The Acropolis hill, often called the “Sacred Rock” of Athens, is the most important site in the city. During Perikles’ time, ancient Greek civilization was celebrated here by its architectural masterpieces.
The oldest remains of human habitation on the Acropolis date from the Neolithic period. Over the centuries, the rocky hill was continuously used either as a location for religious activities or as a residential area or both. The inscriptions on the numerous offerings to the sanctuary of Athena indicate that the cult of the city’s patron was established as early as the Archaic period (650-480 B.C.).
During the magnificent flowering of the arts in the Classical period (450-330 B.C.) three important temples were erected on the ruins of earlier ones: the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and the Temple of Nike, as was the Propylaea, the monumental entrance to the sacred area.
The monuments on the Acropolis reflect the successive phases of the city’s history. Some of them were converted into Christian churches, homes for Frankish invaders and later on, of the Turks. After the liberation of Athens from the Turks, the protection, restoration and conservation of the monuments was one of the first tasks of the newly founded Greek state.
The Parthenon is the most important monument of ancient Greek civilization and still remains its international symbol. It was dedicated to Athena Parthenos, the patron of Athens. It was built between 447 and 438 B.C. and its sculptural decoration was completed in 432 B.C. Perikles initiated the construction of the monument, the supervisor of the whole work was the famous Athenian sculptor Pheidias, while Iktinos and Kallikrates were its architects. The central part of the temple, called the cella, sheltered the famous chryselephantine cult statue of Athena, made by Pheidias.
The relief frieze depicts the Procession of the Panathenaea, the most formal religious festival of ancient Athens. The scene runs along the four sides of the building and includes the figures of mythical icons, beasts and humans.
The Parthenon retained its religious character in the following centuries and was successively converted into a Byzantine church, a Latin church and a Muslim mosque.
The Turks used the Parthenon as a powder magazine when the Venetians besieged the Acropolis in 1687. One of the Venetian bombs fell on the Parthenon and destroyed a great part of the monument that had been preserved in a good condition until then. The disaster was completed in the beginning of the 19th century, when the British ambassador in Constantinople, Lord Elgin, stole the better part of the sculptural decoration of the monument, transferred it to England and sold it to the British Museum, where it is still exhibited. The Erechtheion was built in ca. 420 B.C. The main temple was divided into two sections, dedicated to the worship of the two principal ancient icons of Attica, Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus. The architect Kallikrates constructed the temple of Athena Nike in ca. 420 B.C.
A marble parapet decorated with the relief representation of Nikae (victories) protected the edge of the Bastion on which the temple was erected. The Propylaea, the monumental gateway of the Acropolis, was designed by the architect Mnesikles and constructed in 437-432 B.C.
