page_title: Propylaea (Acropolis of Athens)
section_title: Plans for eastern and western side of Propylaea
hierarchical_section_title: Propylaea (Acropolis of Athens) / Plans for eastern and western side of Propylaea
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Вид от Пропилеев Акрополя на Ареопаг
context_page_description: The Propylaea was the monumental gateway to the Acropolis of Athens, and was one of several public works commissioned by the Athenian leader Pericles in order to rebuild the Acropolis a generation after the conclusion of the Persian Wars. Pericles appointed his friend Phidias as the supervisor and lead architect of this massive project, which Pericles allegedly financed with funds appropriated from the treasury of the Delian League. According to Plutarch, the Propylaea was designed by the architect Mnesikles, about whom nothing else is known. Construction began in 437 BC and was terminated in 432, when the building was still unfinished.
  The Propylaea was constructed of white Pentelic marble and gray Eleusinian marble or limestone, which was used only for accents. Structural iron was also used, though William Bell Dinsmoor analyzed the structure and concluded that the iron weakened the building. The structure consists of a central building with two adjoining wings on the west side, one to the north and one to the south.
context_section_description: There were two wings planned for the eastern side of the Propylaea, facing in toward the Acropolis. Preparations for both wings are apparent at the eastern end of the central building and along the side walls, but it seems that the plan for a southern wing was abandoned early in the construction process since the old fortification wall was not demolished, as required for that wing.
  The north wing was not built either. Had it been constructed, it seems that the level of the floor would have been problematic. To the extent that preparations had been made, they were for a floor at the level of the western portion of the building, considerably below the level required on the east.
  As a result of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in 431 BC, the Propylaea was never completed. Not only are the eastern wings missing, the wall surfaces were not trimmed to their finished shapes, and so-called lifting bosses remain on many blocks. (Lifting bosses have long been called such but are now recognized to have been for another purpose, though that other purpose is not agreed. See A. Trevor Hodge, "Bosses Reappraised," Omni Pede Stare: Saggi Architettonici e circumvesuviani in memoriam Jos de Waele, 2005, Mols & Moormann, eds.)
caption: Pedestal of Agrippa
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