A few years ago, the commonly accepted theory was that the Parthenon Frieze depicted the Panathenaic Procesion. Recently though, various alternative theories have been put forward that possibly it is illustrating some completely different event.

Joan Breton Connelly’s book, the Parthenon Enigma bases a fictional story around another possible meaning of the frieze.

From:
Weekly Standard

Deep Frieze Meaning
What is the Parthenon telling us?
Sep 8, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 48 • By A. E. STALLINGS

The Parthenon represents, for many, a golden age in human achievement: the 5th-century b.c. Greek flowering of democracy, sciences, and the arts. But what if its chief ornament, the Parthenon frieze, turned out to be not an embodiment of reason and proportion—of stillness at the heart of motion, quiet piety, and enlightened civic responsibility—but (or, rather, also) something darker, more primitive: a representation of the critical moment in an ancient story of a king at war, a human sacrifice, and a goddess’s demand for virgin blood?

That’s the argument at the heart of The Parthenon Engima. The plot involves not only ritual murder and burial, but fragments of a lost play of Euripides found on mummy wrappings. Even the title suggests a Dan Brown thriller.
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A lot of what we hear about the Parthenon frieze, is in relation to it being split between two countries – so much so, that we often forget about the actual significance of the sculpture itself. It is something that is famous for being famous, its aesthetic dimension overshadowed by its political context. But in many ways, the significance of the sculptures politically – is down to the fact that they are so significant as a historical work of art – the arguments about them rise to the forefront, because they are a unique piece of cultural property.

From:
The Phoenix

November 7, 2002
Lecturer dissects meanings behind Parthenon’s frieze
BY KRISNA DUONG-LY

“It is understandable why, in the absence of a myth recognizable to us, we have chosen to interpret the [Parthenon] frieze in terms of what we know best,” Joan Breton Connelly said to 100 students, faculty and staff on Monday afternoon.

An associate professor of fine arts at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University (NYU), Connelly gave her lecture “Beyond the Icon: The Parthenon and Its Sculptured Frieze” in the LPAC cinema.
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