The Parthenon Enigma

by Joan Breton Connelly

  15. Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 16–19; Jenkins, “Casts of the Parthenon Sculptures”; Jenkins and Middleton, “Paint on the Parthenon Sculptures,” 202–5.

  16. Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 16; Jenkins and Middleton, “Paint on the Parthenon Sculptures,” 185–86.

  17. Faraday’s findings are questioned by Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 4–5, 16–17.

  18. Ibid., 4.

  19. J. Goury and O. Jones, Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra (London: Jones, 1836–1845).

  20. O. Jones, “An Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace,” Papers Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects (1854): 7. For a useful overview of early scholarship on the Parthenon’s polychromy, see Vlassopoulou, “New Investigations into the Polychromy of the Parthenon,” 219–20; Jenkins and Middleton, “Paint on the Parthenon Sculptures.”

  21. G. H. Lewes, “Historical Evidence,” Papers Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects (1854): 19.

  22. F. C. Penrose, An Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture; or, The Results of a Recent Survey Conducted Chiefly with Reference to the Optical Refinements Exhibited in the Constructions of the Ancient Buildings of Athens (London: Society of the Dilettanti, 1851), 55. See Jenkins and Middleton, “Paint on the Parthenon Sculptures,” where they argue for ancient base coatings on the sculptures applied in advance of the application of color.

  23. On June 18, 1858, a writer who signed as “Marmor” railed, “Sir, they are scrubbing the Elgin Marbles!” Westmacott’s method of cleaning with fuller’s earth was contrary to the advice of the keeper of antiquities, Edward Hawkins (employed in the post since 1826), who had advised a gentler cleaning with “clay water.” See Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 5–6.

  24. Ibid., 6; Officers Report: The Reports of the Keepers of the Antiquities Departments to the Trustees, June 25, 1868 (British Museum).

  25. Newton recommended that the pedimental sculptures be similarly protected. See Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 6; Officers Report: The Reports of the Keepers of the Antiquities Departments to the Trustees, October 8, 1873 (British Museum).

  26. Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 6.

  27. Ibid.; Officers Report: The Reports of the Keepers of the Antiquities Departments to the Trustees, January 23, 1933 (British Museum).

  28. David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, The Crawford Papers: The Journals of David Lindsay, Twenty-Seventh Earl of Crawford and Tenth Earl of Balcarres, 1871–1940, During the Years 1892 to 1940, ed. J. Vincent (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984). See Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 6.

  29. Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 8, 37–39, gives the First Interim Report to the Trustees, November 7, 1938, in which Lord Duveen’s foreman, a man named Daniel, is said to have “expressed Lord Duveen’s desire that the sculptures be made as clean and white as possible.”

  30. The Second Interim Report, December 8, 1938, contains the testimony of two laborers who had used copper tools in cleaning from June 1937 on. See Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 46–47, 24–25, and plate 10, for discussion and illustration of tools used in the cleaning. Dr. R. D. Barnett, retired keeper of Western Asiatic antiquities at the museum, stated in a letter to the museum’s director (February 9, 1984) that he had been puzzled as to why an elderly laborer had been allowed to sit “day after day using hammer and chisel and wire brushes” on the Parthenon’s metopes and frieze slabs. See Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 7, for background context to this document, which Jenkins sees as “artfully designed” to discredit all but Barnett himself. The full document (marked “Strictly Private and Confidential”) is published in Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, as app. 5, 45.

  31. Letter of Plenderleith, dated September 26, 1938, published in Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 36.

  32. Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, app. 2; First Interim Report, 27, 37–39.

  33. All press clippings are published in Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, 9, 57–65.

  34. St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, 280–313; W. St. Clair, “The Elgin Marbles: Questions of Stewardship and Accountability,” International Journal of Cultural Property 8 (1999): 397–521. Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy, presents a wonderfully thorough account of the history of the cleaning of the Parthenon sculptures with all relevant documentation and archival materials.

  35. Vlassopoulou, “New Investigations into the Polychromy of the Parthenon”; C. Vlassopoulou, “Η πολυχρωμία στον Παρθενώνα,” in Πολύχρωμοι Θεοί: Χρώματα στα αρχαία γλυπτά, ed. V. Brinkmann, N. Kaltsas, and R. Wünsche (Athens: National Archaeological Museum, 2007), 98–101. I thank Christina Vlassopoulou for her kindness in sharing this information with me.

  36. Blue pigment has been found on the fillet of the metopes and triglyphs and on the three vertical bars (meroi) of the triglyphs themselves. X-ray diffraction analysis and electron beam microanalysis shows that the blue paint is “Egyptian blue” (CaCuSi4O10) and the red is ferric oxide (hematite, Fe2O3). See Vlassopoulou, “Η πολυχρωμία στον Παρθενώνα” (note 35, above), who cites K. Kouzeli et al., “Monochromatic layers with and without oxalates on the Parthenon,” in The Oxalate Films: Origins and Significance in the Conservation of Works of Art (Milan: Centro CNR Gino Bozza, 1989), 198–202, esp. 199, figs. 30–32.

  37. By the Acropolis Ephorate and the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum in direct collaboration with the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser. For the history of research on polychromy and pigments used on sculptures from the Athenian Acropolis, see D. Pandermalis, ed., Archaic Colors (Athens: Acropolis Museum, 2012).

  38. West frieze, rider 17 (slab 9), pigment on the left arm and on the folds hanging down behind the figure’s back; rider 21 (slab 11), on the chitoniskos. The conservation of the east metopes has revealed paint on the fillet (taenia) and the band with the astragal.

  39. Traces of tool marks used in carving the sculpture, as well as original monochromatic layers of paint on its surface, were also revealed. See Vlassopoulou, “New Investigations into the Polychromy of the Parthenon,” 221–23.

  40. R. Brooks, “High-Tech Athens Museum Challenges UK over Marbles,” Sunday Times, June 21, 2009, 8.

  41. Thompson, “Architecture as a Medium of Public Relations”; H. A. Thompson, “Athens and the Hellenistic Princes,” Proceedings of the American Philological Society 97 (1953): 254–61; C. Habicht, “Athens and the Attalids in the Second Century B.C.,” Hesperia 59 (1990): 561–77; C. Habicht, The Hellenistic Monarchies: Selected Papers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 177–84.

  42. E. S. Gruen, “Culture as Policy: The Attalids of Pergamon,” in De Grummond and Ridgway, From Pergamon to Sperlonga, 17–31; Webb, “Functions of the Sanctuary of Athena and the Pergamon Altar”; R. A. Tomlinson, “Pergamon,” in From Mycenae to Constantinople: The Evolution of the Ancient City (New York: Routledge, 1992), 111–21; Radt, Pergamon, 179–206, 216–24; J. Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View, 350–50 B.C. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 62–63; Hurwit, Athenian Acropolis, 264–66.

  43. P. Thonemann, Attalid Asia Minor: Money, International Relations, and the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); H.-J. Gehrke, “Geschichte Pergamons—ein Abriss,” in Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Pergamon: Panorama, 13–20; Radt, Pergamon, 24–26.

  44. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 4.6. For an overview of philosophers of the period, see C. Habicht, Hellenistic Athens and Her Philosophers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988); J. Dillon, The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy, 347–274 B.C. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  45. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.8.1; Livy, History of Rome 38.16; Hansen, Attalids of Pergamon, 28, 59, 306–14.

  46. Camp, Athenian Agora, 16; J. McK. Camp, Gods and He
roes in the Athenian Agora (Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1980), 24–25; T. L. Shear, The Monument of the Eponymous Heroes in the Athenian Agora (Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1970).

  47. Stewart, Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis, with full bibliography; Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture I, 284–85; J. J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 83–95.

  48. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.25.2.

  49. M. Korres, “The Pedestals and the Akropolis South Wall,” in Stewart, Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis, 242–85.

  50. L. Mercuri, “Programmi pergameni ad Atene: La stoa di Eumene,” Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente 82 (2004): 61–80; Camp, Athenian Agora, 171–72; E.-L. Schwandner, “Beobachtungen zur hellenistischen Tempelarchitektur von Pergamon,” in Hermogenes und die hochhellenistische Architektur: Kolloquium Berlin 1988, ed. W. Hoepfner and E.-L. Schwandner (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1990), 93–102; Radt, Pergamon, 286–92; Thompson, “Architecture as a Medium of Public Relations,” 182–83.

  51. IG II2 3781, see Thompson and Wycherley, Agora of Athens, 107; H. A. Thompson, “Excavations in the Athenian Agora, 1949,” Hesperia 19 (1950): 318ff.; Thompson, “Architecture as a Medium of Public Relations,” 186. It should be noted, however, that the dedicants could be Athenians named after the kings, see H. Mattingly, “Some Problems in Second Century Attic Prosopography,” in Historia 20 (1971): 24–46, especially 29–32.

  52. Athenaios, Deipnosophists 5.212e–f.

  53. N. Sakka, “ ‘A Debt to Ancient Wisdom and Beauty’: The Reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos in the Ancient Agora of Athens,” in Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience? American Archaeology in Greece, Hesperia Special Issue 82 (2013):203–27; M. Kohl, “La genèse du portique d’Attale II: Origine et sens des singularités d’un bâtiment construit dans le cadre de la nouvelle organisation de l’agora d’Athènes au IIe siècle av. J.-C.,” in Constructions publiques et programmes édilitaires en Grèce entre le IIe siècle av. J.-C. et le Ier siècle ap. J.-C., ed. J.-Y. Marc and J.-C. Moretti (Athens: École Française d’Athènes, 2001), 237–66; H. A. Thompson, The Stoa of Attalos II in Athens (Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1992); Camp, Athenian Agora, 172–75, and plate 140; J. J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 69, 219; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, 505–19; J. Travlos, “Restauration de la Stoa (portique) d’Attale,” Bulletin de l’Union des Diplômés des Universités et des Écoles de Hautes Études de Belgique 7 (1955): 1–16; H. A. Thompson, “Stoa of Attalos,” Archaeology 2 (1949): 124–30.

  54. For full discussion see Shear, “Polis and Panathenaia,” 873–78; J. Shear, “Royal Athenians: The Ptolemies and Attalids at the Panathenaia,” in Palagia and Spetsieri-Choremi, Panathenaic Games, 135–45. See Hurwit, Athenian Acropolis, 271–72, for the possibility of victories at the Panathenaia of 182 B.C. or 186 B.C.

  55. M. Korres, “Αναθηματικά και τιμητικά τέθριππα στην Αθήνα και τους Δελφούς,” in Delphes cent ans après la grande fouille: Essai de bilan, ed. A. Jacquemin (Athens: École Française d’Athènes, 2000), 293–329.

  56. See Shear, “Polis and Panathenaia,” 876–77.

  57. Korres, “Architecture of the Parthenon,” in Acropolis Restoration, 47, 177; Korres, “Recent Discoveries on the Acropolis,” 177, 179; Korres, “Parthenon from Antiquity to the 19th Century,” 139; Hurwit, Athenian Acropolis, 271–72.

  58. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.27.4; 9.30.1.

  59. S. Agelides, “Kulte und Heiligtümer in Pergamon,” in Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Pergamon: Panorama, 174–83; Webb, “Functions of the Pergamon Altar and the Sanctuary of Athena,” 241–44; Radt, Pergamon, 179–90; R. Bohn, Das Heiligtum der Athena Polias Nikephoros (Berlin: Spemann, 1885).

  60. The hypothetical visualization of the south slope of the Acropolis shown on this page is not a scientific reconstruction but is merely meant to help the reader visualize the Acropolis at this time. For the Pergamene theater, see M. Maischberger, “Der Dionysos-Tempel auf der Theaterterrasse,” in Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Pergamon: Panorama, 242–47.

  61. V. Kästner, “Das Heiligtum der Athena,” in Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Pergamon: Panorama, 184–93.

  62. Queyrel, L’autel de Pergame; Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II, 19–102; Stewart, “Pergamo Ara Marmorea Magna”; V. Kästner, “The Architecture of the Great Altar of Pergamon,” in Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods, ed. H. Koester (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1998), 137–61; W. Hoepfner, “The Architecture of Pergamon,” in Dreyfus and Schraudolph, Pergamon, 2:23–67 and 168–82; Kästner, “Architecture of the Great Altar and the Telephos Frieze.”

  63. Summarized and analyzed by Stewart, “Pergamo Ara Marmorea Magna,” 32–33; Andreae, “Dating and Significance of the Telephos Frieze”; A. Scholl, “Der Pergamonaltar—ein Zeuspalast mit homerischen Zügen?,” in Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Pergamon: Panorama, 212–18. For the identification of the Great Altar with the hero shrine of Telephos, see Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II, 67–102; Webb, “Functions of the Sanctuary of Athena and the Pergamon Altar”; Kästner, “Architecture of the Great Altar and the Telephos Frieze”; Webb, Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture, 12–13, 61–66; Radt, Pergamon, 55. For interpretation of the Great Altar as victory monument, see W. Hoepfner, “Von Alexandria über Pergamon nach Nikopolis: Städtebau und Stadtbilder hellenistischer Zeit,” Akten 13 (1990): 275–85. For the Great Altar as “Palace of Zeus,” see Scholl, “Der Pergamonaltar—ein Zeuspalast mit homerischen Zügen?”

  64. On the strength of his study of the context pottery from the 1961 excavations (which he dates to ca. 172/171 B.C.), P. J. Callaghan down dates the beginning of construction on the Pergamon Altar to ca. 165 B.C. and associates it with Eume- nes II’s victories over the Gauls in 167–166 B.C. Since the Attalids would have been directing all of their financial resources before this date to the wars, Callaghan argues that construction on the altar is likely to have started only after these victories; that is, ca. 166–156 B.C. P. J. Callaghan, “On the Date of the Great Altar of Pergamon,” BICS 28 (1981): 115–21. De Luca and Radt opened new soundings in 1994 that yielded pottery they dated to just after 172 B.C., with certain styles dating as late as 157–150 B.C.; see G. De Luca and W. Radt, “Sondagen im Fundament des Grossen Altars,” AJA 105 (2001): 129–30. B. S. Ridgway suggests that construction began in 159 B.C., shortly before Eumenes II’s death and during his co-regency with Attalos II, and ended with the death of Attalos III in 133 B.C.; see Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II, 19–76; Webb, Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture, 21–22, 62–63. See also Andreae, Phyromachos-Probleme; Andreae, “Dating and Significance of the Telephos Frieze”; F. Rumscheid, Untersuchungen zur Kleinasiatischen Bauornamentik des Hellenismus, 2 vols. (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994), 1:3–39.

  65. Hesiod, Theogony 105–7; see Simon, Pergamon und Hesiod. For philosophical, astronomical, and cosmological aspects of the Gigantomachy frieze, see F.-H. Massa-Pairault, La gigantomachie de Pergame ou l’image du monde (Athens: École Française d’Athènes, 2007); F.-H. Massa-Pairault, “Sur quelques motifs de la frise de la gigantomachie: Définition et interprétation,” in Pergame: Histoire et archéologie d’un centre urbain depuis ses origines jusqu’à la fin de l’antiquité, ed. M. Kohl (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Université Charles de Gaulle–Lille III, 2008), 93–120.

  66. Interestingly, the cornice of the sacrificial altar within the raised court shows a distinctive molding that quotes the decoration on the altar of Athena at Tegea, establishing a direct link with the “home” sanctuary on the Greek mainland, where Auge herself was understood to have served as priestess. See E. Schraudolph, “Cornice of the Sacrificial Altar (cat. n.
34),” in Dreyfus and Schraudolph, Pergamon, 1:100: “The two-fascia architrave is completed by a string of beads, a Lesbian kymation, an egg-and-dart pattern, and a groove with a floral frieze. This extraordinarily varied decoration closely resembles the pilaster molding with a nearly identical sequence from the altar of the temple of Athena at Tegea, which dates to the later fourth century B.C.” See also Kästner, “Architecture of the Great Altar and the Telephos Frieze,” 78–80 and fig. 7; N. J. Norman, “The Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea,” AJA 88 (1984): 190–91 and plate 30, figs. 8a–b. Kästner notes, in addition, that the altar’s anthemion frieze goes back to the architecture of the Erechtheion and, if Hans Möbius’s hypothesis is correct, to the altar of Athena as well. Kästner therefore proposes, “The famous sanctuary on the Athenian Acropolis—recalling the good relations of the Attalids with Athens—could well have been the model for an ornamentation that was unusual in Asia Minor.” H. Möbius, “Attische Architekturstudien, II: Zur Ornamentik des Erechtheions,” in Studia varia, ed. W. Schiering (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1967), 83–91. I thank Michael Anthony Fowler for kindly alerting me to these references.

  67. Those who interpret this figure as Nyx include L. Robert, “Archäologische Nachlese, XX: Die Götter in der pergamenischen Gigantomachie,” Hermes 46 (1911): 232–35, and Simon, Pergamon und Hesiod. M. Pfanner sees her as Persephone, based on the ribbons behind her head, which terminate in pomegranate flowers; see M. Pfanner, “Bemerkungen zur Komposition und Interpretation des Grossen Frieses von Pergamon,” AA 94 (1979): 53–55. H. Winnefeld thought the figure was Demeter; see H. Winnefeld, Die Friese des grossen Altars (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1910), 146. V. Kästner, “Restaurierung der Friese des Pergamonaltars—zum Abschluss der Arbeiten am Nordfries,” Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz 37 (2000): 159, 170, suggests that the figure is one of the three Fates; Queyrel, L’autel de Pergame, 71–73, agrees with Kästner’s general identification as a Fate but proposes further that she is Atropos.