A… 2,000-year-old misconception accompanies the name of the imposing temple of the Parthenon, according to a Dutch archaeologist, who believes that the ancient Greeks called this temple “Ekatompedo”.
According to research by Dutch archaeologist Janik van Rukhuizen, published in the American Journal of Archaelogy and the Dutch edition of National Geographic, the temple we all know as the Parthenon, which dominates the Acropolis rock, may have had a different name in classical era of Athens.
Specifically, as reported by the Telegraph, the archaeologist of the University of Utrecht claims that the ancient Greeks called the temple “Ekatombedo”, which means a temple one hundred feet long. On the contrary, he claims that the Parthenon was a smaller and older temple of the Acropolis, which was located in the Erechtheion.
The archaeologist acknowledges that the name “Ekatompedo” is not so auspicious, he believes that the difficulty in pronouncing the original name contributed to the preference of the more “catchy” name “Parthenon”, the British newspaper reports.
Referring to the temple he considers the “real” Parthenon, Rukhuizen notes that it probably took its name from the statues of the virgins, the famous Caryatids of the Erechtheion.
“It is logical that the Greeks of ancient times called this temple Parthenon or otherwise” house of the virgins “, he states characteristically.
