Throne
Inventory number
Ακρ. 1366
Category
Furniture
Period
Classical or Roman Period
Date
4th cent. BC or 2nd cent. AD
Dimensions
Height: 0.75 m
Length: 0.65 m
Width: 0.62 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
First Floor, North
Found in 1836 between the peristyle and the pronaos of the Parthenon. It was reassembled and restored, while certain parts of it are missing. One of those was lost in modern times but has been made known from a plaster copy of the throne that is located in Berlin.
On the upper, outer part of the throne’s back only three letters have survived from the inscription which was once carved on the now missing piece. The inscription read: [ΕΠΙ---]ΡΑΤΟ ΑΡ[Χ]ΟΝΤΟ[Σ] which is a reference to an Eponymous Archon whose name ends in «…stratos», such as Kallistratos an Eponymous Archon of the 4th cent. BC, or Demostratos, an Archon of the 2nd cent. AD.
The throne has solid sides, rounded backrest and is decorated with relief hybrid creatures of eastern provenance. On the backside a winged male figure is depicted whose legs turn into spiraling stalks with long palm and acanthus leaves. The figure is dressed in long-sleeved Persian attire and as we know from similar thrones, he would have worn a polos and a band around his head. The throne’s armrests have the form of winged lions with snake’s body and tail in the shape of an acanthus.
The dating of this throne is uncertain. Some consider it an original work of the 4th cent. BC, while others view it as a 2nd cent. AD copy. In any case it belonged to an ancient public building but after the conversion of the Parthenon into a Christian Church it was transported there to be used as an episcopal throne.
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Casson, S., Brooke, D., Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum. Sculpture and Architectural Fragments, with a section upon the Terracottas, II, Cambridge, 1921, σελ. 278-280, αρ. κατ. 1366
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Richter, G., «The Marble Throne on the Acropolis and its Replicas», American Journal of Archaeology 58, 1954, σελ. 271-276
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Richter, G., The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, London, 1966, σελ. 32-33, εικ. 154-161
Möbius, H., Eine dreiseitige Basis in Athen, Studia Varia, Wiesbaden, 1967, σελ. 64-68
Schöll, A., Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Griechenland, Dogma, Bremen, 2012, σελ. 119
Παντερμαλής, Δ., Ελευθεράτου, Σ., Βλασσοπούλου, Χ., Μουσείο Ακρόπολης. Οδηγός, Αθήνα, 2016, σελ. 302, εικ. 364
