Museum
The Parthenon
Full-scale concrete replica of the Athenian temple, with a forty-two-foot gilded statue of Athena.
Location
About this audio guide
This Nashville Parthenon is a full-scale copy of the Athens original, built for the eighteen ninety-seven Centennial Exposition. The guide follows the appetite at the heart of the temple's original purpose in Athens, the Panathenaic festival and its ceremonial feast for the whole city, and asks what a faithful copy actually carries over. Along the way it covers the exposition that put a Greek temple on a Tennessee fairground and the forty-two-foot gilded Athena inside. Best taken in from the east steps, where the full colonnade comes into view.
This audio guide was created using AI.