The Procession of Maidens

The Parthenon East Frieze

This section is from the right side of the east frieze and is part of the procession of maidens walking to the left. The entire panel fragment is currently in the Louvre, Paris, and contains four additional figures at left: two maidens between two marshals. As part of the Panathenaia or Peplos ceremony, these maidens participated in a city-wide festival celebrating a new peplos for the cult statue of Athena every four years.

The four women are shown in a demure posture, very reverential and quiet. They give the impression that they are involved in a worshipful ceremony, a procession that is very important to them. They emanate a sense of pride in their ceremonial role. The folds of their clothing are carved deeply giving the sense of luxurious drapery enhancing the role they perform.

The object being carried by the third figure is a phiale (shallow offering bowl). The women are dressed either in a linen chiton covered by a heavy and voluminous himation or in a woolen peplos with a mantle draped over their shoulders. Their long hair is either tied up in a scarf or worn loose streaming down the back. The age of the young woman and her status in the community dictates her role in the ceremony. For example, the chosen maidens from the upper classes who were fit to carry the basket in the ceremony are called the kanephoroi and would have worn the chiton covered with the himation, and their hair would have been tied up with a scarf.

B.W.