INDIA'S WHEEL OF EXISTENCE & THE PARTHENON'S FREEZE
The Mystical Dialogue of Civilizations
(To My Creatures – 3)
I was going to write a poem. But my words got bored. They revolted. They moved. They jumped up and down. They ran away from all circles of meanings, getting unbound … unfolded. Their letters got loose, expanding … stretching on the white horizons of my painting sheet to become long lines, entangled … interwoven by the heat of emotions until they form together shapes, figures and bodies … These are my creatures ...
O my sweet creatures!
You’ve come into being
By my lusting brush
As it’s been caressing
The very skin of
A passionately stretching
Painting board
I can see you
Trying to touch
Those legendary heroes
Carved on
The Temple of Athena’s
Frieze metopes
There, there
In my beloved
Immortal Greece
I can see you
Trying to move
My sacred Eternal India’s
Wheel of Existence
Round and round
Bringing to being
Yourselves and others
That are yet to exist.
The Parthenonas was a temple to Athena (the goddess of strategy and tactics, handicraft, and practical reason) on the Akropolis, an ancient citadel located on an extremely rocky outcrop above Athênai. It is a peripteral octastyle Doric temple with Ionic architectural features that stands on a platform or stylobate of three steps and is surrounded by Doric columns ("peripteral") carrying an entablature, eight at either end ("octastyle") and 17 on the sides, with a double row of columns at either end. At either end of the building the gable is finished with a triangular pediment originally occupied by sculpted figures. The east pediment narrated the birth of Athena, in full armor, from the head of her father, Zeus, after a terrible headache prompted him to summon Hephaestus (the god of fire and the forge) to strike him with his forging hammer. The west pediment depicted the contest for the honor of becoming the city's patron between the olive-tree bearing Athena and the trident-bearing Poseidon. Though the hill had been inhabited since the 4th millennium BCE, in the 5th century Perikles coordinated the construction of the site's most important buildings. Construction of the Parthenonas began in 447 BCE under the supervision of Pheidias, who also had charge of the sculptural decoration and the colossal bronze Athena Promachos between the Partenonas and the Propylaea, a monumental gateway that served as the entrance to the Akropolis; construction was completed (including the sculptural decoration of the 92 Doric metopes on the frieze above the exterior colonnade, and of the Ionic frieze around the upper portion of the walls of the cella, an interior masonry structure) in 438 BCE by architects Iktinos (who designed the gigantic Telesterion at Eleusis and the temple of Apollo at Bassae, which incorporated the earliest known Corinthian column at the center rear of the cella) and Kallikrates (who designed the temple of Nike in the sanctuary of Athena Nike on the Akropolis, the hill’s circuit wall, part of the walls linking Athênai and Piraeus; they called the building Hekatompedos ("the hundred footer"). By then, Pheidias had left the city after being accused of embezzlement. Decoration continued until 432 BCE (the year Pheidias erected the colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus in the temple at Olympia; he was executed by the Eleans after he had completed it for them).
ReplyDeleteThe bas-relief Ionic frieze running around the exterior walls of the cella dated to 442-438 BCE. The frieze of the entablature had 14 metopes each on the east and west sides and 32 each on the north and south sides, all dating to 446-440 BCE; they were carved in high relief, a practice used only in treasuries. The metopes of the east side, above the main entrance, depicted the Gigantomachy, the battles between the gods and the giants); these on the west end represented the Amazonomachy, the battle of the Athenians against the Amazons); those on the south side showed the Thessalian Centauromachy (the battle of Theseus and the Lapiths against the centaurs); those on the north side depicted the sack of Troy. The temple replaced an older, unfinished, one which was destroyed in the Persian destruction of the city in 480 BCE. Before the battle of Plataea in 479 BCE the Greek allies declared that the sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians would not be rebuilt, and the Athenians were not absolved from the oath until they signed the Peace of Callias in 450 BCE. The temple was archaeoastronomically aligned to the Hyades, the nearest open cluster to the Earth (about 153 light-years away); after the death of their brother Hyas, the son of Atlas, the five weeping sisters were transformed into a cluster of stars that became associated with rain. The word referred to the "unmarried women's apartments" of a house and was at first used only for a particular room of the “ho naos” (temple), and Demosthenes, in the 4th century BCE, seems to have been the first to apply the term to the entire building. Though a sacred structure, it never hosted the cult of Athena Polias, the city’s patron: her cult image was located at an older altar on the northern side. The colossal gold and ivory statue of Athena by Pheidias was dedicated in 439 or 438 BCE but was not related to any cult and did not seem to have any priestess, altar, or cult name. Perikles once referred to the statue as a gold reserve, stressing that it "contained forty talents of pure gold and it was all removable." Indeed, the building was used primarily as a treasury, a building used to keep votive gifts to the gods; the largest single expense was transporting the stone from Mt. Pentelicus, about 16 km (9.9 mi) away, but Perikles embezzled the money from the treasury of the Delian League, which was moved in 454 BCE from the Panhellenic sanctuary at Delos to the Akropolis. A major fire broke out shortly after the middle of the third century, which destroyed the roof and much of the sanctuary's interior. Heruli pirates sacked Athênai in 276 and destroy most of the public buildings; repairs were made in the 4 century AD. In 435 Theodosius II closed all pagan temples in the Byzantine empire be closed; in the 5th century, Athena's great statue was looted by one of the emperors and taken to Constantinopolis, where it was destroyed during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In the 6th century it was converted into a church dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and some of the statues were removed or repurposed to fit Christian themes. In 1456-1458 Turks successfully besieged a Florentine army defending the Akropolis, and later Mehmed II concerted it to a mosque as punishment for an Athenian plot against Osmanli rule. In 1687 the Venetians under Francesco Morosini attacked, and the Turks fortified the Akropolis and used the Parthenonas as a gunpowder magazinfor building materials and treasures. e; on 26 September a Venetian mortar round blew up the magazine, destroying much of the building and its art. Afterwards Morosini caused further damage when he tried to loot the remnants. When the Turks recaptured the city, they continued to loot the ruins for construction materials and treasure.
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