What material were the roof tiles of the Parthenon made from? They were made from marble. The temple’s roof structure used wooden supports, but the visible roof covering consisted of carefully shaped marble tiles rather than ordinary terracotta.
The Parthenon was an unusually ambitious building, and marble was used extensively throughout its architecture. Its principal stone came from Mount Pentelicus near Athens, while the precise marble used for roof tiles has also been discussed in relation to Parian marble. In either case, the essential quiz fact is that the tiles were stone marble tiles.
Greek roofs commonly used terracotta tiles, so terracotta is an understandable wrong answer. Marble roof tiles were heavier and more expensive, but they offered exceptional durability and visual prestige. The tiles were arranged as flat pan tiles and curved cover tiles, with decorative antefixes along the edges. The roof was destroyed in later history, most dramatically when the Parthenon’s gunpowder magazine exploded during the Venetian siege of Athens in 1687, but archaeological remains and reconstructions preserve evidence of its original roofing system.