THE PARTHENON IN NASHVILLE??

THE PARTHENON

Would you believe there is an EXACT replica of the Parthenon in Knoxville? It is the only place in the world where you can experience what the real deal was really like. And what's inside will blow your mind!

The building is made of  aggregate concrete replacing the original wood and lathe construction.

Again, thanks to Kay serving as our tour guide, we got to see one of the highlights, for me, of the trip. The following are quotes from RoadsideAmerica.com who said it best:

 ” The least likely place to find the most perfect replica of the Greek Parthenon would seem to be in in the Country Music Capital of the World. But before Nashville was Country Strong it was "The Athens of the South," a city that prided itself as a center of learning and enlightenment. When Nashville hosted Tennessee's Centennial Exposition in 1897, the city wanted to remind everyone of its "Athens" claim, so it built a temporary full-size replica Parthenon (the original is in Athens). The site later became Centennial Park, and the temporary temple was so popular that the city replaced it with a permanent one in 1931. Soon after that, the singing hillbilly honky-tonkers came to town, and the Parthenon has been weirdly out-of-place ever since.

 The tallest indoor statue in the U.S. is a pagan goddess. Covered in real gold, too.

To make Nashville's Parthenon complete, a colossal statue of the goddess Athena had to be built inside it…Standing 42 feet tall – Athena is the tallest indoor statue in the U.S. -- and with her giant companion snake and crazy eyes she's an eerie sight in the temple gloom…A tiny (human size) Nike stands in her upturned palm, crowning her with a wreath of victory. If you look closely, you can spot other gods and creatures: Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, Pegasus, fighting Amazons, a Sphinx, and the severed head of serpent-haired Medusa. "Great attention was paid to accuracy and detail," said Wesley Paine, the Parthenon's director,  “This really is the only place in the world you can go and see what the ancient Greeks intended."

 

The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles are direct casts of the original sculptures, which decorated the pediments dating back to 438 BC. Only fragments of the originals (called the Elgin Marbles) are left and are in the British Museum in London (which I had the pleasure of seeing on one of my many trips to London.) The Parthenon also serves as Nashville’s art museum.

NEXT TIME:  THE HERMITAGE, ANDREW JACKSON'S HOME