Horse riders on the go!

Make 3 blocks of the Parthenon frieze.

What will you need:

-Paper or cardboard

-Scissors

-Glue or double sided adhesive tape

-Colored pencils (optional)

Horse riders on the go!

Here they are, the heroic horse riders of the Parthenon frieze! Print, cut and paste and make three blocks of the west frieze of the Parthenon. Place them in the correct order and see the equestrians and horses that the ancient sculptor Phidias and his team created, come to life before your eyes. You can color the figures to make them even more like the original. That’s how they were in ancient times, multi-colored!

Have you heard of the Parthenon frieze? It’s that continuous band of sculpture that wrapped around the Parthenon with a total length of 160 meters, that is, a length about equal to ten trucks in a row or a small cruise ship! The frieze shows the parade of the ‘Panathenaia’ the biggest festival of the ancient city of Athens that honored the goddess Athena. Amongst the 378 figures that the sculptor Phidias created on the frieze, you can see gods, priests, archons, men, women, youths and elders as well as animals, horses mainly. The ancient Greeks considered the goddess Athena their city’s protector, but also the god that tamed horses and the creator of the horse harness. So it’s no surprise that a large part of the sculpted parade is made up of horse riders.

The frieze is made up of huge individual marble blocks. On the west side of the temple there were sixteen blocks showing the horse riders getting ready for the procession. Following the steps below and you will have the opportunity to make three of these blocks that are displayed in the Acropolis Museum. Print the activity, make the blocks and place one next to the other to create and have your small part of this amazing masterpiece.