Temple of Athena Nike south frieze
- Title:
- Temple of Athena Nike south frieze
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown
- Photographer:
- Alexandridis, Annetta
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 420 BCE
2008 (image)
- Site:
- Athens, Greece (original)
- Location:
- Klarman Hall, ground floor, south entry wing
previously, Warehouse
Athens, Greece (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0106
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 181
left half of BM No. 424 (sticker in front)
266 (red pencil), BM 257 (on back)
106 - File Name:
- CCC_0106.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 44.45 (H) x 182 (W) cm (complete block)
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Classical
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in relief (original) - Subject:
- Ancient warfare
Temple of Athena Nike (Athens, Greece)
Greece--History--Persian Wars, 500-449 B.C.--Campaigns - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 46 x 93 x 4 (centimeters, height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a cast of the viewer's left side of block g from the south frieze of the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis at Athens. The south frieze depicts a battle between Greeks and Persians, speculatively the battle at Marathon in 490 BCE. At the left end of the cast, a Persian warrior in a belted chiton faces right and is shown almost frontally. His head is heavily damaged in the original. He kneels and props himself with his right arm (damaged in the original) and holds a crescent-shaped shield up with his left arm as he attempts to defend himself from the Greek warrior to the right. The Greek fighter is nude except for a garment over his right thigh and he, too, is shown almost frontally. He reaches up with his right arm and lunges toward the Persian with his right knee bent. His head is missing and three of four limbs are damaged in the original. To the right, a nude but helmeted Greek shown mostly in profile faces right. A chlamys billows behind him. He holds a shield on his left arm and moves towards the right, stepping over a fallen Persian. The legs of the fallen Persian and part of the Greek's shield are contained in the contiguous cast block (ID. no. 108), as is the mounted Persian warrior with whom this Greek fighter does battle. No. 181 in the Sage catalog refers to a collective group of blocks from the Nike Temple frieze, identifying these all as blocks from the west frieze. It is unclear how many blocks from the temple were held in the original Sage Collection, and equally unclear whether those blocks all came from the west frieze. It is likely that no. 181 included blocks from the south frieze as well as from the west.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. 1816,0610.159 - Bibliography:
- Carl Blümel, Der Fries des Tempels der Athena Nike (Berlin, 1923)
Elizabeth G. Pemberton, "The East and West Friezes of the Temple of Athena Nike," AJA 76 (1972), 303-310
Evelyn B. Harrison, "The Glories of the Athenians: Observations on the Program of the Frieze of the Temple of Athena Nike," Studies in the History of Art 49 (1997), Symposium Papers XXIX: The Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and Rome (1997), 108-125 - Related Work:
- ID no. 108 is the right half of block g, cast separately.
- Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
London, British Museum (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.