#slide 38

Parthenon, East Pediment Group: Birth of Athena. 

By Phildias, 438-432 BCE. High Classical. 

Look up the geography of the parthenon and Athena’s altar.  

Athenians would gather at East of the Altar. The front of the Archaic temple building shows gigantomachy.  So, they did not put gigantomachy on Parthenon, since its already on the Archaic temple building.

So is there another mythological story that highlights Athena's relationship with Zeus?  That’s what is on the east pediment of the parthenon, the birth of Athena.

Zeus lay with Metis, the goddess of crafty but he immediately feared the consequences. It had been prophesied that Metis would bear children more powerful than Zeus himself. In order to prevent this, Zeus swallowed Metis, He was too late: Metis had already conceived. Eventually Zeus experienced an enormous headache; Hephaestus cleaved Zeus’ head with the double-headed axe. Athena leaped from Zeus's’ head, fully grown and armed.

The Athenians are using the myth and birth of Athena to show that Athens has special status over any other city state.

Christians opened a hole in the Parthenon for a room for the Christian church. The Christians also added something in the back of the building. When they did that, they pulled 2\3 of the pediments. They probably put the remnants in the concrete.  

Houzanious says: it shows story of the birth of Athena and she is fully armed.

Its likely to speculate that zeus is there in a throne, with Athena next to him, Hehasis is there with his ax. Hera is also probably there. Some of the senior deities are sometimes there, like Poseidon. We know what is on the corners. Nyx or Selinus, which is night or moon. The other corner is Helics, aka sun.  The Athenians timed the procession so it means Athena arrived at sunrise.  Thousands of Athenians gathered there and as the sun rises up, it literally lights up Athena's birth. At that critical moment they celebrate.

Since we can't know for sure what it looks like, we will look at some Greek vases instead that shows the story of Athena's birth.

Underneath the pediment, we see Aphrodite and Dionysus and Dione, under Nyx on the right side.  On the other side, we see Demeter and Persephore.