ACROPOLIS MUSEUM, Second Floor Metopes Of The Parthenon

Around the central structure, corresponding to the naos of the Parthenon, runs another structure supported by columns where you can admire the metopes, the stone plaques sculpted in relief that originally adorned the horizontal structure above the columns of the temple and under the roof. These too are visible at a much closer range than they would have been in the temple.

The metopes, which decorated the horizontal structures of the Parthenon, were the first to be sculpted. There were originally 92 of them, illustrating mythological battles in which Greek heroes defeated their enemies, almost always represented as monstrous beings.

There are depictions, for example, of the young Athenians against the Amazons, the mythical warrior women; the youths of Thessaloniki fighting the Centaurs, mythical creatures that were half-man and half-horse; the Gods defeating the Giants who had attempted to scale Mount Olympus, their dwelling place and a symbol of order in the world; and lastly, the Sack of Troy, attacked because Paris had eloped with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, as we can read in the Iliad.  ...