Peplos

Athena wearing a plain peplos, ca. 460 BC

A rectangle of fabric, a peplos

A peplos (Greek: πέπλος) is a body-length Greek garment worn by women before 500 BC. The peplos was a tubular cloth folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, altering what was the top of the tube to the waist and the bottom of the tube to ankle-length. The garment was then gathered about the waist and the open top (at the fold) pinned over the shoulders. The top of the tube (now inside-out) draped over the waist, providing the appearance of a second piece of clothing (the Caryatid statues are an exception).

(The peplos was, like the doric chiton, draped and open on one side of the body, and should not be confused with the ionic chiton, which was a piece of fabric that was folded over and then sewn together along the longer side to form a tube of fabric.)

This Classical period garment is represented in the vase painting since the 5th century BC and in the metopes of the temples in Doric order.

On the last day of the Pyanepsion, the priestess of Athena Polias and the Arrephoroi, a group of girls chosen to help in the making of the sacred peplos, set up the loom on which the enormous peplos was to be woven by the Ergastinai, another group of girls chosen to spend approximately nine months making the sacred peplos. They had to weave a theme of Athena's defeat of Enkelados and the Olympian's defeat of the Giants. The peplos of the statue was changed each year during the Plynteria.

The Peplos played a role in the Athenian festival of the Great Panathenaea. Nine months before the festival, at the arts and crafts festival titled Chalkeia, a special peplos would begin to be woven by young women. This peplos was placed on the statue of Athena during the festival procession. The peplos had myths and stories woven on its material and usually consisted of purple and saffron yellow cloth.

Spartan women continued to wear the peplos most later in history than other greek cultures, causing other greeks to call them phainomērídes (φαινομηρίδες) the "thigh-showers."

• 

  Peplos Kore, ca. 530 BC

• 

  Athena wearing a luxurious peplos, 5th century BC

• 

  Nike wearing a peplos on top of a chiton, second quarter of 5th century BC

• 

  Terracotta statue of woman wearing the fold of her peplos over her head, 2nd century BC

See also

• Clothing in the ancient world
• Clothing in ancient Greece
• Chiton

External links

• Peplos
• Greek Dress