What is a pediment?
A pediment is the space formed under the pitched roof at the narrow ends of a temple. Its name in Greek came from its triangular shape, which recalled an eagle spreading its wings. On the Parthenon the two pediments held about fifty statues, larger than life, carved from Pentelic marble and finished all round, even on their backs, which no one would ever see once they were in place. They were painted and fitted with metal accessories. The chief creator was Pheidias, working with pupils such as Agorakritos, Alkamenes, Kolotes and Kresilas, and the pediments were the last part of the sculpture to be finished, in 432 BCE.
East: the birth of Athena
Over the main entrance the scene was set on Mount Olympus. Athena sprang from the head of her father Zeus, and the other gods watched, standing, sitting or half-reclining. The centre, with Zeus and Athena themselves, is lost. What survives best is the frame: in one corner the chariot of Helios, the Sun, rose from the sea, and in the other the chariot of Selene, the Moon, sank into the waves. The goddess was born at dawn.
The Selene that survives in Athens is a headless torso, the goddess shown down to the waist as she drives into the sea, her garment held by straps against the wind. It probably fell from the pediment in the explosion of 1687 and was found in 1840 in front of the east side, which is how it escaped Lord Elgin’s agents, who removed most of the statues still on the pediments in 1801-1804. A young woman walking briskly, usually identified as Artemis, is in London; a plaster cast stands in its place in Athens.
West: Athena against Poseidon
The west pediment showed a contest held on the Acropolis itself. Athena and Poseidon competed to become the protector of Athens, and the judges, the city’s mythical kings Kekrops and Erechtheus with other local heroes, chose Athena’s gift, the olive tree, over the salt water offered by Poseidon. The two gods and their chariots filled the centre; the corners held the river gods of Athens, Ilissos and Kephissos.
Kekrops is still recognisable. He kneels with his daughter Pandrosos, both carved from one block and turned towards the centre; a snake, carved separately, coiled between them, the sign that he was born from the land of Attica itself. The group stayed on the temple until 1977, when it was taken down to protect it from pollution. Of Athena herself, the head was found on the Acropolis in 1908; drill holes show that her helmet carried a sphinx and griffins, like the helmet of the Athena Parthenos inside the temple.
A scattered puzzle
The pediments are the hardest part of the Parthenon to read today. Many statues were destroyed, others survive damaged or as small fragments, and those that remain are divided between museums. Elgin’s agents took eighteen pedimental statues to London. Some figures are now reassembled across borders: the messenger goddess Iris from the west pediment is made of fragments in Athens fitted to a cast of her torso in the British Museum, with a cast of her head, the so-called Laborde head, whose original is in the Louvre.
How the pediments fit the temple
The pediments stood high over the two ends of the building. They told the two founding stories of Athena’s relationship with the world and with Athens: her birth among the gods, and the day she became the city’s protector. Below them, the metopes showed mythical battles and the frieze the Athenians in procession.
Where to see them
The Acropolis Museum in Athens shows the surviving pediment statues and fragments, with casts of those elsewhere, in its Parthenon Gallery. Most of the statues removed by Elgin are in the British Museum in London, and the Laborde head is in the Louvre in Paris. Check opening times before you go.
Sources
- Acropolis Museum, Athens: “The pediments”; East pediment, Selene (Akr. 881) and Artemis (cast); West pediment, Kekrops and Pandrosos (Akr. 14935), Athena (Akr. 6655), Iris (Akr. 8131).
- Acropolis Restoration Service (YSMA), “Parthenon”.
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