Athena Parthenos

The 42-foot statue of Athena Parthenos that stands inside Nashville's Parthenon is the largest indoor sculpture in the western hemisphere — a near-exact scale reconstruction of the cult statue that stood in the original Athenian Parthenon from 438 BCE until its disappearance a thousand years later. The figure holds a six-foot statue of Nike (Victory) in her right hand and rests her left on a shield decorated with battle scenes.

The visitor route inside the Parthenon brings you up close to the statue from below. The west gallery's small art collection (mostly American Impressionist paintings) is included with the same ticket. Allow forty-five minutes.

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Sculptor Alan LeQuire completed the 42-foot Athena in 1990 after eight years of work — at the time the largest indoor sculpture in the western hemisphere. The original 5th-century BCE statue by Phidias, on which it is modelled, was made of gold and ivory and disappeared from Athens around the 5th century CE; LeQuire's version is gypsum-cement on a steel frame, gilded in 23.75-karat gold leaf added in 2002.

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