Sculpture of Helios
- Audio guide stop: 263
- Gallery: Room 18
- Maker: Pheidias
- Culture: Classical Greek
- Made in: Athens
- Date: 438BC-432BC
- Object type: statue, pediment
- Materials: marble
- Museum number: 1816,0610.91
- 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 statue from the East pediment of the Parthenon, known as "The Parthenon Sculptures." This work was created by Pheidias around 438 to 432 B.C. in Athens. It represents Helios, the sun-god, rising from the sea.
The sculpture portrays a charioteer emerging from water, his arms lifted upwards as if preparing to drive his sun chariot across the sky. Waves are carved along the chest and at the top of the plinth in shallow relief, giving a sense of movement as if the figure rises with the dawn.
Only part of the figure remains intact. Most of the head and hands are missing, though a matching left hand is displayed in the Acquis of the Acropolis Museum in Athens. Originally, metal reins would have connected Helios to his four-horse team, now also lost.
Positioned at the far left of its pediment, this powerful and poetic sculpture once stood beside another figure—perhaps Selene or Nyx—marking the passage from night to day.
See it in person
Sculpture of Helios 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, 263, 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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