We got a brief opportunity to see the Parthenon during our bus tour of Nashville yesterday. It looked so nice that we made time the next morning to tour it before heading out of town on our way to Bristol, Tenn.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about The Parthenon:
"The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. It was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.
Today the Parthenon, which functions as an art museum, stands as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, a large public park just west of downtown Nashville. Alan LeQuire's 1990 re-creation of the Athena Parthenos statue is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece.
The statue of Athena Parthenos within is a reconstruction of the
long-lost original to careful scholarly standards: she is cuirassed and
helmeted, carries a shield on her left arm and a small 6-foot-high
(1.8 m) statue of Nike (Victory) in her right palm, and stands 42 feet (13 m) high, gilt with more than 8 pounds (3.6 kg) of gold leaf;
an equally colossal serpent rears its head between her and her shield.
Since the building is complete and its decorations were polychromed
(painted in colors) as close to the presumed original as possible, this
replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to
what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the naos (the east room of the main hall) are direct casts of the original sculptures which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon, dating back to 438 BC. Many fragments of the originals are housed in the British Museum in London; others are at the Acropolis Museum in Athens."
When you first walk in, you are stunned by the beauty and size of Athena.
The are the largest brass doors in the world according to the video we watched.
We were not able to take photos in the art gallery portion of the museum. The extra stop was well worth the time.
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