Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of metope.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Nor was it Agoracritus, putative head of the sizable Parthenon workshop that carved tons of white Pentelic marble into numerous fully dimensional figures for the two triangular pediments; ninety-two high-relief panels, called metopes, for the frieze above the oblong structure's peripheral colonnade; and the bas-relief that wrapped like a ribbon around the exterior of Athena's inner sanctum and depicted the Panathenaic Procession (the citizenry's celebration of their divine protector's birthday).

    Grading the New Acropolis Filler, Martin 2009

  • Men are up ladders peeling plastic off 2,500-year-old sculpted tablets (called metopes); young women are giving a final wash to small replicas of the statues which originally bookended the Parthenon; the gift shop is an empty shell.

    The Guardian World News 2009

  • The Doric order is characterised by squat columns with round capitals and a frieze decorated with alternating triglyphs (three vertical bands separated by grooves) and plain or sculpted metopes (rectangular blocks).

    Renaissance architecture: how to identify the Roman orders 2011

  • Complete view of Parthenon: Almost 99% of what survives of Parthenon's masterpieces is exposed in London and Athens According to Professor A. M Snodgrass of Cambridge University, "among these pieces, the British Museum possesses fifty-five of the fifty-six frieze slabs, all twenty of, the pediment figures and fifteen of the sixteen metopes, nearly 98% in total" (Appendix B, British Committee's submission to the Select Committee of the House of Commons).

    Eight Reasons: Why the Parthenon Sculptures must be returned to Greece 2009

  • Therefore greed and nationalism were the real reasons for bringing the sculptures to London; byproducts of which was admittedly a better study of the classical age and a doubtful protection of the metopes from further destruction.

    Night (not) in the Parthenon Museum 2 2009

  • Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, pried off just under one half of the Parthenon frieze (some 247 feet) and added to it fifteen metopes and seventeen of the great sculptures from the east and west pediments, then shipped them to England, eventually to repose in the British Museum, where they remain as the clamor from the Greek government to return them to Athens grows ever more intense.

    Napoleon's Eye Brooks, Peter 2009

  • Thus, in 23. 5-foot-high Parthenon Gallery, the metopes are seen from a vantage point lower than they originally were on the temple.

    Grading the New Acropolis Filler, Martin 2009

  • The processional frieze depicted along the metopes and pediments of the structure were meant to root the nation's present imperial exploits in the nation's past experience of warfare against human and mythological enemies, each time concluding with a Grecian victory that consolidated national identity and augmented

    The Ruins of Empire: Nationalism, Art, and Empire in Hemans's Modern Greece 2006

  • Heracles is represented on one of the earlier metopes from Selinus.

    Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica 2007

  • The guide trotted out mentions of winged-victory acrotiria, sphinxes, continuous friezes, and sculptured Herculean metopes.

    See Delphi and Die Davis, Lindsey 2005

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