Inventory number
Ακρ. 935
Artist
Pheidias' workshop
Category
Architectural sculpture
Period
Classical Period
Date
437-432 BC
Dimensions
Height: 0.35 m
Length: 0.29 m
Width: 0.372 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
Parthenon Gallery
Part of a woman’s head that cannot be identified with a specific deity. Some researchers believe it represents Eileithyia whereas some others Selene (Moon) (Ακρ. 881), Hera (Ακρ. 6711) or even Aphrodite.
The lower part of the head is missing, its surface is worn and the facial features defaced whilst the back of the head is crudely sculpted. The woman’s hair held with a headband is rolled into a bun at the back and covered partially with her himation.
The hairstyle was adorned with metal jewellery that fitted into the holes drilled in the hair some of which retain parts of the bronze joints. The right ear is pierced for the attachment of an earring now lost. The greater concentration of holes on the head’s right side may indicate that its right profile was visible and thus more lavishly decorated.
The head was found probably in 1835 among other fragments on the west side of the Parthenon. It might have fallen off from the pediment because of the bombardment of the Parthenon by the Venetians under the general Francesco Morosini. This is the reason that it was not taken by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, who was in Greece between 1801-1804 when the country was under Ottoman rule. During that time he forcefully detached most of the sculptures of the pediment which were still in their original position.
The east pediment portrayed the miraculous birth of Athena from the head of her father Zeus. The scene takes place on Mt Olympus in the presence of the other gods who watch standing, sitting or half-reclining. The pediments' corners contained the chariots of Helios (Sun), which emerges from the sea, and Selene (Moon), which sinks in the ocean waves, indicating thus that the goddess' birth takes place at dawn. The centre of the scene was occupied by the statues of Zeus and Athena. Due to the misadventures suffered by the Parthenon over the following centuries, many of the temple's sculptures have been destroyed; some survive in mutilated form, while others are represented only by small fragments.
The two Parthenon pediments are adorned with about fifty oversized statues. The sculptures perfectly worked even on their unseen sides present scenes from the myths of the goddess Athena.
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