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Pantheon Vs Parthenon

Decent Essays

This essay aims to draw some conclusions from the comparison between two ancient buildings: the Roman Pantheon, completed in 125 A.D., and the Athenian Parthenon, completed in 432 B.C.
Despite the approximative 500 year gap and the culture and geographical location, both buildings were used for religious purposes.
The names being pretty similar, the etymologies of the Parthenon and the Pantheon have nothing to do with another. Parthenon means an unmarried women's apartments, or in other words, virgin apartments. This probably has to do with the fact that in many of the Greek cults the administration of the religious rites was done by virgin priestesses. The Parthenon is also dedicated to a single female entity – Athena, who gave the city its …show more content…

Like the coffered concrete dome. Athens couldn't have produced such a dome, as Rome was later responsible and very famous for building roads, walls and building with a very consistent cement. This cement is capable of forming complex arches for aqueducts, like the aqueduct of Cologne, in Germany. Although this cement was a trademark of the Roman culture, the Pantheon's circular shape plus its portico make it a unique building in its genre. Maybe the circular shape has to do with the temple being dedicated to all gods? Not having a fixed spot to look at means you can rotate in it, appreciating all the different …show more content…

It is a good example of the Greek culture because it deploys how every other temple was built (stones interlocked – no cement) but also because it served another purpose/function: to guard the city's treasury, which was something that was done in many other Greek temples, according to the Parthenon's wikipedia page. This function did not occur in Roman temples.
Built originally as temples, we see above some ways where we can draw a difference between Ancient Rome's and Greece's building techniques. Both structures were transformed converted into churches but nowadays only the Pantheon remains one, the Parthenon is a museum. Both structures went through much degradation, specially the Parthenon but both still stand tall, marvelling everyone to this day.

References:
The Parthenon. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2017, from https://web.archive.org/web/20151125183649/http://www.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/Parthenon.html
Parthenon. (2017, November 28). Retrieved November 29, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon
Pantheon, Rome. (2017, November 26). Retrieved November 29, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome
Cartwright, M. (2012, September 01). Aqueduct. Retrieved November 29, 2017, from

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