THE PARTHENONA 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

Picture courtesy of blog.lib.umn.edu, ftp://ftp.nashville.org/web/parthenon/measure.pdf

This is a column of the Parthenon. It is in the shapeof 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 needto know the height of the column. Once I know these measurements, all I need to dois square the radius then multiply by pi and theheight.

Example (this is for extra credit): height is 34 feet, and the radius is 3 feet.V = 32 * ft 3

Source: academic..reed.edu, ftp://ftp.nashville.org/web/parthenon/measure.pdf

This is the floor plan of theParthenon. It is a rectangle.To find the area of this rectangle, I need to multiplythe length and the widthtogether.

Example (only for extra credit): length is 228 feet and width is 101 feet.Area = 228 * 101 = 23028 ft2

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!