The Parthenon enigma / Joan Breton Connelly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Connelly, Joan Breton, 1954- author.

Contributor:

Martin and Margy Meyerson Endowment Fund for the Built Environment.

EBSCOhost.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Symbolism in architecture.

Athens (Greece)--Buildings, structures, etc.

Athens (Greece).

Parthenon (Athens, Greece).

Symbolism in architecture--Greece--Athens.

Greece--Athens.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiii, 485 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, maps

Place of Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Since the Enlightenment, the Parthenon-the greatest example of Athenian architecture, a paragon of beauty and proportion-has been venerated as the definitive symbol of Western democratic values. Joan Breton Connelly challenges this conventional wisdom, drawing on previously undiscovered sources to present a revolutionary new view of this peerless building. Reaching back across millennia to trace the Parthenon's story from the laying of its foundation, Connelly finds the structure's true meaning not in the rationalist ideals we typically associate with Athens but in a vast web of ceaseless cultic observances and a unique mythic identity, in which democracy in our sense of the word would have been inconceivable. Marshalling a breathtaking range of textual and visual evidence, and full of fresh insights woven into a thrilling narrative that brings the distant past to life, The Parthenon Enigma sheds a stunning new light on the ancient Athenians from whom we claim cultural descent-and on Western civilization itself. Book jacket.

Contents:

The Sacred Rock : myth and the power of place

Before the Parthenon : gods, monsters, and the cosmos

Periklean Pomp : The Parthenon moment and its passing

The Ultimate Sacrifice : Founding father, mother, daughters

The Parthenon Frieze : The key to the temple

Why the Parthenon : War, death, and remembrance in the shaping of sacred space

The Panathenaia : The performance of belonging and the death of the maiden

The Well-scrubbed Legacy : The sincerest of flattery and the limits of acquired identity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [357]-456) and index.

Electronic reproduction. Ipswich, MA Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on print version record.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Martin and Margy Meyerson Endowment Fund for the Built Environment.

ISBN:

0385350503

9780385350501

Publisher Number:

99984159491

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.