern portion of the Acropolis top served as the first attempt to construct a sanctuary for Athena Parthenos on the location of the current Parthenon (about 490–488 BCE).
• This structure stood next to the ancient temple devoted to Athena Polias and replaced a Hekatompedon temple (“hundred-footer”) (“of the city”). When the Persians attacked Athens in 480 BCE and destroyed the Acropolis, the Older or Pre-Parthenon, as it is commonly called, was still being built. Herodotus recorded the proto-construction Parthenon’s and demise, and the drums of its columns could clearly be seen embedded in the curtain wall to the north of the Erechtheion.

Present Building

• Pericles started an extensive construction project that lasted the entire second half of the fifth century BCE, when Athens was the greatest cultural center of its day and the Acropolis of Athens served as the Delian League’s headquarters. The Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Erechtheion, and the temple of Athena Nike, four of the most significant structures still standing on the Acropolis today, were constructed during this time. The artist Phidias, who was also in charge of the sculptural embellishment, oversaw the construction of the Parthenon on a general level. Ictinos and Callicrates, the building’s architects, started their work on it in 447 BCE, and they finished it in large part in 432 BCE. But until at least 431, work on the ornaments went on.

Architectural Features

Stylobate

• A three-tiered platform rises above the earth to support the temple. This platform measures 228 feet long, over 101 feet wide, and has a modest center bulge.
• Because a platform this length would appear to drop in the middle if it were completely straight, it was designed to elevate by little over four inches on the longer side, giving the appearance that it was level.

Columns

• The Parthenon is peristyle, meaning that columns line each of its outside sides. Eight columns line each end, for a total of 17 columns from the front to the back. Each end contains a second row of six columns between the exterior face and the internal framework.
• The columns were constructed in the Doric order and stood 34 feet tall. They featured a straightforward spherical capital. Each is constructed with eleven marble blocks that have been stacked on top of one another to form the shape of a drum. The columns’ middles were thickened to offset the foreshortening effect, much like the stylobate.

Cella

• The sanctuary itself was housed inside the inner building. The cella was a square structure built of ashlar stones. It was made up of two chambers that had opposite side entrances and a common back wall.
• The greater of the two sides, on the eastern side, was the enormous statue of Athena, which was surrounded on three sides by a row of columns. The western room, known as the Hall of the Virgins and used as a treasury, was smaller and supported by four Ionian columns. The Panathenaic festival, which was conducted yearly in honor of Athena, was engraved into the architrave of the cella, or the facing directly above the capitals of its columns.

Architrave

• There is a stratum of marble with a flat, unpainted exterior facing directly above the column capitals. The top of this layer contains the only embellishment, which is a painted outer lip.

Triglyphs and Metopes

• This second layer, which sits just above the architrave, used to be vividly colored.
• It is made up of blocks that alternate between metopes, or reliefs, that show one scene in a sequence that all have similar themes, and triglyphs, which have the appearance of three vertical bars. These images portrayed mythological battle, in keeping with Athena’s essence as a martial goddess.

Cornice

• The platform that supported the actual roof was built on top of the stratum containing the triglyphs and metopes, but it also protruded somewhat beyond it. The lower surface that was exposed was painted and ornamented.

Pediment

• A triangular panel, located above the cornice on the eastern and western ends, enclosed the area directly below the roof.
• The painted pediments provided as a background for free-standing statues. The eastern side’s topic was Athena’s miraculous birth from Zeus’s head, while the western side’s theme was her conflict with Poseidon, which led to her being chosen as Athens’ patroness.

Roof

• Marble tiles excavated from Mount Pentelicon were used for the roof’s construction.
• This incorporated a substantial gutter around the periphery in addition to the flat roof tiles themselves. This gutter had a significant function in the time of wooden temples, but it was only present in a stone temple for the sake of tradition.

Acroteria

• At the peak of the roof, on either side, and on each of the four corners were statues of flowers and/or Nike, the goddess of victory. Although minor fragments thought to be from the Parthenon have been discovered, the exact composition of the acroteria is still a topic of speculation.
• The Parthenon was built with a love of symmetry, particularly for the traditional ratio of 4 to 9. In order to divide rectangular features equally into a series of Pythagorean triangles, or triangles with ratios of 3 on the vertical, 4 on the horizontal, and 5 on the diagonal, they were measured in proportions that allowed for this.

Later History

• The Parthenon was basically unaltered for more than two millennia thanks to the meticulous installation of perfectly cut masonry. When the structure was transformed into a Byzantine church, some of the sculptures—including the enormous statue of Phidias—were removed.
• When the structure was converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral in the seventh century, some structural changes were also made to the inside.
• After taking control of the Acropolis in 1458, the Ottoman Turks converted the Parthenon into a mosque two years later, making only the minor addition of a minaret to the southwest corner. A powder magazine inside the temple blew up during the shelling of the Acropolis by Venetians fighting the Turks in 1687, obliterating the center of the structure.
• Then, when attempting to take many statues as spoils, the Venetians unintentionally destroyed a number of them. The British aristocrat Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, removed a significant portion of the sculpture that was still there in 1801-03 with Turkish consent and sold it to the British Museum in London in 1816.
• Many of the Parthenon’s sculptures are still in Athens. However, some have been on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, in Copenhagen, and abroad. The British Museum has refused numerous requests from the Greek government to return the marbles, citing, among other justifications, that doing so has prevented further deterioration and harm. The matter is still up for debate.

Parthenon Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Athens’ Parthenon across 22 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about the Parthenon, which is an ancient temple found at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The architectural site was dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patroness.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

• Parthenon, Greece Facts
• Multiple Choice
• Building Vocabulary
• Fact Check
• What Are My Functions?
• Compare and Contrast
• Describe a Sculpture
• Being a Tourist
• Identify My Parts
• Paint It
• Pick a Job

Frequently Asked Questions

How was the Parthenon destroyed?

After the Ottoman conquest, this building became a mosque. However, in the Morean War, a Venetian bomb landed on the Parthenon and exploded. This caused significant damage to the Parthenon.

What was inside the Parthenon?

The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens housed a statue of Athena that was made of gold and ivory by Pheidias. It is believed that the statue was dedicated in 438 BC.

What is unique about the Parthenon?

The Parthenon is known for its good proportions and the way it was built. The Doric order had been developed at least 250 years earlier, and the Parthenon was the final product of a long process. Pentelic marble was used to build it. This marble is white and shiny.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

<a href="https://kidskonnect.com/places/parthenon/">Parthenon, Greece Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com</a> - KidsKonnect, August 25, 2022

Link will appear as Parthenon, Greece Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, August 25, 2022