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The Age of the Old Parthenon
(Article originally published in 1902 in the journal Communications of the German Royal Archaeological Institute, vol. 27 [Ath.Mitt.XXVII] , pp. 379-xxx)
Ten
years ago I published in this journal (1892, p.158) an article on the
"Older Parthenon," the temple discovered under the Parthenon of
Pericles by L. Ross during his excavations on the Acropolis in 1835.
Among other things, I tried to prove that this temple was not the old
Hekatompedos destroyed by the Persians, as was previously generally
believed, but a much larger temple that had only been built after the
Persian wars. The older view had formed at a time when the "older
Athena temple" further north was not yet known and therefore the "older
Parthenon" had to be regarded as the only larger pre-Persian temple.
The message from Hesych about an older temple burned by the Persians
(s. v. "hekatompedos neos") could only be related to the remains lying
under the Parthenon. Thinking of an older Erechtheum was out of the
question because of the large size of 100 feet
But two facts
remained unexplained in the older view. First, according to Hesych, the
burnt temple was supposed to be fifty feet shorter than the Periclesian
structure; but in fact the older Parthenon surpassed the younger temple
by several yards. Secondly, the column drums built into the north wall
of the Acropolis, which were attributed to ancient Hekatompedos, were
made of marble and were unfinished, while the pieces of entablature
built further west, which were also attributed to him, belonged to a
finished and already painted poros building.
An attempt was made
to remove the first objection by adding a smaller temple corresponding
to Hesych's dimensions (p.380) to the large substructure with excellent
foundations; so lastly F. C. Penrose in the Journal of Hellenic Studies
1891, 275. However, in that article I could assert against this that
the protruding part of the substructure, if it had not had anything to
support it, could not possibly have been founded to a depth of 10 m.
The excellent foundation, made of regular blocks, must have supported
the columns or walls of the temple itself, as the surviving remains of
the steps directly prove. Also the proposal by L. Ross [Arch. Essays
I 138), explaining the eastern part of the substructure for a later
addition and thus raising the difficulty is untenable. The whole
substructure is actually built in one go.
The second objection,
relating to the difference in material and work, was attempted to be
countered by the assumption that the temple provided with poros steps
had a poros entablature, but exceptionally had columns of marble, and
that, moreover, only the columns and steps were still unfinished. But
even these assumptions could be described as very questionable.
It
was only when a second ancient temple was discovered between the
Parthenon and the Erechtheion in 1885 that both concerns were
eliminated. This temple, which certainly dates from pre-Persian times,
was apparently the Hekatompedos burned by the Persians. First of all,
it corresponded to Hesych's indication of a size difference of 50 feet
between the older and younger Hekatompedos. Without its ring hall, the
"old Athena temple" was a hekatompedon: pronaos, naos and opisthodome
together formed a 100-foot structure, a "hieron hekatombpedon". In the
younger Parthenon, on the other hand, the east cella alone had a length
of 100 feet and was therefore a "neos hekatompedos". But a west cella
of about 50 feet was added to her. The Temple of Pericles could
therefore be rightly said to be 50 feet larger than the pre-Persian
100-foot structure. Second, the dimensions of the finished Porous
entablatures made them an excellent match for the foundations of the
ancient Temple of Athena, while the unfinished marble columns (p.381)
probably belonged to the unfinished older Parthenon. Both attributions
were fully confirmed when the still missing column drums and capitals
made of this material came to light in the northern castle wall below
the entablature of Pores (cf. Middleton Plans and Drawings of Athenian Buildings, Pl. 6), and when also below the marble drums the same steps of limestone found on the older Parthenon have been identified.
This
established that before the time of Pericles there had been two great
temples of Athena on the Acropolis: the "older Parthenon" on the site
of the present Parthenon and the "old Athena-temple" south of the
Erechtheion. But were they both pre-Persian?
Since Hesych only
speaks of a single pre-Persian temple of Athena, the Hekatompedos
burned by the Persians, since our second temple, the older Parthenon,
was demonstrably never completed and never even got beyond the
substructure and the lowest column drums, everyone decided who have
been writing about the temples of the Acropolis since 1885, for
assuming that the older Parthenon was only begun after the Persian wars
and, after a shorter or longer interruption, was only completed by
Pericles. As far as I can see, only F.C. Penrose, in the essay cited
above, maintained that the older Parthenon was pre-Persian. However,
its dating, about a century before the Persian Wars (Journal of Hellenic Studies 1891, 295), could be described as completely impossible.
It
is therefore now accepted that the older Parthenon was built between
479 and 447 BC. Opinions only differ about the exact time when
construction began. Having myself espoused the older time of Kimon [Ath. Mitt. 1892, 188), A. Furtwangler suggested Themistokles as the builder (Meisterwerke p. 164), while F. Kopp (Yearbook of the Inst. 1891, 270) of the more recent time of Kimon and finally B. Keil (Anonymous Argent. p. 98) prior to the Eurymedon battle.
However,
recent studies of the older Parthenon itself and of the (p.382)
retaining walls erected on its south side have convinced me that all
these dates are incorrect. The older Parthenon is pre-Persian. When the
Persians destroyed the castle, it was in the middle of its
construction. Its scaffolding was set on fire by the barbarians. From
479 to 447 BC, i.e. for a generation, the burned substructure of the
temple that had been started could be seen next to the temporarily
restored "old Athena temple". Only Pericles rebuilt the "great temple"
according to a slightly different plan.
I.
Before presenting
the evidence for this thesis, I must make some corrections and
additions to my earlier essay about the ruin itself.
I had
previously left it undecided whether the base of the temple had two or
three steps (Athens Mitt. 1892, 187). There must have been three. In
addition to the two lower steps that are still in place, several step
stones have been found under the pillars of the northern Acropolis
wall, which have similar dimensions and the same characteristic profile
as the middle step of the substructure. Its material (Kara limestone)
is harder than the limestone of the two lower stages. A fragment of the
same harder stage is built into the S.W. corner of the Younger
Parthenon as an underlay of the southern stylobate (see fig.1 below,
where the profile behind Marble Stage 3 is indicated).
Fig.1: Cross-section of the step building of the older and the younger Parthenon.
The
steps of hard stone formed the stylobate of the ring hall. The
allocation is confirmed by the stone lengths: while the lower tier
consists of stretchers of 1.70-1.80 m, the second tier is formed by
trusses that are only about half the width (0.90-1.00 m) and have a
very great, but different depth (in the east 1.59-2.32 m). Because of
the latter fact alone, a stylobate of stones of even depth must have
lain above it, the length of which in turn has to correspond to the
runners of the lower level. In fact, the existing hard limestones not
only have these (p.383) dimensions, but also agree with the previously
inexplicable marks found on the substructure, from which I already
suspected in my earlier essay [Ath. Mitt.
1892, 186]. Stones of this form had closed. We can now even determine
the exact location of the joints of the stylobate on the south side of
the temple from the marks, although very few of the stones themselves
remain.
The shape of the step structure as it now appears is shown in fig.1 in section. The in situ
stones of the older temple are double hatched, the added steps of the
same hatched. The stones of the younger temple have received an even
lighter hatching. The older stages are denoted by the numbers I. II.
III, the younger ones by 1. 2. 3. The level originally designated as
the lower level of the old temple, which later became Euthynteria, has
received the designation IIIa.
Accordingly, if the temple had
three steps, the length of the stylobate is calculated as 75.06 m and
its width as (p.384) 29.60 m. Since the corresponding dimensions of the
younger Parthenon are 69.51 m and 30.86 m , the older temple in the
stylobate was 5.55 m longer but 1.26 m narrower than the younger
building. The number of columns, as I had previously ascertained, was 8
on the short sides and 19 on the long sides. The axis width of the
columns is calculated to be equal for both sides at about 4.12 m, a
coincidence that can be regarded as valuable confirmation of the
correctness of the entire calculation. A difference in the size of the
ax widths on the short and long sides, as it occurs in several older
temples and thus also in the ring hall of the "old Athenian temple",
does not exist in the older Parthenon.
The ground plan of the
inner temple can be drawn in the way I have explained earlier [op.cit.
p.177), with the younger walls and rows of columns, taking into account
the displacement of the temple axis, not exactly, but in general. As a
result of the addition of the third step, the older foundations now
apply a little better than was the case with my earlier drawing [op.
cit. p. 177), together with the younger walls and rows of columns. The
floor plan that was added hereafter is shown in fig. 6 (see below). The
thickness of the cella wall is assumed to be about 1 m according to
several marble blocks built together with the column drums. With regard
to the design of the pronaos and the back hall, one can hesitate as to
whether 6 Doric or 4 Ionic columns are to be assumed. In the ground
plan drawing, I opted for the former because the column drums with a
diameter of 1.90 m also have several smaller Doric drums with a
diameter of 1.72 m Diuxhmcsser that only cover the top or bottom stone
of the Column shaft may have formed. Since a lower diameter of 1.90 m
has an upper diameter of less than 1.72 m, the smaller drums must be
assigned to the anteroom and rear hall. They are too big for the inner
columns of the cella. Ad. Michaelis [Arx Athens.Plate. VIII) only drew
(p.385) 4 columns in his addition to the temple floor plan in the
vestibule and thus decided in favor of the second possibility. Since
there are objections to both solutions, a third possibility must be
considered: the porches could contain only 5 pillars; the column drums
with a diameter of 1.72 m would then fit better because of their
strength. But such an unusual arrangement seems to me very little to
recommend. A 1.95 m drum built into the north wall must be counted
among the corner pillars of the ring hall, since the corner pillars on
the younger Parthenon are also somewhat stronger than the remaining
pillars.
II.
The terraces heaped up to the south of the
temple, with their retaining walls and masses of rubble, are of greater
importance to the history of the Parthenon than has been attributed to
them up to now. Usually only two walls of this kind are mentioned, a
polygonal lining wall of irregular limestone, running almost parallel
to the south side of the temple at a distance of 10-13 m, and the
Cimonian castle wall, which is considerably stronger and higher and
about twice the distance from the Temple has (both walls at Middleton op.cit.
pl.2). In reality, however, there is a third retaining wall that lies
between the two in terms of time and space. Opposite the two corners of
the temple it is built of regular blocks of porosity. No new wall was
built between them, but the old Pelasgian castle wall was used as a
lining wall for the masses of rubble and was probably raised a little.
In a report published during the excavations (Ath.Mitt. 1888 p. 434), my then relative dating of these periods was correct, but the absolute one, as will be shown later, was wrong.
In
order to understand the various epochs of temple construction and their
dating, a precise consideration of the individual supporting walls and
their backfillings is urgently required (p.386); it is still possible
on the basis of the numerous photographs which were taken during the
excavations for the collection of the German Institute and copies of
which can be obtained from the Institute. (The catalog is published in Arch. Anzeiger from 1891 p. 75 and 1895 p. 55
In
these images, which are unmistakable witnesses to the stratification
and composition of the rubble, the various retaining walls and rubble
masses that gradually formed south of the Parthenon can be examined and
identified in detail. One can clearly see how behind the various walls
several layers of dark earth alternate with those of broken building
elements and sculptures, and how lighter stripes stand out in between,
consisting of small stone chips (rubble) of limestone or marble.
One of those pictures that I have previously published (Ath.Mitt. 892
Taf. IX), may first be described here (plate 9). It shows the layers of
earth between the Parthenon and the polygonal retaining wall. Above the
bedrock we can see the foundation of the Parthenon on the right, and
various superimposed layers of earth and stones on the left. The old
layer of humus, which is supported by the Pelasgian castle wall further
to the left and which is not visible in the picture, reaches up to the
3rd block layer of the foundation and up to the head of the man
standing there. It has covered the rock since very ancient times and
its surface indicates the height of the terrain before the beginning of
the temple construction. All items it contained (including some
red-figure sherds) must predate the temple.
At the beginning
of construction, a pit was cut into this layer of humus, reaching down
to the rock, which was filled with rubble again after laying the lower
layers of blocks. The pit appears in several photographs (e.g. in the
picture Acropolis No. 74) as a lighter triangle next to the temple
foundation. In our picture, the line of demarcation is somewhat
obscured by the man. A thin layer of small boulders follows above the
humus layer, the surface of which stands out as a lighter line (p.387)
and extends to the middle of the 4th cuboid layer. The following layer
corresponds to the height of two cuboids and contains many fragments of
broken poros buildings. Its surface, in turn formed by lighter building
splinters, stands out strongly. In the vicinity of the foundation,
instead of the larger pieces of foros, there are heavier masses of
building rubble. Above this follows a layer corresponding to three
layers of cuboids, which in its lowest part contains some lumps of
porosity and then masses of earth mixed with small stones. Its upper
limit is formed by a double light line at the level of the 9th cuboid
layer. Two stone layers higher, you can see another light layer of
building rubble in the darker masses of earth. Traces of another bright
layer can be seen at the level of the 13th block layer.
L. Ross
and others have already correctly recognized that these light-colored
layers of building rubble arose from the fact that the stone splinters
that fell off when processing the blocks were spread out on the
respective terrace to secure the piled-up masses of earth (cf. also Ath.Mitt.
1892 p .162). In addition to the long, light lines running through the
entire terrace, one notices in the picture near the base of the temple
still shorter lines and thicker layers of light-colored rubble. Their
origin is due to the fact that the entire surface of the substructure
was cleaned of building splinters after the completion of each block
layer. After they had been swept down from the wall, the latter formed
larger or smaller heaps, some of which remained lying next to the
substructure and others were spread out over the terrace. Only after
the completion of each 2 or 3 layers of ashlars was the entire terrace
and its supporting wall leveled out evenly.
Another important
fact can be seen in our picture (plate 9). While the masses of rubble,
reaching up to 9 blocks, are held together by a polygonal retaining
wall, the remains of which lie to the left under the rubble, without
being visible in the picture, next to the higher horizontal layers of
earth, reaching up to 14 blocks, we see several obliquely sloping
layers of Earth and (p.388) small stones, also crossed by a few thin
light lines. These sloping strata extend beyond the polygonal retaining
wall and appear to belong to a period when the backfill already reached
beyond this retaining wall to a second wall. The old Pelasgian castle
wall opposite the center of the temple served as such, which was
probably raised a little at that time. Opposite the two ends of the
temple, however, are the already mentioned walls of porosity blocks,
which we shall later learn more about.
The mound around the
temple does not appear to have reached higher than the 15th block
layer, because firstly, the above-mentioned marks are located on the
16th layer, which were made when the stylobates were made, and
secondly, the ergasterion (building hut ), of which a stone is just
visible in our picture above left. An even higher deposit around the
temple was only possible when a stronger and higher retaining wall for
the masses of earth was created by the Cimonian castle wall. These
upper layers of earth, which are missing in our picture, were already
removed by L. Ross during the excavations of the 1830's. The
description by L. Ross [Arch. Onto.
I p. 104) is sufficient. In it he found splinters of porous and marble
(i.e. building rubble, "latupe") mixed with head-sized stones blown off
the living rock of the Acropolis. It is obviously rubble that was
spread out at the time of the construction of the Parthenon in
Pericles. When Ross adds that those head-sized pieces of rock were
blasted off the Acropolis rock when the temple foundations were laid,
he is wrong, because the pieces of rock would then have to be found in
the lowest layers of rubble. Rather, they were only blasted off the
rock when, after the completion of the Periclean Parthenon, the plateau
east and north-east of it was created by working down the rock. The
fact that a 1.15 m and originally even 1.70 m (p.389) lower level
around the temple was planned for the older Parthenon and therefore the
rock was to be worked down even deeper earlier leaves no doubt about
this that the blasting off can only have taken place under Pericles. So
it was only then that the last heaping up of earth took place on the
south side of the Parthenon. The upper part of the southern castle wall
may have been built at the same time as the last elevation, while Kimon
certainly built the lower part. I am therefore referring to the lower,
larger part of the south wall in the passage in Aeschylus' pleading for
protection (v. 134), to which Bücheler (Rhein. puree XL 629) pointed out.
A
second photograph reproduced in the accompanying Plate XIII (Acropolis
No. 81) gives a more comprehensive view of the different periods of the
deposits. On the right we can again see the substructure of the
Parthenon, the lower blocks of which are still covered by the earth.
Next to it lie the almost horizontal layers of porosity fragments and
earth that we are already familiar with, again interspersed with thin
and thick layers of light-colored rubble. Here, too, the gradual growth
of the terrace can be followed step by step. In the two lower visible
layers, many fragments of poros buildings, broken into manageable
pieces, are used for filling, in the upper layers only earth and small
stone chips. From the polygonal retaining wall, which holds these
masses of rubble together, only a few upper stones can be seen in the
middle of the picture, their lower part is still in the ground. Above
this wall and further to the right we note the sloping strata of earth
formed as the upper plateau widened. They are not as strong here as in
other photographs, and moreover seem to be somewhat disturbed in their
upper part by the east wall of the ergasterion, which is founded on
column drums and ashlars. This building hut will only date from the
time of Pericles, because it requires the presence of the Cimonian wall
visible on the left edge of the picture and the Periclean wall in its
upper part. The horizontal layers below the (p.390) column drums,
criss-crossed by lines of light-colored building rubble, might
initially be taken for the backfilling of the Cimonian wall and
therefore dated to the time when this wall was built, but a closer
study of the layers and the ground plan soon convinces us that the
right half of this rubble, composed of horizontal strata (from the
polygonal wall to the first two workers), is still of the third period,
and was once supported by the now absent structure of the Pelasgian
wall. The appearance of the layers of rubble corresponds to that of the
higher layers next to the temple. On the other hand, only the masses of
rubble lying further to the left, which clearly show a different
composition in the photograph, belong to the construction of the Kimon
wall. Only this last rubble is, as we shall see later, definitely the
real "Persian rubble"; all other layers of our picture date from
pre-Persian times.
We publish a third picture on
Plate XIV (Acropolis No. 91). It shows a profile of the strata slightly
to the west of the previous photograph, adjacent to one of the two
inner walls of the Ergasterion. Little can be seen of the Parthenon's
substructure. The adjoining layers of earth of the same age as it, on
the other hand, are clearly visible. The obliquely sloping layers,
which were only small in the previous picture, are particularly strong
here. They can be traced to the lower edge of the picture and
apparently already extend beyond the line of the polygonal retaining
wall, which is not visible. Above them lies a layer of ashlars from the
foundation of the inner wall of the ergasterion. On the left edge below
this wall, the remains of layers of rubble can still be seen, which do
not yet belong to the Kimonian wall but, like those sloping layers of
rubble, belong to the second construction period of the temple. Younger
layers of earth and debris masses are not shown in the picture.
On
the basis of these various photographs and sketches that Georg Kawerau
made during the excavations and kindly made available to me, I have
compiled the two sections shown in figs.2 and 3. They are intended to
show the facts next to the southeast corner (p.391) of the temple and
adjacent to its western half. In order to better illustrate the gradual
formation and composition of the various terraces, I had to piece
together the facts of several photographs taken at different locations.
Fig.2:
Section t
In
Fig. 2 on the right the substructure of the older Parthenon (2) with
the steps of the younger building (5) is drawn in section. The steps of
the older temple, insofar as they were later removed, and two
unfinished pillar drums are indicated by dotted lines. Follow the rock
on which the temple rests to the left under the Kimonian castle wall
(4). Below the temple, the rock line rises to the right, only below the
temple wall will it be worked horizontally a bit. Since the strength of
this wall is not known, I drew the line of the rock completely
horizontally. Before the construction of the temple began, only the
Pelasgian wall 1 and the associated layer of earth I lay above the
rock. The building pit described above, which was cut into this oldest
layer of humus, bears the letter b. The accumulation of layers of earth
and the associated polygonal retaining wall 2 kept step with the growth
of the temple substructure. When the substructure rose above the
12-layer course of ashlars, it was found that the retaining wall was
not sufficient, and so the sloping masses of rubble soon began to fall
over the wall, especially as it could not be raised because of its
thinness. The heaps of rubble gradually covered the polygonal wall 2
and in part reached as far as the Pelasgian castle wall 1. Opposite the
center of the temple, this probably received a superstructure made of
ashlars (3), of which, however, nothing has survived. Opposite the
corners of the temple, however, special ashlar walls were erected from
Pores. Its location, which can be seen in the ground plan in Fig. 5,
and its shape can only be discussed after this ground plan. How the
structure of the Pelasgian wall was designed cannot be said with
certainty, because not only its later structure but also its old top is
so badly destroyed that we can no longer even determine the original
shape and height (p.392) of the wall know. That the structure, as shown
in the drawing, consisted of regular ashlars, I infer from the
circumstance that the two walls opposite the corners of the temple are
built in this way. The backfilling of these ashlar walls was again done
in horizontal layers of stones and earth, between which lighter lines
of rubble can be seen. The sloping heaps reaching over the polygonal
wall and those horizontal layers together form the second building
period. On average they are marked III.
But even by this measure
the terrace could scarcely be brought to the height intended for the
older temple, which is marked in our section by two dotted lines. The
fact that it actually did not reach this height at that time can be
seen from the level of the ergasterion, whose floor can probably be
assumed to be at the height of the second layer of ashlars of its
foundation. In order to make the terrace even higher, a new strong
retaining wall had to be built further south. The southern castle wall
(4) served as such, which according to reliable literary tradition was
built by Kimon (Paus. I 28, 3; Plut. Kimon 13). Simultaneously with it,
the horizontal strata of rubble rose, which are marked IV on our
section and consist of real "Persian rubble," i. H. of rubble
containing numerous structures and sculptures burned and smashed by the
Persians.
Somewhat later, when Pericles raised the level around
the temple when building the temple again, more rubble had to be spread
around the temple and the Kimonian wall had to be raised even more. The
upper part of the wall erected at that time, which is significantly
wider than the Kimonian wall, I have designated 5 and the terrace
behind it V. As the rubble of the latter was removed by Ross as early
as 1835 and drawings or photographs of them do not exist, I have left
the upper part of the terrace white. The drawing published by Ross
[Arch. Essays I, Taf. V) gives a (p.395) further eastern section and is
therefore used as valuable material in the other profile.
Fig.3:
Section t
The
second section (fig.3) lies in the extension of the eastern front of
the temple and is intended to show not only the retaining walls shown
in fig.2 but also the retaining wall made of porous blocks (3)
belonging to the second period of temple construction. I owe the height
figures of this drawing to Georg Kawerau. I took the shape of the earth
masses from various institute photographs (e.g. Acropolis Nos. 74, 85,
86, 87, 114, 116, 119, 121) and the sketches by Kawerau and Ross. The
substructure of the Parthenon is not drawn in section, but viewed from
the east (cf. the photographs of the Acropolis, Nos. 4-9). The teaching
edge at the corner only starts at the 9th layer from the bottom (at c).
The originally intended height of the floor next to the temple is
indicated by a single line, as in Fig. 2, the height of the floor
intended later when the steps of the older Parthenon were made by a
double dotted line, the height actually achieved after the completion
of the younger Parthenon by two full ones lines indicated. The various
retaining walls have been given the same numbers as on the other
intersections. The remains of an ancient dwelling house la can be seen
within the oldest layer of humus, the floor and remains of the wall of
which had already been buried when the temple was built. The triangular
building pit b for the temple has been cut into the same layer of
humus. The polygonal wall (2) is lower than in fig. 2 because the
terrace it supports slopes towards the east (cf. the photograph of the
Acropolis, no. 87, which shows the facade and the foundations of the
wall). Sloping layers of debris that had fallen over them are here of
very little thickness.
The retaining wall of the second
construction period (3), made of porous ashlars, is only secured by one
stone in the line of our average. However, since it is better preserved
farther east (cf. the photographs of the Acropolis, Nos. 65-67), it was
allowed to be added to the drawing. We do not know its former height.
Only a few stones (p.396) are preserved here from the Pelasgian wall
(1); it was partially broken off during the construction of the strong
Cimonian wall. In the absence of drawings, the backfilling of the
latter could only be indicated schematically. For the uppermost layers
of earth of our section, which may be called the backfill of the
Perikleisian wall 5, I have used the drawing by L. Ross (Arch. Essays
I Taf. V) as a basis. Particularly characteristic of the rubble masses
of this youngest part of the terrace is the stripe of white marble
splinters left light in the drawing, which arose during the processing
of the marble blocks of the temple.
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