Because the Parthenon was dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, it has sometimes been referred to as the Temple of Minerva, the Roman name for Athena, particularly during the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthanon
The Glorious Parthenon. We can only imagine how glorious the Parthenon must have appeared in the middle of the fifth century B.C., with worshippers gathered in its towering central sanctuary paying tribute to a 40-foot, gold-and-ivory statue of the goddess Athena.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/glorious-parthenon.html
...The statue is created with ivory and gold. On the middle of her helmet is likeness of the Sphinx ... and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. ... The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_Parthenos
Athena Parthenos (Ancient Greek: ἀθηνᾶ παρθένος; literally, Athena the Virgin) is a lost massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena, made by Phidias and his assistants and housed in the Parthenon in Athens. Its epithet was an essential character of the goddess herself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_Parthenos
The most sacred was not the Athena of the Parthenon. It was, rather, an old olivewood statue of Athena called Athena Polias, referring to Athena as the guardian of the city. This little olivewood statue eventually inhabited the Erechtheum, the classical temple of Athena Polias across from the Parthenon.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/glorious-parthenon.html
Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and western civilization, and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthanon
The origin of the Parthenon's name is from the Greek word παρθενών (parthenon), which referred to the unmarried women's apartments in a house and in the Parthenon's case seems to have been used at first only for a particular room of the temple; it is debated which room this is and how the room acquired its name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthanon
Reconstruction of the Acropolis and Areus Pagus in Athens, Leo von Klenze, 1846. The Parthenon (/ˈpɑːrθəˌnɒnˌ -nən/; Ancient Greek: παρθενών; Modern Greek: παρθενώνας, Parthenónas) is a former temple, on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthanon
And the great statue of Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon, made of gold and ivory, held in the palm of her hand another image of Nike, some six feet tall, offering it to the Athenians as if to confirm their military predominance over the rest of Greece.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/glorious-parthenon.html
But the most glorious image of Athena, the one that expressed the power and wealth of Athens itself, was the Athena Parthenos, a colossal gold-and-ivory statue that Pheidias, supposedly the general overseer of the entire Periclean building program, created for the main room of the Parthenon.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/glorious-parthenon.html
which greek deity was honored with a towering gold-and-ivory statue inside the parthenon?
The worshipper was a Greek deity honored with a towering gold-and-ivory statue inside the Parthenon.  