page_title: Athena Parthenos
section_title: Ancient copies
hierarchical_section_title: Athena Parthenos / Ancient copies
caption_attribution_description: Copy of Athena Parthenos's shield depictind the battle with amazons and Phidias' self-portrait. So called "Strangford Shield" from collection of lord Strangford, London (now British Museum). Photo of plaster cast in Pushkin Museum, Moscow.
context_page_description: Athena Parthenos is a lost massive chryselephantine sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena, made by Phidias and his assistants and housed in the Parthenon in Athens; this statue was designed as its focal point. Parthenos 'maiden, virgin' was an epithet of Athena. There have been many replicas and works inspired by the statue, in both ancient and modern times. Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom.
  It was the most renowned cult image of Athens, considered one of the greatest achievements of the most acclaimed sculptor of ancient Greece. Phidias began his work around 447 BC. Lachares removed the gold sheets in 296 BC to pay his troops, and the bronze replacements for them were probably gilded thereafter; it was damaged by a fire about 165 BC but repaired. An account mentions it in Constantinople in the 10th century.
context_section_description: A number of ancient reproductions of all or part of the statue have survived.
  The Varvakeion Athena, a 3rd-century CE Roman copy in marble is housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. This is generally considered the most faithful version.
  The Lenormant Athena, a small unfinished copy, perhaps of the 1st century CE, is also in the National Museum, Athens.
  Another copy is in the Louvre.
  Another copy is in the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome.
  A 3rd-century BC copy is housed in the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade.
  A 3rd-century BC Roman marble reduced-scale copy of the statue's shield, from the Strangford Collection, is conserved at the British Museum.
caption: Plaster cast of the British Museum's 3rd-century CE Roman marble Strangford Shield (Pushkin Museum)
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