What Is The Purpose Of The Erechtheion?

The originals are housed in the Acropolis Museum in Athens. The Caryatids at the Acropolis Museum. Diagrams focused on each layer of dirt to assist conservators during the lengthy restoration.

What is the top of the Parthenon called?

There are two sculpted, triangular-shaped gables known as pediments on each end of the Parthenon. The East pediment depicted Athena’s birth from the head of her father, Zeus. The West pediment showed the conflict between Athena and Poseidon to claim Attica, an ancient region of Greece which included the city of Athens.

Is the Parthenon the same as the Acropolis?

Acropolis is the area the Parthenon sits on.

What’s the difference between Acropolis and the Parthenon? The Acropolis is the high hill in Athens that the Parthenon, an old temple, sits on. … Acropolis is the hill and the Parthenon is the ancient structure.

What is Athena the god of?

Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors.

Who made Caryatids?

Caryatid (South Porch) and Ionic Column (North Porch), Erechtheion on the Acropolis, Athens, marble, 421-407 B.C.E., Classical Period (British Museum, London); Mnesicles may have been the architect.

What is the difference between an Canephora and a caryatid?

Caryatids with baskets on their heads are called canephora (In ancient Greece, the kanephorus were maidens who carried sacred offerings in baskets upon their heads to the altar on the acropolis). … The male equivalent of a caryatid is a telamon or atlas.

How many Caryatids were taken from Greece?

Although of the same height and build, and similarly attired and coiffed, the six Caryatids are not the same: their faces, stance, draping, and hair are carved separately; the three on the left stand on their right knee, while the three on the right stand on their left knee.

What makes the Erechtheion unique?

The Erechtheion is an intricate temple. It sprang from a complex plan that was designed to accommodate the radically uneven ground on the site, and to avoid disturbing sacred shrines like the altars to Poseidon (Erechtheus), and Hephaestus, or the spot where Poseidon hit the Acropolis with his trident.

What makes the Erechtheion strange?

The Erechtheion is often described as ‘unusual’ or ‘complex’ and this is because of its multifaceted purpose. The site is sacred ground and said to be the burial place of two important characters.

Why is the Erechtheion famous?

The Erechtheion (or Erechtheum) is an ancient Greek temple constructed on the acropolis of Athens between 421 and 406 BCE in the Golden Age of the city in order to house the ancient wooden cult statue of Athena and generally glorify the great city at the height of its power and influence.

What is a male caryatid called?

An atlas or telamon is a male version of a caryatid, i.e. a sculpted male statue serving as an architectural support.

How was Erichthonius born?

During the struggle, his semen fell on her thigh, and Athena, in disgust, wiped it away with a scrap of wool (ἔριον, erion) and flung it to the earth (χθών, chthôn). As she fled, Erichthonius was born from the semen that fell to the earth.

What are the three Greek orders?

At the start of what is now known as the Classical period of architecture, ancient Greek architecture developed into three distinct orders: the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders.

Which architectural order is most associated with the Hellenistic period?

Architecture in the Hellenistic period is most commonly associated with the growing popularity of the Corinthian order. However, the Doric and Ionic orders underwent notable changes.

How much does the caryatid weigh?

The granite structure is 165 feet (50 metres) tall and weighs 600 tons.

Are caryatids Ionic?

Caryatid. A caryatid is a sculpture of a woman that is used as a column, usually to support a porch roof. Caryatids were never used in Doric architecture and only rarely in Ionic.

How tall are the caryatids?

The caryatids stand 2,27 meters (7.5 feet) and are made of the best Greek marble, Pentelic. Like early Korai figures of archaic Greece, these women stand tall and straight.

What does a pediment look like?

A pediment is an architectural element found particularly in Classical, Neoclassical and Baroque architecture, and its derivatives, consisting of a gable, usually of a triangular shape, placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns.

When were caryatids made?

The term Caryatid first appears in the 4th century BCE and was coined by Vitruvius in reference to Karyai in Laconia where women often danced balancing a basket on their heads in honour of Artemis and where Caryatids were used in Archaic architecture.

Who was the ugliest god?

Facts about Hephaestus

Hephaestus was the only ugly god among perfectly beautiful immortals. Hephaestus was born deformed and was cast out of heaven by one or both of his parents when they noticed that he was imperfect. He was the workman of the immortals: he made their dwellings, furnishings, and weapons.

Why was Athena a virgin?

In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos (Παρθένος “virgin”), because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin.

What are female gods called?

A goddess is a female deity.

What is a metope in Greek?

: the space between two triglyphs of a Doric frieze often adorned with carved work.


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