Pergamon Athena

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This statue is a Hellenistic Age free hand adaptation of the Athena Parthenos statue by the Attic sculptor Phidias (Pheidias). The original statue stood in the Parthenon. This copy of the statue was found in pieces in the remains of the Library of Pergamon by German archaeologists in 1880. It is made of Pentellic marble.  The statue stand 310.5 cm in height. It is missing nearly the entire head aside from the face. The neck and shoulders are largely gone. The arms are gone. The feet and bottom of the tunic is gone as well. Only the middle section of the base this copy stood on has survived. Scholars have estimated that the base was twice as long originally. The base probably illustrated the creation of Pandora, like the original. Only seven battered figures have survived.  A large block under the figure was necessary for it to stand on its base. The shoulders, neck and the missing parts of the head and helmet were recreated so the face could be replaced on the statue. When it was first restored, the neck, shoulders, and head were restored in the contemporary trend in that era. This involved replacing missing elements. The restorations on his statue were restrained when compared to ancient statues in other museums. The most visually outstanding part of the restoration was that of the cheek flaps on the helmet. Decades later the restorations were replaced with plain supports in keeping with the trend to remove restorations that tried to conceal damage and missing parts.  It was in this appearance that the statue was displayed in the Pergamon Museum in an enormous room exhibiting colossal architectual sections of structures from Pergamon and other ancient cities across Asia Minor. When a massive project that would close down the Pergamon Museum began, the statue was sent on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 2016 to 2018.  During that time, the supports were replaced once again, but this time with new elements that were far less obvious than previously. The new supports included a restoration of the head, neck and shoulders, reminiscent of the first restoration. The cheek flaps were not included however. The obtrusive block under the figure was replaced with another that approximated the lost part of the statue but didn't restore the missing feet and tunic hem. The goal was to give the statue a more accurate appearance that would be visually closer to what it looked like when intact.