THE PARTHENON

A study in Greek Geometry

THE PARTHENON TODAY:
 WHAT IS THE PARTHENON?
 The Parthenon is an ancient temple of the Greek
goddess Athena. It was built in the 5th century B.C. in
Athens, Greece. The building first served as a treasury
and housed a large statue of the goddess Athena. It has
been used as a Christian church, and an Islamic mosque
as well.
 In the 1600’s, an ammunition dump that was housed in
the building ignited and caused most of the damage that
we see today.

Source: Wilikpedia.com
SOME MORE INFORMATION
 The Parthenon was constructed not only to be a temple
to the goddess Athena and to house her “treasures”, but
also to be aesthetically pleasing.
 In ancient Greece, people never entered the temple, but
could only see glimpses into the inside of the temple,
where they could see a gigantic gold and ivory statue of
Athena.
 The architects designed the exterior in a way that would
effortlessly prepare the viewer on the outside for the
beautiful statue of Athena on the inside.

Source:: http://www.ancient-greece.org/architecture/parthenon.html
 The designers also used math to make sure that the
Parthenon was worthy of the goddess Athena. Example:
the columns on each corner of the temple were built to
be 6 cm larger in diameter than the other columns AND
the space around them 25cm smaller because they
would be viewed with the sky as the background, which
would make them appear smaller. They wanted them to
appear to be the same size as the other columns.
Hence, the adjustment.

Source: http://www.ancient-greece.org/architecture/parthenon.html
 This is a column of the Parthenon. It is in the shape
of a cylinder. To find the volume (which would be
the amount of the stone needed), I would need to
first find the radius of the base. Then I would need
to know the height of the column.
Once I know these measurements, all I need to do
is square the radius then multiply by pi and the
height.

Example (this is for extra credit):

height is 34 feet, and the radius is 3 feet.
V = 32 * p * 34 = 961.33 ft 3
Picture courtesy of blog.lib.umn.edu, ftp://ftp.nashville.org/web/parthenon/measure.pdf
 This is the floor plan of the
Parthenon. It is a rectangle.
To find the area of this
rectangle, I need to multiply
the length and the width
together.

Example (only for extra credit):

length is 228 feet and width is 101 feet.
Area = 228 * 101 = 23028 ft2
Source: academic..reed.edu, ftp://ftp.nashville.org/web/parthenon/measure.pdf
CONTINUATION
 To finish this project, I would need to show three more
parts of the Parthenon, and explain the perimeter of
one and the surface area of another, plus a
measurement of my choosing for the last one.

 Students, enjoy!