Detail of the frieze of the Parthenon west side.
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The Parthenon frieze representing the Great Panathenaic Procession consisted of 115 irregularly-sized panels, made up of 111 marble blocks (each corner block having a panel on adjacent sides): the north and south sides each had 47 panels, the west side 14 and the east side 7.
The system used for numbering the panels was originated by A. Michaelis in 1871 (published in his book Der Parthenon). He used Roman numerals for the panels and Arabic numerals for the figures depicted on them. The numbering system is not perfect, as at the time Michaelis made his drawings many of the panels were missing; some had been removed during the early Christian era to make way for windows along the north and south sides (three on each side). New fragments are still being found [ 1 ].
See a plan of the general scheme of the friezes below.
1. The Elgin marbles: should they be returned to Greece? by Christopher Hitchens, Robert Browning, Graham Binns. Published by Verso, 1998 |
Detail of the frieze of the Parthenon west side.
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