<P> The Parthenon (/ ˈpɑːrθəˌnɒn, - nən /; Ancient Greek: Παρθενών; Greek: Παρθενώνας, Parthenónas) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron . Construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power . It was completed in 438 BC, although decoration of the building continued until 432 BC . It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the zenith of the Doric order . Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art . The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and Western civilization, and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments . To the Athenians who built it, the Parthenon and other Periclean monuments of the Acropolis were seen fundamentally as a celebration of Hellenic victory over the Persian invaders and as a thanksgiving to the gods for that victory . As of 2007 the Greek Ministry of Culture was carrying out a programme of selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially ruined structure . </P> <P> The Parthenon itself replaced an older temple of Athena, which historians call the Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon, that was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC . The temple is archaeoastronomically aligned to the Hyades . Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon served a practical purpose as the city treasury . For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire . In the final decade of the sixth century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary . </P> <P> After the Ottoman conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s . On 26 September 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment . The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures . From 1800 to 1803, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures with the alleged permission of the Ottoman Empire . These sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they are now displayed . Since 1983 (on the initiative of Culture Minister Melina Mercouri), the Greek government has been committed to the return of the sculptures to Greece . </P> <P> The origin of the Parthenon's name is from the Greek word παρθενών (parthenon), which referred to the "unmarried women's apartments" in a house and in the Parthenon's case seems to have been used at first only for a particular room of the temple; it is debated which room this is and how the room acquired its name . The Liddell--Scott--Jones Greek--English Lexicon states that this room was the western cella of the Parthenon, as does J.B. Bury . Jamauri D. Green holds that the parthenon was the room in which the peplos presented to Athena at the Panathenaic Festival was woven by the arrephoroi, a group of four young girls chosen to serve Athena each year . Christopher Pelling asserts that Athena Parthenos may have constituted a discrete cult of Athena, intimately connected with, but not identical to, that of Athena Polias . According to this theory, the name of the Parthenon means the "temple of the virgin goddess" and refers to the cult of Athena Parthenos that was associated with the temple . The epithet parthénos (παρθένος) meant "maiden, girl", but also "virgin, unmarried woman" and was especially used for Artemis, the goddess of wild animals, the hunt, and vegetation, and for Athena, the goddess of strategy and tactics, handicraft, and practical reason . It has also been suggested that the name of the temple alludes to the maidens (parthenoi), whose supreme sacrifice guaranteed the safety of the city . Parthénos has also been applied to the Virgin Mary, Parthénos Maria, and the Parthenon had been converted to a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the final decade of the sixth century . </P>

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