Let's Visit the Parthenon - History Tour in AC: Odyssey Discovery Mode

Welcome to the glorious past of Ancient Greece. Before us lies the famous Acropolis of Athens topped by the Parthenon, and behind us is the city itself sprawled out in amazing detail. This is just a small taste of what awaits in Discovery Mode for Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and I have to say the team has done a fantastic job in bringing the past to life and it will be my goal today to serve as your guide through this amazing living exhibit. But before we descend to the ground level I did want to give you some brief context for our tour. The Acropolis which we are now circling is a very very old site, in fact it's amongst the earliest inhabited areas of Athens owing to its natural defensive position, and that's why you see these fortifications like the walls here which would have gone up very very early on in its history and actually it was soon followed by various palaces, religious sites, etc. But this target was not impenetrable, and it would be the Persians who invaded Greece who set it all alight in the 480s BC, and with the destruction of this area would come a chance to rebuild from the ashes, and that's exactly what we're going to be seeing today, the next revival of the great Acropolis of Athens with the Parthenon that we're strafing right here, as well as the great statue and some of the armories and all of these sites. So with that context out of the way, let's go ahead and view it in first person. So let's now ascend to the famed Acropolis of Athens to the Parthenon that I just teased you with, and as we make our way up you're going to be seeing all sorts of amazing sights and sounds that would have been witnessed by any good Athenian citizen going about their daily life and perhaps any good conquering soldier, but one of the things that I'm most struck by now that we're immersed here on the grounds I view is going to be the sights and the sounds. In terms of the sights, the colors is what strikes me the most, not only because of the great graphics, but also the historical fidelity. So for instance, as we look around, much of the stonework, and in particular the statues here are going to be in full color, and that's going to be coming as a surprise to a lot of people who are used to seeing them more like the statue over on the right here. And that's a result of the fact that much of the color in the past has since deteriorated, and when you had the people of the Renaissance looking to emulate the statues of the past, they used the whited out versions of their models, and thus took that as a continuation. So a lot of the times in museums you'll be seeing the stale version, but the truth is that the past was very much in color, and that's one of the first things that I did want to bring to your attention. And that not only applies to the statues, but also if you look at the colors on each and every one of the people, you know, the past, people weren't dull, they weren't boring, they're very much just as interested in aesthetics as us, and that's what you're seeing represented here today. So not only the clothes, the statues, and whatnot, but also on the buildings, the outside, and especially the interiors are going to be lavishly decorated. So this is all the stuff that you're seeing as we make our way up. There's even more content just in every nook and cranny, but for now we're going to continue on with our journey up to the top of the Acropolis. Making our way up the walkway here, you'll notice it's a long zig-zaggy path. That's because, well, the Acropolis is a giant plateau, and you have to make your way up with these switchbacks. Now the Athenians had their own version of the switchbacks, but eventually when the Romans took over, they did go about enlarging it to make it easier to get to the top. And one of the last things I did want to note before we get to the entrance itself is going to be, well, what do we have here? A bunch of flower petals and various things adorning the ground, and that is going to be a reference to, most likely, the Panathenaia, which is essentially going to be an annual celebration that the Athenians had dedicated to Athena, with the center point being, obviously, the Acropolis and the Parthenon dedicated to Athena. So the Panathenaia had kind of a lesser version that would occur every year, but then every four years would be the Greater Panathenaia, and that's the one where you'd have all sorts of games and contests for music, gymnastics, equestrian contests, and the like. And then the winners of all of those would then process up with the rest of the city, members of the army, the government, and all that, come up through here, and then make their offerings to Athena. So that's essentially what we're doing here as we walk up. But now that we've made it to the top, we can see all of the other people chilling out, and what we see before us are going to be the Great Gates. So let's go ahead and move up, and there is a guide here provided to us, so let's go ahead and talk to her. Now, Assassin's Creed Odyssey Discovery Mode does have a guide tour that you can do where they'll talk to you and walk you through things, but since you have me, I'm going to be your guide for the day. So let's go ahead and begin our approach. So one of the things you'll notice is, man, is this impressive, and that was what they were trying to achieve. All of these structures in the past were meant to be monumental. The Athenians believed that this was going to be the focus of their god's attention, and this is going to house a lot of important religious sites. So it's important to make this worthy of the god and the patron saint, or the patron god, I should say, of your particular polis, and in this case, this is going to be the Propylaia, and this is going to be the monumental entrance to the plateau. Now this is going to be the main gate that gets you onto the plateau of the Acropolis, and as such, it's going to be, well, a choke point. So during the Athenian Golden Age, it would have had this main structure here that you're seeing before you, and yes, it would have had some way to control the crowds, but mostly it would have been sort of civil control, you know, controlling who can get in and out to do offerings, when to close down the temple and whatnot. In later years, when this passed on to the Middle Ages, this fortification would become an actual military emplacement where they would reinforce it and use it as a place to hold out in the event of some sort of assault, but in the Athenian era, it was very much dolled up here as a big, grand entrance. One of the things I did want to note is that, well, this is meant to greet you, and how does it do so? Well, we can see a couple key things here. The first is going to be the flags draped on either side. These are going to be blue with an owl. The reason for the owl is because, well, as I said, this is all dedicated to Athena. The owl is going to be one of the sort of animals associated with Athena. The owl means wisdom, and Athena classically is associated with wisdom, handicraft, and warfare, so the owl is one of the main representations, and thus one of the main associations with Athens, Athens deriving its name from Athena. The mythology behind this is that the idea is that when Athens was first founded, there were two deities, Poseidon and Athena, jockeying for who would be the patron deity of the entire city of Athens, and either of them made gestures to the people to get their favor, and Poseidon struck the rock atop the Acropolis here, and from it sprang a salt spring, and Athena, on the other hand, gave an olive tree, the first olive tree, and in the end, it was that Athena won out, and so that's why she became the patron deity, and that's why the olive tree and all of the associated stuff dealing with Athena is so important. And that's what we're seeing represented here, so the Propyleia here is just to greet you, to be very much imposing, and also to start to send you that message of here is what this is all about, Athena is our patron deity, and we'll be seeing more references to that on the inside. Now, as for the kind of architectural style that you see before you, well, this is very classical Greek, looking at the columns themselves, this is going to be in the Doric order of architecture style, the way you can tell is because, well, it's rather simple, the three orders are going to be Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, the Doric ones are, like I said, the simplest, so basically, if you look at the base, there's going to be nothing there, the column goes directly to the ground, as for the column itself, it's typically smooth or has just these very simple ridges, and at the top, it's usually going to be a rather basic, kind of circular top with a rectangular cushion atop the very peak of it. So that is it, and that's going to be contrasted with the more Ionic version, which is going to be represented over here, so this is probably one of the latter styles, and so yeah, you can see it there with the more intense base and more intricate top. So all of this being represented here, I am so, so glad to see the Assassin's Creed Odyssey team representing all of this. And now, let's go ahead and enter the temple. So inside, you'll be seeing all sorts of things taking place, but before we get to the very interior, I do want to note on what's going on here. You can see a lot of people going about their daily life, setting up shops and people resting and having some repose. Looks like there are some shops. Hello! Some shops, people selling things, pots and goods and whatnot. Here there's going to be little children's toys and various items. There's even dishware that you can get. And over here, you can actually see one of the pots that a, I don't know where they went, but one person was in the process of decorating, and these would have been very highly valued for their practical use, but then also artistic, you know, advantages. And all of this to say is that these sites are not just strictly religious. There were going to be also secular reasons for people to come up here, some commercial activity taking place, and actually if you go around the flanks of the Propylaea here, there are going to be these empty rooms, and these were rooms that could actually be used for meetings or dinners, and those didn't necessarily have to be religious. If you were fairly well-connected, you could actually sort of book them and have your own royal banquet in these various rooms. So that's one of the things I wanted to note as we move along, and again, the colors are going to be very much striking. So that's one of the reasons you might be making your way up to the Parthenon here. But now, with that being said, let's enter here. And this is going to be, again, another impression that you get moving up here, is it is supposed to wow you. So as you come through the gateway, you're immediately greeted with a giant statue of Athena. Again, we talked about Athena being the patron deity of Athens, people making their offerings and whatnot. And now we're out on the top of the plateau. Lots of stuff going to be going on here, lots of little sanctuaries. In the back right is going to be the Parthenon itself, but we're going to explore every nook and cranny. So the first thing I wanted to discuss is going to be the idea of what's going on here. So the Acropolis is going to be a major religious center for the Greeks. And the way this would work is you would generally have it dedicated to one deity in particular, but then you could also find sanctuaries around to the various other deities. And this would be the focus of things where you would give homage to your god, you would sacrifice to them, and essentially make your prayer to the god. So for instance, that's where you're going to be seeing a lot of stuff happening here. So these people here speaking up to Athena, in this case, directing themselves to Athena. A typical Greek prayer would have gone as follows. First you would have started with a sort of invocation, which is basically calling on the god. So in this case, we would say, Oh, Athena, and then list all of her titles, piling on more and more as you see fit. So you would start off by saying which god you're addressing, and then you would have your claim and say, you know, God, Athena, listen to me for X, Y, and Z reasons. So in this case, you might say, God, Athena, I have walked so many thousands of miles to get here, gone through so many hardships back at home, I'm dealing with these issues, and you're the only one who can truly solve my needs. So you'd really butter them up in a sense. And then finally, the last part of your prayer would be the official request of what you need. So that's a lot of the stuff you're going to be seeing here. And often that would be accompanied by making a prayer or an offering and all that. So people could do this by themselves, but more often than not, you would have priests milling about who would be in charge of kind of running affairs. So they would not only run the sanctuary and maintain the temple here, but then they would also be in charge of organizing these rituals, making sure that people are doing things correctly taking care of the sacrifices and whatnot. So that is what's going on here. And speaking of the priests, there is actually going to be a priest's house over here. And we can go ahead and explore the interior. So it's finely decorated. To be a priest, I don't want to say just about anyone can be a priest, but there weren't that high qualifications, although most of the times we do find that it was hereditary. But once you're a priest, your main duties and obligations were to essentially, like the sanctuary, conduct religious rituals during the night and the day and all that. But as a priest, if you had a house up here, you'd be able to make a living. So again, finely decorated with all sorts of stuff going on here. I love the detail that they've gotten here and spared no expense when it came to the nudity. I hope I don't get demonetized for that. But yeah, so here we see a priest's house, all sorts of stuff going on. The first thing here would have been writing utensils. So for example, what we have are going to be these wax tablets. So awesome to see these represented. People didn't have pen and paper traditionally in the past, so what they would use is going to be these parchments, which are going to be sort of dried animal skin, or perhaps they would have various scrolls of papyrus and on that they could use ink. Those would be rolled up and stored, as you're seeing here. And then the other thing you could do would be these wax tablets, where essentially you keep them closed most of the time, but when you open them, you can then carve messages in the wax and then store that. So that's what's going on here. This is presumably going to be sort of the record keeping for the sanctuary and the Parthenon here, perhaps keeping track of the number of sacrifices or the money and all that. So that's what's going on here. Further on the inside, you can see kind of the living quarters, again, finely decorated. You can see some of the habitation coffers for keeping their goods, places to burn torches or oil or get interior lighting. Some of the beds, lots of comfy stuff on the ground. And then these dividers in the rooms, these would have been fairly common in the past where you'd have the main structure that's independently held up and then you'd subdivide the room with these kind of smaller little dividers. And that would normally divide up your quarters where you would sleep or where you might eat or cook, etc. And yeah, very, very finely decorated. So that is the priest's house. Looks like he's got a nice setup and he's right here next to some place where you can make an offering, an awesome little garden. He even has some fountains and all that. So definitely very, very relaxing type place. Let's continue to look around the priest's quarters. So actually getting around this corner, just around this side, you can see he has even more stuff going on here. People relaxing on the side, little children. Ah, here you can see one of the tablets in the works. So she is normally going to be in there to carve it up. People playing music, water to bathe and soak and overall be comfortable up in the sanctuary. In the sanctuaries, you'd have a lot of people not only doing their religious duties, but also you might even have people just kind of crashing in sanctuaries. It's not uncommon for these places to be kind of refuges for people in poverty or children or orphans and whatnot. So again, a lot of kind of secular activities and stuff going on. So that is kind of how the sanctuary functions, how you'd have the priests. And over here, it looks like we even have, yeah, potentially some orphans playing with some of the toys. I did want to talk real briefly about some of the other side sanctuaries before we get to the main, you know, stealer of the show, Athena herself. So yeah, what do we have here? It looks like there's going to be some renovations in terms of construction as they're expanding this. So yeah, that's pretty good. The Parthenon would have taken about, I think it's like 15 years to build and its cost, if I remember correctly, was something on the order of like half of Athens' total annual budget to build. So you can see that tax dollars at work, you could say. And all sorts of people going about their business, masons, and you would have a lot of famous people obviously willing to work on the Acropolis and the Parthenon of Athens. So there you go, with renovations underway. And now let's continue on. So on the right side, we're going to be seeing another little sanctuary here. Again, people are going to be making their offerings. Yeah, okay. So over here, you're going to have the Sanctuary of Artemis. So like I said, a lot of these places might have a main central god, but then you'd have several other sanctuaries dedicated to other gods where if you were to make your prayer to that specific god, this is probably going to be the place to do it. And then here you can see some offerings left out to that god. And yeah, all sorts of stuff going on. This lady here with the tablet, taking notes, not sure what she's writing about, perhaps trying to draft up her prayer in advance. People going about, oh, looks like a bit of a trade here, going to be drinking some wine. Ah, and over here, this is pretty cool. So you do see a little bit of a small statue. Again, I guess this one is going to be Artemis. You can see the bow and the deer. Artemis, I believe, the hunter. So that's going to be important. Oftentimes, you would want to come to these sites to hail a god, and you might want to do that in front of one of their statues or the religious sites. But then often what you'd see is there'd be little figures that would represent the god, and that's another center of your attention that you could direct your prayer at. So we'll be seeing those kind of sprinkled around, and again, awesome to see these represented in the game, more people relaxing and chatting. And now we can proceed to talk about the main show. So this is going to be Athena in the center. This is massive, but this is actually going to be true. This is going to be a colossal bronze statue of Athena that is actually attested to historically. The history behind this thing is that it was built over nine years, and it stood for almost a thousand years until eventually it was moved to Roman Constantinople in about 465 AD. And after that, it was later destroyed in a mob riot. But this version of Athena here, this tall statue, is going to be Athena Promakos, which essentially means Athena who fights in the front line. So there's different kind of... The gods would represent different things, and there would be different versions of that god. So the Athena that's going to be in the Parthenon is going to be Athena Parthenos, which is Athena the Virgin. So it's kind of calling on their different qualities. So Athena Parthenos is going to be the virgin cult over there, and that is where the Parthenon derives its name. But this one here is going to be Athena Promakos. So each of these, like I said, hailing to different aspects of the god, and you would probably want to direct your prayers to the most relevant aspect of that god and maybe the cult surrounding it. So here is that main statue. Again, people making all sorts of offerings. Looks like here, offerings from recent harvests are up there. And then, yeah, littering the front are going to be various places over here. A lot of Greek offerings would have involved animal sacrifice, where you would cut up special parts of the animals, maybe even read the entrails, and then place them here, I believe, in the brassiere, and then burn it, and then it would go up and go to the gods, presumably. So that's what you're seeing taking place on this front. Now we can continue to make our way around the side. A lot of cool stuff happening here. I do think there was another structure over here that I did want to take a look at. Yeah, so as we continue up towards the Parthenon, we're going to see a bull. So let's talk about this real briefly. And you can see a lot of war equipment as well. So the bull here, I believe, does represent kind of the idea of sacrifice to the gods. Oftentimes, you would want to sacrifice these, well, bulls to the gods. Sometimes it would be that you can't kill a bull throughout the year, but then there'd be special occasions where you could, and I think this is going to be a representation of that. And then you'd sacrifice various other things. And that's what you're seeing here, a raid across the front, some war equipment, perhaps to Athena's kind of war form, if you could describe it that way. But then also, it's all, it's alluding to the fact that the Parthenon here not only doubled as, you know, a religious site, but then also a place to store the treasury of Athens. So you'll be seeing that inside the Parthenon itself is going to be the vast stores of treasure, not only in, you know, coinage and gold form, but then also going to be in the form of military equipment. And so that's why you see a giant storehouse here with all sorts of war goods scattered around the panoply of a warrior. Yeah, looking around at the various sorts of equipment, bows, shields, axes, all sorts of equipment for forging weapons. So this is really, really great to see. And the Athenians would have actually used this at times in the future for actual warfare. Oh, and you can even see stuff from chariots and whatnot. So very, very cool to see this again, represented even, what is this, a torch? Yeah, backed by a musical instrument, it looks like. So yeah, you can see how the dual function of a lot of this stuff. And then up here, we're going to see the Parthenon itself. Again, don't want to go into that just yet. There is still yet more to explore. So we'll get back to the Parthenon real quick. Let's go ahead and scamper up over the edge here. Some more places where you could process during the Panathenaia. Let's go up here. OK, so over on this side, again, is going to be the major statue of Athena Promakos. But over here is going to be another structure. And this is going to be a smaller temple, if you look at it, compared to the Parthenon, obviously. And this is going to be the Erechtheion. And basically, this smaller temple here was meant to house what used to be an old temple. So like I said in the very beginning, there used to be temples atop the Acropolis here, but then they were destroyed by the Persians. And the old temple, I believe, used to stand right about where we're at here. And it used to have various offerings to Athena and Poseidon and whatnot. But when that was destroyed and rebuilt, a lot of the purposes of that old temple were then pushed over into this smaller temple. And then there was the brand new temple over there that was to house even more things in the treasury of Athens. But this one still functions as kind of the older vestiges of that previous temple. And if you go to visit this today, you will notice that these keriatids, I believe it's called, these are beautiful work columns of women. These still stand today. One of the famous things that you'll see when you go to the Parthenon, standing up. But yeah, we can circle around this smaller temple here. And it has to do with the early myth of the founding of Athens. Like I said earlier about Poseidon and Athena trying to fight for control of Athens. Poseidon is going to be the one who offered, essentially struck the Acropolis and from it sprang a salt spring. And then Athena, on the other hand, is going to be the one who offered an olive tree. And both of those are represented. Yeah, you can see that here. So I believe, yeah, well, not quite sure if it's fully represented. But according to my knowledge of this site, the west side, so over here, would have been Poseidon's side. And then the other side would have been Athena's side. But here, this is going to be a sacred olive tree. And I believe the Athenians thought that this was a descendant of the original one granted to them by Athena. So of course, high religious value. And I think over around here is supposed to be the spring that was struck by Poseidon himself. It must be somewhere around the vicinity. Not quite sure if it's represented in the game. I haven't found it. It's probably around here somewhere. But anyways, that's a bit of the details that you're seeing here. So again, the olive tree representing the fact that Athena became the patron deity and that was her offering. And yeah, let's take a look inside at what's happening here. Okay, so here you go. You can see Poseidon standing strong, some offerings being made to him as well. And the Athenians weren't necessarily exclusively offering, you know, stuff to Athena. Like I said, there's other deities. We had seen over in the beginning Artemis and now you can see Poseidon himself. So again, not going to be, you know, following one of the gods. So this is where you could go to Poseidon. And then over on this side, I believe the east side should be the side that's dedicated to Athena. So let's go ahead and verify that. Yes, that's going to be the case. That's pretty awesome. Look at her up there, bearing her shield. And again, people coming up here to make their offerings, making their prayers. And this is where you would have left your burnt offerings and whatnot. So that's awesome to see the vestiges of this. And again, the Greeks had very interesting beliefs about this. The fact that you believe that there is a god that was there for your city, that was the patron of your city. And if you wanted to confirm it, you could literally walk up to the top of the hill of your city and see the tree that they planted for you. And I believe there was other kind of relics of sorts housed within this building. Apparently, there was a little sacred statue of Athena that was housed in here that was thought to have fallen from the heavens. And that was housed within the structure, as I said. So all kinds of stuff that really meant that, hey, the gods are here and these are the traces they left behind. So if you're going to be making a prayer, you very much want to be up here to do it. And so, yeah, you can see a couple more people going to be making their prayers and their offerings on this side and the Athenian landscape there in the distance. So now with all of that out of the way, I think it's safe to finally circle up and talk about the famous Parthenon itself. Oh, sorry, I say that. But before we do, I do want to talk about this little altar here. So this is just going to be one of those places where you would be making your offerings and your sacrifice to the deity. A lot of the religious stuff that was happening for these various deities wouldn't necessarily take place inside the temple in reality. It's very much different from the sort of modern, you know, religions, monotheistic religions, Christianity, or any of the other ones where in a church or anything like that, you expect to go in and be involved in activities within the temple. It was very much different for the Greeks. The temple was meant to be observed from the outside to be a focus for the gods. But a lot of the activities, the processions, the sacrifices and all that would have been done kind of up and around on the outsides. So that's what you're seeing represented here. All right, so enough context, let's now sprint over to the front and we'll walk you through the Parthenon. Again, another one of these exterior altars taking place. The dog here looks like he's going to be ready to make an offering as well. Okay, so here we are with the Parthenon. It is truly impressive. Like I said, this took 15 years to build and yeah, is freaking fantastic. One of the main things you'll be noticing again is going to be the architecture. So the columns there are going to be of the Doric style, again represented by the simple base, simple top, and then the ridges or smooth face of them. Another thing about the various architectural styles is going to be the fact that they have specific proportions to them. So if you look across here, there's going to be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 columns across. And there would be like classical ideas of what's your ideal proportion. So if you go around the side and you count up the columns here, there would have been 17 along this way. So that is going to be close to one of the ideal ratios of what is the perfect form for your building or the optimal form. So the Parthenon being an homage to that. So awesome to see those details represented here. There's going to be an inner temple, which we'll be exploring real briefly, but again, some more details on the exterior. Again, you can see the banners to Athena with the owl. And then if you look at the thing just above the columns, not the circles, but the rectangles that go around, that's going to be your frieze. Quick correction here, the frieze is actually going to be inside for reference. Take a look at this image. And what those are meant to depict are going to be the events of the Panathenaia. In reality, if you were to go see that, and I believe some of it is still standing in Athens today, is you could see it and it depicts basically the contest, the games, the festivals, the procession and all that. And so going all the way around, it's going to be commemorating that event. Next, on top of that, you're going to be seeing what's called the triangle, what's called the pediment, I believe. And so you're going to have two pediments. There's going to be the one on our side, which is going to be the west side. And then there's going to be the one on the opposite side, the east side. And these are going to be depicting different things. So the one on our side, the west side, is normally supposed to be showing kind of the foundation myth of Athena and Poseidon. In this case, it doesn't look like that's necessarily represented. It looks like we have a bit more of a placeholder up there. And I did check the other side earlier. It's going to be featuring the same thing. So a little bit ahistoric there. But in reality, like I said, the front side here is supposed to show the founding story of who is going to be the patron of Athens. And then on the backside, it's going to be representing the birth of Athena coming out of, I believe, her father Zeus's head, which is pretty cool. So that's a bit of the details. And now let's go to the interior. So past the first set of columns, you're going to be seeing another set of columns. This time, there's going to be six columns, again, of the Doric order. And then this is going to be the inner temple. So there's going to be one main room, I guess you could call it, in here. And then there's going to be another one just to the other side. And those are the main inner temples. Now the one here is going to be the one that is going to be for the treasury of Athens. Like I said, the Parthenon would have doubled not only for religious purposes, but then also as a treasury for the city of Athens. And then later, as Athens formed its own sort of mini empire with the Delian League, a lot of the tribute from that league would have been stored in here. So that's why you're seeing mounds and mounds of gold littered about. And yeah, this is pretty awesome to see. It looks like there's even like a melted down, partially deconstructed arm of a statue, shields, again, with the owl of Athena, and all sorts of stuff taking place. So again, kudos to the artists for bringing this all to life. I'm very, very excited. And now let's go ahead and make our way around the structure. This is one of the things that you would have seen as a Greek visitor is the fact that you're not going to be going inside of the temple very much. So a lot of this is meant to be observed from the outside. Oh, okay. And there you go. You could see the procession taking place for the festival. But yeah, like I was saying, so for a typical Greek, you would have been visiting here from the outside and would have seen a lot of fountains, additional statues, and all sorts of works like that, all meant to impress and shading structures as you're making your way around. And then finally, you might be able to make it into the rear and here get into the true place where you're going to be doing your dedications to Athena. And this is going to be the entrance where the pediment, the triangle at the top would have been representing the birth of Athena. But without further ado, let's get to the holiest of holy places, the inner temple here. And as we walk up, we're going to let our eyes and our screen adjust. And that is the view that greets you. Absolutely majestic. This is going to be Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin. It's a 40 foot tall statue and as opposed to being the bronze one, the cheaper one that you saw on the outside, this one is going to be gold and ivory, which is absolutely insane. So this represents a pretty significant amount of money from the Athenian side of things. Additional statues on the side. And it was actually the case that there was this pool in front of the statue. The reason for the pool here was to make, and you can even see some slight reflections of the statue, was to make it that much more impressive. Obviously the statue of Athena would have reflected off the water, the sides, the ceiling, all that. This is meant to be very, very impressive. Now for the statue of Athena herself, a lot of things going on here. She is going to be standing with a statue and the statue, let me see if we can actually turn on camera mode here, which will allow me to zoom in. There we go. So you can see that statue is going to be a small winged figure and that is supposed And that is supposed to be the, well, Nike victory. And so essentially what this is supposed to represent is Athena is offering victory to the Athenians. And as we get maybe a little bit closer, we can expect some more, inspect some more of the details. So you can see on her chest is going to be a representation of Medusa. Then you have her large shield here with all sorts of details inscribed on the side. And you're going to be seeing also a snake and that's one of the other creatures that was often associated with Athena. So it's going to be curled around her. So this is going to be the holiest of the holy sites up on top of the Parthenon where you could potentially make your offerings, but you'd probably have to seek the help of a priest. So with that being said, let's now head outside and that is going to be wrapping it up for a tour. We've been going on for quite some time now, but I really hope you guys enjoyed. And I have absolutely loved being able to explore ancient Athens. Let's go ahead and pop on my eagle mode here. And there is so, so much more to be explored when it comes to this game and ancient history that I hope you guys will join me for future episodes. Let me know what other areas you'd like me to explore. And if you have any comments about this particular one, questions, and hopefully I can bring on maybe even a historian in the future to discuss these things. So yeah, that's going to be it for this episode. See you in the next one. Peace out.