FLOOR.] 
ELGIN ROOM. 
89 
Nos. 150-154, towards the South end, represent a contest between 
Centaurs and Greeks. 
Adjoining these are casts of three of the metopes (Nos. 155-157), 
exhibiting warlike achievements of Theseus. 
On the same side of the room, resting on the floor, is a coffer from 
the ceiling of the same temple. 
Under the frieze of the Parthenon, on the same wall, are casts of 
the reliefs which decorated the frieze of the Choragic Monument of 
Lysikrates, erected B.C. 334. They represent Dionysos transforming 
the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins. 
Towards the North end of the room are some remains 
taken from the Erechtheum, a temple erected on the Acro- 
polis of Athens, towards the close of the fifth century B.C. 
It is the purest and most characteristic monument of the 
Ionic order of architecture remaining in ancient Greece. 
Its form is oblong, with a hexastyle portico at the East end, 
and two unusual additions at its North-West and South-West 
angles ; the one a tetrastyle portico, the other a porch sup- 
ported by six Canephorse, a structure which has been imitated 
as a decoration in St. Pancras Church, London. 
The remains of this temple which are in the British Museum consist 
of one of the Canephorse, and, by its side, the column which originally 
stood at the Northern angle of the Eastern portico; a considerable 
portion of the frieze from the wall immediately behind the same 
column ; a large piece of the architrave, and a smaller fragment of 
the cornice, from other parts of the building, an ornamental coffer 
from the ceiling of the interior, and several minor fragments, mould- 
ings, &c. 
Opposite the Canephora is a colossal draped statue of Dionysos 
seated, which formerly surmounted the Choragic Monument of 
Thrasyllos, at Athens, erected B.C. 320. 
Near these are placed some miscellaneous fragments of architecture 
from various buildings in Athens and Attica, including the capital of a 
Doric column, and a fragment of the architrave from the Propylaea, 
a building which stood at the entrance to the Athenian Acropolis. 
Towards the South end of the room are a draped torso 
of Asklepios, found at Epidauros, and casts of two marble 
chairs, from the theatre of Dionysos, at Athens. One of 
these chairs, which was placed in the centre of the front 
row in the theatre, was the seat assigned to the priest of 
Dionysos Eleuthereus, as appears from the inscription on it. 
It is richly decorated : on each side is a group in low 
