North frieze of a tray-bearer
- Audio guide stop: 259
- Gallery: Room 18
- Maker: Pheidias
- Culture: Classical Greek
- Made in: Athens
- Date: 438BC-432BC
- Object type: temple-relief
- Materials: marble
- Museum number: 1816,0610.25
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is a marble relief from the North frieze of the Parthenon. It was sculpted in Classical Greece and shows a tray-bearer, or skaphephoros, participating in the grand Panathenaic festival. This figure is one of several in the procession that honored the goddess Athena.
The relief comes from Block V of the frieze, carved between 438 and 432 BCE in Athens. Trays like the one the figure carries would have held offerings such as honeycombs and cakes, part of the festival’s sacred traditions. The tray-bearer shown here likely represents a metic—a non-citizen living in Athens—who still played a ceremonial role.
This work was designed by Pheidias, a master sculptor of the time. The relief was later brought to London and purchased from Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. Each figure in such friezes offers a glimpse into ancient Athenian life and rituals.
See it in person
North frieze of a tray-bearer is on display in Room 18 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and type its audio guide stop number, 259, from the gallery label, or take a photo of it, to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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