Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann | Filling The Gap: New Considerations of the East Pediment of the Athenian Parthenon

Filling The Gap: New Considerations of the East Pediment of the Athenian Parthenon

From the ancient writer Pausanias, we learn that the east pediment of the Athenian Parthenon depicted the birth of Athena. However, the figures in the center of the pediment were probably destroyed as early as in early Christian times, and for more than two hundred years, archaeologists have discussed numerous reconstruction proposals for the missing figures and the names of the surviving sculptures without reaching a consensus. But perhaps researchers have overlooked the fact that certain reliefs on the lids of Roman sarcophagi copied the representations in the east pediment.

Is it conceivable that we may be able to reliably reconstruct this largest and most important image of ancient Greece? The preserved fragments of those lost figures from the central part of the pediment seem to support this thesis.