Entablature and Metope Courses Installed

With columns standing, the entablature began to land on their capitals. Architraves slid into place with a breath-catching creak, then rested, momentarily silent, before clamps and dowels locked them home. Above them, the frieze of triglyphs and metopes formed a Doric drumbeat around the temple’s perimeter [11]. The metope panels, blank at first, waited for the stories that would make the exterior a ring of battles.

The choice of subjects gave the Parthenon a civic voice. Gigantomachy, Amazonomachy, Centauromachy—mythic struggles that Athenians could read as allegories for order versus chaos, city versus barbarian [11][16]. Each metope frame became a window into conflict. Under Pheidias’ direction, carvers began to rough out figures, chasing depth and outline, carving the first contours that would catch the high, white light of Attica.

The sound was the music of work: a hard, consistent tapping as chisels found a rhythm against Pentelic marble; the sharper, ringing blows of point tools creating initial relief. Dust settled on shoulders and in hair; the blue of the sky vanished to chalk above the scaffolds. From the north side of the Acropolis, Athenians could hear the cadence and see a line of fresh stone gleam like a band of frost.

The Doric program demanded discipline. Triglyphs aligned above column axes; metopes sat centered over intercolumniations. Iktinos and Kallikrates watched the geometry while Pheidias tracked the emerging figures, ensuring coherence across dozens of panels [4][11]. British Museum material later highlights how this systematic setting of frames allowed varied yet coordinated storytelling [16].

As courses advanced, they changed the temple’s silhouette. The blank edges above the columns resolved into the strong alternation that makes the Parthenon read as both stable and alive. The metope fields, even before they held completed scenes, promised the drama to come. Meanwhile, the interior Ionic frieze plan waited, its carving to begin in another phase, an inner hum to the outer drum [11].

By season’s end, the entablature ran its continuous line. The temple’s exterior now had its grammar. Next would come the roof and the roofline’s own narratives—the pediments with their vast triangular spaces and civic origin myths. The frames were ready; the stories were on their way.