Inventory number
Ακρ. 881
Artist
Pheidias' workshop
Category
Architectural sculpture
Period
Classical Period
Date
437-432 BC
Dimensions
Height: 0.75 m
Length: 0.51 m
Width: 0.05 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
Parthenon Gallery
This headless female statue belongs to Selene. The goddess, depicted down to her waist, dives into the sea driving her chariot (Ακρ. 19053) to the west. She is dressed in a belted peplos above which falls her short epiblema. The straps that cross her chest keep her garment in place against the force of the wind. The holes around her waist once received her bronze belt buckle and those on her shoulders the pins that held her garment.
The statue was found in 1840, in the excavations in front of the east side of the Parthenon. Most probably it fell off from the pediment in 1687 during the bombardment of the Parthenon by the Venetians under the command of the general Francesco Morosini. This way it escaped the looting by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, who between 1801 and 1804 when Greece was still under Ottoman occupation, detached most of the sculptures that he found on the pediment.
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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