Some things never go out of style. One of those is Parthenon scholarship; a year does not pass without the appearance of books and articles devoted to this most venerable of Greek monuments. One would think that there are no more questions to be asked, no more answers to be proposed, but this is decidedly not the case. The Acropolis restoration project alone, active since the 1970s and spearheaded by Manolis Korres, constantly brings new information to light, to say nothing of new methodologies and technologies that inspire one to look at the familiar in new ways.

The Parthenon and Its Sculptures brings together a selection of papers presented at the 2002 University of Missouri, St. Louis, conference “The Parthenon and Its Sculptures in the Twenty-First Century.” It includes eight essays, an introduction by the editor (“The Methodological Framework of Parthenon Studies”), and a brief conclusion by Jenifer Neils (“The Current State of Parthenon Research”). In his introduction, Cosmopoulos sets out the four major parameters of both the conference and the book: 1) the continuing importance of traditional, formal analysis of the monument and its sculptures; 2) the role of new technologies in Parthenon studies; 3) “the study of the cultural and sociopolitical fabric out of which the building emerged” (2); and 4) consideration of the Parthenon’s postantique history.

The book succeeds in its mission of presenting a cross-section of methodologies and topics relevant to current study of the Parthenon sculptures. The first three essays examine the Parthenon frieze, which has amassed more scholarly discussion than any other work of Greek art. In “Classic Moments: Time in the Parthenon Frieze” (43–62), Jenifer Neils, author of a 2001 monograph on the frieze (The Parthenon Frieze, Cambridge University Press), considers the question of iconographic narrative. She argues that the frieze represents “a time-space continuum” (44), in other words, a narrative of the Panathenaic festival in “real time” that unfolds chronologically from west to east. She proposes that the south end of the west frieze depicts the moments before the procession, and that the majority of the frieze (the remaining west frieze, the north and south friezes, and much of the east frieze) represents the “time now,” “the present as it is reenacted by the viewer in walking along the long flanks of the building toward the east entrance” (46). The famous peplos scene in the center of the east frieze serves in Neils’s estimation as the “time after,” showing the successful conclusion of the rituals with the refolding of the newly offered Panathenaic peplos. Neils’s article is emblematic of the kind of comprehensive methodological treatment found in current scholarship, integrating formal analysis, iconographic study, and sociohistorical context.

Formal analysis and the “hand of the artist” occupy the other two essays devoted to the frieze: Sarantis Symeonoglou’s “A New Analysis of the Parthenon Frieze” (5–42) and John Younger’s “Work Sections and Repeating Patterns in the Parthenon Frieze” (63–85). Careful study of carving details and the like in an effort to identify certain artists or groups of artists working on the Parthenon frieze is not new; it is a methodology that ultimately derives from Giovanni Morelli and his attribution of Renaissance works of art. What makes these two articles—and their juxtaposition here—interesting is that they take different approaches to the task and reach different conclusions. Symeonoglou’s is the more traditional of the two in terms of Meisterforschungen; he uses phrases such as “great master,” attributes sections of the frieze to a hypothetical Master A, Master B, and Master C, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each. He argues that the uniform style of the frieze must be the result of a single master designer—Pheidias, according to tradition—even though the individual “masters” seem to have had the freedom to alter the design in a limited way. He even goes so far to suggest that his Master A is Pheidias himself.

Younger’s article is a radical departure from this type of approach. He eschews the word “masters” and instead uses terms such as “gangs of workers” to suggest the teams of artisans he believes to have worked on the frieze. He envisions “unskilled workers for transferring sketches, moderately skilled workers for removing backgrounds, and skilled carvers for modeling figures and perhaps for recarving mistakes as drapery,” all of them coming from “various strata of society” (82–83). In this paradigm, the “Master Sculptor” was responsible for the initial design, but the bulk of the work was done by now-nameless workers with the help of cartoons that could be transferred and repeated. Which approach is more correct? Hard to say, but scholars have increasingly suggested that Plutarch’s reliance on the figure of Pheidias is a Roman construct applied to fifth-century Athens, and that a more diversified workforce was the reality.

The next three essays focus on the iconography of other Parthenon sculptures. Noel Robertson’s “Pandora and the Panathenaic Peplos” (86–113) considers the now-lost base of the statue of Athena Parthenos, which Pausanias says depicted the story of Pandora. Robertson suggests that the use of the Pandora myth reflected the Panathenaic peplos ceremony; that the peplos ceremony was itself based on Boeotian rites; and that this ritual was adopted by the Athenians during the fifth century, not long before the Parthenon’s construction, as a “symbol of imperial power” (106) over Boeotia. Robertson’s arguments, while interesting, are founded on leaps of faith. The proposed link between Boeotian ritual and the Panathenaic peplos ceremony seems tenuous, as does the suggestion that the peplos ritual was not made part of the festival until ca. 470–450 B.C. One also questions the theory that the Parthenos base and peplos scene on the frieze would somehow recall domination over Boeotia. Athenian mastery of that region ended with the battle of Coroneia in 447 or 446 (as Robertson himself states), the frieze was carved ca. 442–438, and the statue was also completed by 438. Why commemorate control over a lost territory? Scholars have struggled to explain the choice of the Pandora myth for the Parthenos base, and although Robertson is to be commended for a fresh examination of the problem, perhaps we must keep looking.

Georgios Mostratos takes on another lingering scholarly problem in his essay, “A Reconstruction of the Parthenon’s East Pediment” (114–49), focusing in particular on the arrangement of the central figures. Mostratos works with the physical evidence—including cuttings on the pediment floor and possible surviving sculpture fragments—as well as iconographic parallels to propose a solution that seems elegant and viable (reconstruction drawing (128)). Rather than having a single axial figure at the pediment’s apex, which is the usual reconstruction, Mostratos suggests that Athena and Zeus stood to the left and right (respectively) of the central axis, sharing compositional attention. In his reconstruction, Nike occupies the exact central space, crowning Athena as Nikephoros, although he admits this detail must remain hypothetical. This scheme, Mostratos argues, echoes the arrangement of the west pediment’s central figures but without its forceful sense of action; rather, the east pediment (according to his theory) shows the quiet aftermath of Athena’s birth, lauding her as peaceful patron goddess and the equal of her formidable father.

Two essays directly address the use of new technology: Katherine Schwab’s “The Parthenon East Metopes, the Gigantomachy, and Digital Technology” (150–65) and Scott Pike’s “Intraquarry Sourcing of the Parthenon Marbles: Applications of the Pentelic Marble Stable Isotope Database” (196–206). Using the east metopes as a case study, Schwab discusses how digital photography and image-based software (i.e., Adobe Photoshop) can assist with problems of iconography and reconstruction. These tools can be combined with more traditional techniques: examination of the actual sculptures (easier now because the metopes are no longer on the building, but in the Acropolis Museum), study of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century plaster casts in Basel and Athens; use of reconstruction drawings; and comparison with iconographic parallels in vase painting and other sculptures. With Photoshop, one can manipulate digital photographs, “heighten[ing] highlights and deepen[ing] shadows” to “significantly enhance the object’s surface” (157). Details formerly elusive can become more visible, allowing for more accurate reconstructions. One can also try out options for reconstruction by superimposing other images (i.e., iconographic parallels) in layers.

Pike’s essay asserts the value of scientific technology for Parthenon studies. Stable isotope analysis of classical marble types has already proven helpful in tracing provenances of objects, detecting forgeries, and the like. A recently created high-resolution, stable isotope database of Pentelic marble documents variations among marbles extracted from different parts of the ancient quarry. One can therefore determine from which part of the quarry individual sculptures or architectural elements came. Pike suggests that with further research this database can help track different phases of the Parthenon’s construction and assist with similar archaeological questions.

Finally, William St. Clair and Robert Picken confront the post-antique history of the Parthenon in their contribution, “The Parthenon in 1687: New Sources” (166–95). The postclassical life of the Parthenon has gained increased attention in the past two decades as the Acropolis restoration project has unfolded. Reexamination of early source material has formed a crucial part of this study. This essay focuses on a “hitherto unknown manuscript account of a visit to Athens in 1699” (166), discovered by St. Clair (transcribed and translated here), taken together with other manuscript sources. The authors aim to uncover more information about the state of the building before and after the devastating 1687 explosion, including such details as its appearance (i.e., its color) and the nature of the roof. This kind of research adds considerably to our knowledge not only of the seventeenth-century condition of the Parthenon, but also what it may have looked like originally and how it was modified over time.

In this day and age, it is a fair question to ask whether study of the Parthenon is still relevant. Do we really need another book about it? Or has the Parthenon become passé and cliché, particularly now that we recognize that fifth-century Athenian art is more an exception than a rule? Cosmopoulos’s volume, with its diversity of topics and approaches, shows us that the Parthenon is still relevant, simply because there are new questions to continually ask and answer. And so we can be confident that even in this new millennium, Parthenon studies are here to stay.