Cultural depictions of spiders of weaving. Eventually, she began to consider herself to be a greater weaver than the goddess Athena herself, and challenged the goddess to a weaving contest to prove her superior skill. Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon that had earned her the patronage of Athens, while Arachne wove a tapestry featuring many episodes of infidelity among the Gods of Olympus, which angered Athena. The goddess conceded that Arachne's weaving was flawless, but she was infuriated by the mortal's pride. In a final moment of anger, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom with her shuttle and cursed Arachne
Athena Promachos where a large, bronze, statue of Athena was destroyed by a “drunken crowd” of Crusaders which is now thought to have been the "Athena Promachos." Of surviving models thought to represent the type, the two outstanding ones are the "Athena Elgin", a small bronze statuette in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who bears an owl in her outstretched hand (as among some coin types), and the "Athena Medici" torso in the Musée du Louvre, of which there are a number of replicas. The engravings on the shield which Athena is holding were originally drafted by the great Greek painter, Parrhasius