ANCIENT SITES OF ATHENS

Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BCE and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BCE laid the foundations of western civilization.

Quick Links THE ACROPOLIS Temple of Hephaestus Olympian Zeus Ancient Agora

ANCIENT SITES OF ATHENS: ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS, Ancient Agora, Arch of Hadrian, Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Kerameikos Cemetary, Philopappos Monument, Pnyx, Stoa of Attalos, Temple of Hephaestus, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Tower of the Winds,

ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS The Acropolis of Athens is the best known acropolis (high city) in Greece. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the Acropolis of Athens is commonly known as 'the Acropolis' without qualification. The Acropolis is a flat-topped rock which rises 150 metres (512 feet) above sea level in the city of Athens, Greece ...

ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS: Acropolis Museum, Areopagus, Athena Parthenos, Athena Promachos, Erechtheum, Hadrian's Library, Metopes of the Parthenon, Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Old Temple of Athena, Parthenon, Parthenon Frieze, Parthenon Marbles, Propylaea, Temple of Athena Nike, Theatre of Dionysus, ... see all

ANCIENT AGORA The Ancient Agora of Athens (aka Forum of Athens in older texts) is the best-known example of an ancient Greek agora, located to the northwest of the Acropolis and is bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill known as the Colonus Agoraeus. The agora had private housing, until it was reorganized by Peisistratus in the 6th century BC ...

ARCH OF HADRIAN The Arch of Hadrian is a monumental gateway resembling - in some respects - a Roman triumphal arch. It spanned an ancient road from the center of Athens, Greece, to the complex of structures on the eastern side of the city that included the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It has been proposed that the arch was built to celebrate the adventus of the Roman Emperor Hadrian ...

CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates near the Acropolis was erected by the choregos Lysicrates, a wealthy patron of musical performances in the Theater of Dionysus to commemorate the award of first prize in 335/334 BCE, to one of the performances he had sponsored. The choregos was the sponsor who paid for the training of the dramatic dance-chorus ...

KERAMEIKOS CEMETARY The building of the new city wall in 478 BC, following the Persian sack of Athens in 480 BC, fundamentally changed the appearance of the area. At the suggestion of Themistocles, all of the funerary sculptures were built into the city wall and two large city gates facing north-west were erected in the Kerameikos. The Sacred Way ran through to Eleusis ...

PHILOPAPPOS MONUMENT The Philopappos Monument is an ancient Greek mausoleum and monument dedicated to Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos or Philopappus, (65-116 AD), a prince from the Kingdom of Commagene. It is located on Mouseion Hill in Athens, Greece, southwest of the Acropolis, as a dedication to honor the memory of Philopappos ...

PNYX The Pnyx is a hill in central Athens. It is located less than 1 kilometre west of the Acropolis. The Pnyx is a small, rocky hill surrounded by parkland, with a large flat platform of eroded stone set into its side, and by steps carved on its slope. It was the meeting place of one of the world's earliest known democratic legislatures, the Athenian ekklesia ...

STOA OF ATTALOS The Stoa of Attalos (also spelled Attalus) is recognised as one of the most impressive stoæ in the Athenian Agora. It was built by and named after King Attalos II of Pergamon who ruled between 159 BC and 138 BC. Typical of the Hellenistic age, the stoa was more elaborate and larger than the earlier buildings of ancient Athens ...

TEMPLE OF HEPHAESTUS The Temple of Hephaestus, also known as the Hephaisteion or earlier as the Theseion, is the best-preserved ancient Greek temple; it remains standing largely as built. It is a Doric peripteral temple, and is located at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens, on top of the Agoraios Kolonos hill. From the 7th century until 1834, it served as the church of St. George Akamates ...

TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS The Temple of Olympian Zeus, also known as the Olympieion or Columns of the Olympian Zeus, is a colossal ruined temple in the centre of the Greek capital Athens that was dedicated to Zeus, king of the Olympian gods. Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world ...

TOWER OF THE WINDS The Tower of the Winds, also called horologion (timepiece), is an octagonal Pentelic marble clocktower on the Roman agora in Athens. The structure features a combination of sundials, a water clock and a wind vane. It was supposedly built by Andronicus of Cyrrhus around 50 BC, but according to other sources might have been constructed before the rest of the forum ...

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