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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In the past many casts were made of the Parthenon Marbles – but a lot of them are now in a poor state, requiring restoration, after being abandoned for years. Its great, that in this case, the casts have not been abandoned, but are being used as a teaching tool.

From:
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

Plaster replicas of Parthenon frieze find second life at Herron

INDIANAPOLIS — Plaster replicas of the running frieze created to adorn the most iconic symbol of classical antiquity are once again teaching tools and objets d’art for certain students and professors at Herron School of Art and Design, part of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus.

But this time around, second-generation casts of the frieze from Greece’s Parthenon are both a testimonial to the prominent role that Herron played in the training of past generations of professional artists, and a springboard to its multidisciplinary collaborations for future generations.
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The Parthenon frieze today, whether you look at it in the New Acropolis Museum or the British Museum, is on full display, easily observed by any visitors who stand in front of it. When it was on the Parthenon though, it was a much harder entity to observe – hidden high up, inside the outer columns & thus blocked by the outer beam containing the metopes.

Because it is hard to get access close to the Parthenon because of the restoration works, it is not so easy to see today, just how obscured the sculptures actually were in ancient times. I first looked at this as part of my university thesis, twelve years ago, when I noticed this issue from looking at sectional drawings through the building & then later on a 3D CAD model that I constructed.

It was not a completely unplanned problem though, as the depth of the relief of the carving of the frieze is carefully graded from top to bottom, to enable them to be ore clearly seen from below.

At the time that I was researching the issue, I came up with possible theories on why they might have created such a large amount of sculpture that was almost hidden in this way – but was unable to prove any of them & reached no firm conclusions on the subject. I’m very interested to see what other ideas come up as a result of this new research project into this aspect of the Parthenon’s sculptures.

You can find out more about Emory University’s Parthenon Project here. As with the Caryatid Hairstyles Project, that I mentioned a few days ago, its great to see that so much research is being made into the art & architecture of ancient Greece – and that even with sites as intensively studied as the Parthenon, it is still possible to rediscover many more new things from its ruins.

From:
The Tenessean

Parthenon puzzle is doozy
Art students try to solve mystery behind frieze
3:06 AM, Nov 11, 2012

It’s one of the mysteries of the ancient world, an architectural enigma that has puzzled art historians for centuries.

And one that a group of students were trying to solve on Saturday in Centennial Park.

The original Parthenon in Athens, Greece, was an architectural triumph devoted to the goddess Athena. And in spite of being held up as a masterpiece of the Classical Era, art historians for centuries have wondered why its designers hoisted an immaculately sculpted frieze to a spot partially obscured by the Parthenon’s iconic columns.
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Children at a school in the US have made casts of the Parthenon Frieze with the help of a local sculptor.

From:
Mill Valley Patch

Greenwood Fifth Graders Recreate a Piece of the Parthenon
Replicas of classic friezes will be unveiled in the school’s play yard Friday morning in advance of a fund raising auction March 24 at the Mill Valley Community Center.
By Jim Welte
March 16, 2012

The 13 fifth graders at the Greenwood School are studying ancient Greece, including the iconic art and architecture that emerged from that seminal civilization.

But why simply study history when you can recreate it?

Leaning heavily on the artistic talents of one of its parents, sculptor Roberto Varriale, the students produced four eye-catching friezes made from original casts of Athens’ fabled Parthenon. Those friezes are being unveiled Friday morning in the school’s play yard and will be auctioned off during the its annual fundraiser March 24 at the Mill Valley Community Center.
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UC Berkeley is displaying casts of the Parthenon Frieze in the lobby of the building that houses their Classics department. It is not the only American university in the USA to house casts from the Parthenon, as there is at least one other that I’m aware of that also has a set.

From:
Berkleyside

Ancient Greek history appears in plaster cast form at Cal
February 16, 2011 11:15 am by Tracey Taylor

You no longer need to travel to the British Museum in London, or to Athens, to see at least some of the creative wonders of the Parthenon.

Last weekend saw the installation on the UC Berkeley campus of a series of plaster cast panels of the Parthenon Frieze in the main lobby of Dwinelle Hall, which houses the university’s Classics department.
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A new website aims to show the Parthenon frieze in its entirety online, so that people can see the parts from separate museums joined virtually into a single image.

From:
Cordis

Technology project enables public to view Parthenon frieze online
[Date: 2003-06-24]

An information technology project funded by the Greek government has enabled archaeologists and the wider public to take an online tour of the complete Parthenon frieze, whose blocks themselves are held in three separate museums in Greece, the UK and France.

The Greek Ministry of Culture, together with the national documentation centre and first ephorate of prehistoric and classical antiquities, decided to digitalise the frieze on account of its cultural importance, and exploited new technologies in order to maximise the projects appeal and impact.
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