Athena Parthenos is the title of a massive sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena by Phidias, and its modern namesake by Alan LeQuire housed at the Parthenon replica in Nashville, Tennessee.

Replicating the ancient masterpiece
LeQuire, a Nashville native, was awarded the commission to produce the Parthenon's centerpiece. His work was modeled on descriptions given of the original statue that commanded the floor of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, which was the masterpiece of Ancient Greece's most acclaimed sculptor. Phidias began his work around 447 BCE, and it stood for approximately 700 years before it was destroyed by invaders. The modern version took eight years to complete, and was unveiled to the public on May 20, 1990.

The modern version of Athena Parthenos is significant because of its scale and its attention to recreating the Phidias work. The statue adds an additional dimension of realism to the replicated Parthenon, whose interior east room (called the Naos) was merely a large empty hall prior to the statue's unveiling. The ruins of the original temple that stand atop the Acropolis give little idea of how the magnificent structure originally appeared in ancient Greece. Athena Parthenos gives visitors to Nashville's Parthenon the impression that they truly are inside an ancient place of worship.

The statue is a represtation of the virginal Greek goddess of wisdom, wearing a helmet and gown. Against the base in her left hand she holds an enormous shield (over 3 metres (11 feet) in diameter), behind which a serpent rears its head. In her right hand, the goddess holds her constant companion Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, who herself measures almost 2 metres (6 feet 4 inches) and weighs 180 kilos (400 pounds).

Production
Athena Parthenos is made of a composite of gypsum cement and ground fiberglass, The head of Athena was assembled over an aluminum armature, 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 incredible 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.

Gilt and paint
Painstaking research was performed by LeQuire and the Parthenon staff to ensure the accuracy of the statue's resemblance to the Phidias work. 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 Phidias' Athena Parthenos would have appeared during its time.

The gold plates on the Athena statue in ancient times weighed approximately 1,500 pounds and were one-eighth to one-sixteenth of an inch thick. The 23.75-karat gold leaf on Nashville's Athena Parthenos weighs a total of 8.5 pounds and is three times thinner than tissue paper. The modern extravagance of gilding such a large statue pales in comparison to the lavish spending of the Greeks. In fact, one theory of the original's demise is that Athena Parthenos was decimated and looted to remove the gilding.

In addition to gilding, the project included painting the details of the statue's face, wardrobe and shield. LeQuire himself applied the paint.

Facts and figures
Nashville's Athena stands 41'10" tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World.
The statue of Nike in Athena's right hand stands 6'4" tall.
There are eleven snakes represented on Athena's breastplate, bracelets and belt.
The Athena Parthenos in the ancient Parthenon was considered the greatest achievement of Phidias, the most acclaimed sculptor of ancient Greece.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Athena Parthenos".

GiveMeAmerica recognizes The Parthenon as one the Top Attractions in the Greater Nashville Area!

For more information about the Nashville area, visit GiveMeNashville.com

Athena Parthenos