Parthenon

The Parthenon is the Doric marble temple of the city goddess Athena Parthenos on the Athenian Acropolis, built 447-432 BC under Pericles by the architects Iktinos and Kallikrates, with the figural sculpture supervised by Phidias. Inside stood the now-lost 12-metre gold-and-ivory statue of Athena, financed from the treasury of the Delian League - effectively a temple of empire rather than pure cult. The building applies subtle optical corrections: slightly bowed columns, a convex stylobate. After conversion to a church in the 6th century and a mosque phase under the Ottomans, a Venetian shell ignited the powder magazine inside in 1687, blowing the temple apart. The Acropolis has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1987; the columns are scaffolded for ongoing anastylosis. The marble sculptures lie scattered between Athens, London (Elgin Marbles) and Paris.