Athena Parthenos
...e stands upright in an ankle-length tunic with the head of Medusa carved in ivory on her breasts….She has a victory about eight feet high and a spear in her hand and a shield at her feet, and a snake beside the shield….The plinth of the statue is carved with the birth of Pandora. Athena’s gold may have been the treasury. She was created so that her golden armor could be taken off and weighed. This would ensure that there was no embezzlement of the Delian League’s money. But she was created most likely for religious purposes as well. She is dressed as a warrior, wearing helmet and holding a spear. In this she symbolized war-cunning and protection in battle: this is her characteristically male guise. Yet she was also a virgin goddess, who weaves her own garment in the Iliad. In this the maidens on the acropolis identified with their goddess and imitated her in the weaving of a peplos each year for the cult statue of the Athena Polias that was housed in the nearby Erechtheion. There is no evidence of any form of cult activity associated with the c...