Acropolis of athens
the acropolis of Athens (ἡ ἀκρόπολις τῶν ἀθηνῶν in ancient Greek; η ακρsessed most representative of the Greek acropolises. The acropolis was literally the upper city (ἄκρος ákrŏs 'top, end, point', πόλις pólis 'city' = ἀκρόπολις) and it was present in most of the Greek cities, with a double function: defensive and as the seat of the main places of worship. The one in Athens is located on a peak, which rises 156 meters above sea level. It is also known as Cecropia after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the first Athenian king.
The entrance to the Acropolis is through a large gate called the Propylaea. On its right and front side is the Temple of Athena Nike. A large bronze statue of Athena, made by Phidias, originally stood in the center. To the right of where this sculpture stood is the Parthenon or Temple of Athena Pártenos (the Virgin). To the left and at the end of the Acropolis is the Erechtheion, with its famous stoa (στοά) or tribune supported by six caryatids. On the southern slope of the Acropolis are the remains of other buildings, including an open-air theater called the Theater of Dionysus, where Sophocles, Aristophanes and Aeschylus premiered their plays.
Most of the great temples were rebuilt during the rule of Pericles, in the golden age of Athens.
History
The platform of the Acropolis was surrounded by a wall built by the Pelasgians that replaced a previous, more primitive one. Inside, evidence of the presence of a palace belonging to the Mycenaean period has been found. A large part of the architectural buildings that make up the Acropolis were built during the time of Pericles (499-429 BC), after the destruction of the previous buildings caused by the Persian troops of Xerxes I. The ancient temple of Athena, which housed a statue of Athena Polias, was replaced by the Erechtheum. The Parthenon was built on the remains of another earlier temple, called Hecatompedon or Preparthenon. Other religious and civil buildings were scattered throughout the mountain. They were all preserved in fairly good condition until the 17th century, when due to Ottoman rule the Parthenon was converted into a mosque, the Erechtheion in a harem and the Propylaea in a powder keg. During the siege of Athens in 1687, the Venetians, under the command of General Francesco Morosini, did great damage with their bombardments. A mortar hit partially destroyed the Parthenon, since the Muslims also used it as a powder magazine, being on that occasion when the roof of the temple collapsed.
Art and architecture of the Acropolis
Mycenaean Acropolis
From this time, traces of a palace have been found that had a mégaron (μέɣαρον / μέɣαρο) or courtyard for audiences and meetings. It is not known with certainty if a temple dedicated to Athena already existed at this time. The megaron, a Greek name but of probable Semitic derivation[citation needed], is the ' great hall' found in the palaces of the Mycenaean civilization in Greece and Anatolia. He used to be on one side of the central courtyard and in front of the altar. It consisted of three parts: the open portico with two columns in antis, a vestibule or anteroom and the main room, also called naos (ναός).
At the end of Helladic IIIB (1300-1200 BC) the acropolis was surrounded by an imposing wall that was up to 6 m thick. On the other hand, a fountain found on the northern slope of The acropolis also belongs to the Mycenaean period, since ceramic finds at the site show that it was built towards the end of the 13th century a. C.
It is disputed whether the entry on the Athenian contingent in the ship catalog of the Iliad, in which a temple is described, reflects a situation from the Mycenaean period or later.
And those who possessed Athens, well-built fortress, the people of the magnanimous Erecteo, whom Athena, the daughter of Zeus, had raised after giving birth to the ugly land and had set up in Athens in his opaque temple. There she is promoted with bulls and rams the Athenians' boys around every year.Homer. Iliad II, 546.
Archaic Acropolis
The Acropolis saw a lot of construction activity during the second half of the VI century B.C. C. The temple of Athena Polias was enlarged and a stoa was made with a marble pediment showing a relief with almost independent figures of the fight of the gods against the giants, that is, the gigantomachy.
In the year 480 a. C., the Persians looted and destroyed the buildings existing at that time on the Acropolis, as recounted by Herodotus.
In the archaeological excavations of the year 1886, fourteen images of archaic korai and kuroí were discovered in a pit, probably made during the Persian invasion, among which the Bearded Flycatcher and the Rampin Head. The first represents a young man carrying a newborn calf on his shoulders. All the sculptures from this period present almond-shaped eyes and an "archaic" smile, which tries to express a placid beatitude; His muscles are made with great elegance. It dates from the beginning of the VI century BC. C., is made of marble and has a height of 163 cm and is in the Acropolis Museum of Athens. As for the Rampin Head or Rampin Rider, It shows the head slightly turned, which at the same time makes a displacement with the shoulders as was usual in equestrian statues for better visibility. The horse resembles the specimens from that same period kept in the Acropolis Museum. The garland indicates that it was a horseman who had won a victory in one of the Panhellenic Games (perhaps from the Pythian games, in case the crown was made of oak but since it is not clearly distinguishable it could also be from the Nemean or the Isthmians, who awarded the winners crowns of celery.) It is believed that it was made around 560 BC. C.
Classical Acropolis
In the period between 479 and 447 B.C. C. it is very likely that there were only ruins on the Acropolis. According to some ancient sources, before the Battle of Plataea the Greeks had sworn not to rebuild the sacred buildings destroyed by the Persians. Plutarch points out that in the year 450 B.C. C. Pericles convened a congress to propose to the Greeks the breaking of this oath. However, some authors such as Theopompus questioned the existence of the aforementioned oath.
Parthenon
Pericles entrusted the direction of the works of the Acropolis to the sculptor Phidias. Ictinus and Callicrates were the architects of the Parthenon, on the foundations of another ancient temple of great proportions, called Preparthenon or Hecatompedon, of which there are few certain data and which had been destroyed by the Persians. Construction lasted for fifteen years, from 447 to 432 BC. C.
The interior was divided into two independent rooms, with the entrance on each opposite side of the building. The eastern room was the largest, divided by Doric columns into three naves and was where the sculpture of Athena by Phidias was located. In the western room, with four Ionic-style columns in the center, the treasure of the goddess was kept, and was called the Parthenon, that is, the room of the virgins. The main façade it is oriented towards the east, the point where the Sun rises, as is usual in all religious constructions of antiquity. It consisted of eight columns on its two main façades and seventeen on the sides that surrounded the entire temple, leaving a corridor or ambulatory that allowed the population to completely skirt the temple during their religious celebrations.
Outside, with a surface area of 69.54 meters by 30.87 meters, and columns 10.43 meters high, it presents, like all Greek temples, a stairway made up of three steps that completely surrounds the base: the first two lower steps are called stereobates and the upper step, stylobate.
It is a Doric temple, which was projected with slight corrections in order to counteract the optical effects of perspective, that is, all the apparently straight lines were actually sculpted slightly curved, to obtain more harmony, an effect that it was discovered by the English architect Penrose in 1847. This building remained almost intact until 1687, when it was half destroyed by an explosion during the Veneto-Turkish war. Phidias's sculptures are believed to have been made of clay or plaster, so that later his students could transfer them to marble. The pediment of the western façade represents the fight of Athena and Poseidon to obtain the patronage of the city. Pausanias tells that the sculptures on the eastern pediment represented the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus. In fact, pediments are known from drawings from the 17th century century and from old copies.
The architectural novelty of the Parthenon is the interior frieze that runs along the wall of the nave, a place that no Doric building had used for decoration. It is 160 meters long, 105 cm high and 5.6 cm in the places of maximum depth of the relief. It was made of marble from Mount Pentelicus, 19 km from the Acropolis. The frieze was made up of 378 human figures and 245 animal figures representing the procession of the Panathenaic festivities.
It was polychrome: the color of the metopes was red like that of the friezes, the pediment was blue and the eyes and hair of the figures were painted. Of the 92 original metopes, only 19 remain, some in the temple itself and others in the British Museum, since most were destroyed on the numerous occasions when the building was looted. The metopes on the north side represented the capture of Troy; those of the east, the fight of the gods with the giants; those of the south, centauromachy and those of the west, a battle between the Greeks and Amazons.
The Parthenon housed the large statue of the goddess Athena Parthenos, made by Phidias. This sculpture was made of gold and ivory (chryselephantine) and fifteen meters high with a pedestal. She was dressed in the peplos and on top of her the aegis. On her head was a helmet covered with symbolic figures and she was armed with a spear and shield in an attitude of repose. In one hand she held the life-size image of the Winged Victory.The ancient historian Pausanias gave an accurate description of the statue:
... The image is made of ivory and gold. In the middle of the helmet there is a figure of the Sphinx... and on one and the other side of the yelmo there are sculpted taps... The statue of Athena is standing with mantle to the feet, and in its chest has inserted the head of Medusa ivory. He has a victory of about four cubits and a spear in his hand; there is a shield by his feet and near the spear a snake. This snake could be Erictonio. At the base of the statue is sculpted the birth of Pandora.
There are some ancient copies from Roman times of the original sculpture of Athena Partenos:
- Atenea Varvakeion, Roman copy in marble of the centuryII, considered one of the closest to the real, which is at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
- Athenea Lenormant, unfinished, at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, also considered of the best copies.
- Another Roman marble copy made between the 130-150 years is at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
- Another Roman copy of the centuries I and II at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
- Another Roman copy signed by Anthioc (centuryIa. C.) at the Roman National Museum in Rome.
Atenea Varvakeion, National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Athenea Lenormant, National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Copy of Atenea Pártenos, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Athena Pártenos, Louvre Museum, Paris.
Copy of Athena Leave us at the Roman National Museum (Palazzo Altemps), Rome.
Erechteion
Its construction began in the year 421 BC. C., during the truce of the Peace of Nicias in the Peloponnesian War, replacing the ancient archaic temple of Athena that had been destroyed by the Persians during the Medical Wars.
It is made up of a central building with an irregular plan, adapted to the unevenness of the terrain, comprising two parts without communication between them: to the east is a sanctuary dedicated to Athena of the hexastyle type, with Ionic order columns; to the west it is made up of two chapels with double worship: one to Erechtheus and Poseidon and the other to Hephaestus and Butes. dispute with Athena. It has a stoa in the northern part, with columns and in the southern part is where the Tribune of the Caryatids is located, with six columns with a figure of a woman 230 cm high. height, made by Callimachus, an assistant to Phidias. Those that can be seen in situ are copies of the five found in the Acropolis Museum and of a sixth in the British Museum.
The Erechtheum featured a frieze that ran along the sides of the building, made up of marble figures mounted on black limestone tombstones from the city of Eleusis. A tombstone from the second stage of its construction has been preserved, where you can read the names of the 130 workers and their pay, one drachma a day, which was the same as what the architect received.
Propylaea
The Propylaea was the grand entrance to the Acropolis of Athens. They were built from the year 437 a. C. by the architect Mnesicles in a rugged terrain and on the ruins of the archaic Propylaea that were destroyed in the year 480 a. C. in the fire caused by the Persians. The six columns at the entrance are Doric, the same as those on the front façade and the six on the back. It is built with Pentelic marble, it consists of a lobby of 24 x 18 meters. Inside, a wall with five doors divides it into two parts; the western one, larger, has two rows of three Ionic columns that form three naves.
It is interesting the roof that was built with marble beams of more than seven meters and assembling the architraves that supported these beams with a metal bar.
The first art gallery in the world was located in the north wing; Among the paintings that were exhibited, the work of the Greek painter Polygnotus ( 5th century BC), known for the descriptions, stood out. of the works of him made by Pausanias and by Pliny.
Temple of Athena Nike
On the south side of the Propylaea is the temple of Athena Nike ('Victorious Athena') or Niké Aptera ('Wingless Victory'). The construction commissioned to the architect Calícrates dates from the year 421 and 410 a. C. This monument located at the entrance of the Acropolis wanted to symbolize that, once without wings, the goddess would not move from Athens.
The naos consists of an almost square plan of 418 cm x 3178 cm, with the pronaos of four columns and four more in the opistodomos, all of the Ionic order.
The frieze that runs throughout the temple had a decoration alluding to the Medical Wars, with the pediments dedicated to the goddess Athena. In the parapet of the bastion was added in the year 410 a. C. a decoration with large reliefs, where the school of Phidias can be seen, for example in the folds of the clothes, which adapts to the body of the representations of the "victories", which are represented with daily gestures such as untying a sandal or getting into a carriage.
The current temple is a reconstruction carried out in the years 1936 to 1940 by Nikolaos Balanos and Anastasios Orlandos, with the purpose of solving some structural problems.
Pandroseion
Built in the time of Pericles around the year 421 BC. C. near the Erechtheion on the northwest side, in honor of Pándroso daughter of Cécrope I, was the place where Athena, during her fight with Poseidon to get the patronage of the city of Athens, made an olive tree grow when she was victorious. The current tree was planted in 1917, in memory of the mythical olive tree.
Shrine of Artemis Brauronia
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Near the Propylaea was the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia, built in 430 BC. C. The origin of the sanctuary is a legend according to which the inhabitants of Braurón had killed a bear, which was the sacred animal of Artemis, for which the goddess demanded that girls from seven to eleven years of age be consecrated to her cult. that they would live in the sanctuary at his service; these girls were called bears. The building had a trapezoidal plan with two lateral wings and a stoa about 38 meters long by 7 meters wide.
Pausanias describes the presence of several statues that were in this sanctuary, among which an image of Artemis, the work of Praxiteles, and a bronze horse that represented the Trojan horse, which represented some of the hidden warriors peeking out. from within.
Arreforion
It was a building located in the northern part of the Acropolis that was where the arrephoras lived, some girls who weaved the peplos that Athena received in the Panatheneas and also performed a ritual in which they carried mysterious objects in a nocturnal procession sacred to a sanctuary of Aphrodite and Eros that was situated on the north slope of the Acropolis.
Eleusinion
It was Pericles who ordered the construction of this sanctuary near the Acropolis to be able to worship the Eleusinian mysteries. The architect Corebos was in charge of its construction. The plan of the sanctuary was square with several rows of columns and the roof rose in the shape of a lantern. It has been the excavations carried out that have given the guidelines to recognize the foundations and the plan of the entire building.
Theater of Dionysus
Since the second half of the century V a. C., one of the most important architectural creations is the theater and one of the most important examples of this type of building is the Theater of Dionysus, built during the IV a. C.
The theater consisted of a back section where the actors changed their clothes. The spectators were placed near a cleared place, place where they used to build the theaters. At the end of the century V a. C. the primitive marble platforms were replaced by stone bleachers. In the central part of the first steps there were 67 seats that were made later, in decorated marble and were reserved for priests and kings.
Asclepeion
On the southern slope of the Acropolis, above the Stoa of Eumenes and the Theater of Dionysus, is an asclepion, dating from 420 BC. c. approximately. Doctors went to him in search of an answer to know how to cure diseases, as well as clergymen, who went to pray, and sick people.
Odeon of Pericles
It was also built under Pericles and near the theater of Dionysus.
It had a rectangular plan with a double row of columns to support the roof and a propylene. It was used for musical performances, which began in the year 446 BC. C.
Hellenistic Acropolis
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On the southern slope of the Acropolis, in 320-319 BC. C., a great monument in the form of a Doric temple was built, by order of Nikias. But in the III century it was dismantled to use its materials on the Beulé gate and only the base remains.
Next to this monument is the portico or stoa of Eumenes, 163 meters long, which was ordered to be built by King Eumenes II of Pergamum in the II a. C. It was made so that the spectators who attended the performances of the Dionysus theater could take shelter from the weather.
Roman Acropolis
In Roman times, various emperors and prominent figures reformed or built new buildings on the Acropolis of Athens.
To the left of the steps, before the Propylaea, is the Tower of Agrippa, almost 14 m high and built in gray marble. In the year 178 a. C. a statue of Eumenes II on a bronze chariot had been placed in it. Later another one of Agrippa, son-in-law of Emperor Augustus, was placed.
Also in the time of Augustus, in the year 27 a. C., the Temple of Rome and Augustus was built near the Parthenon. Circular in plan, it was surrounded by nine marble columns.
During the rule of Claudius, in the year 52, the access ramp to the Acropolis was reformed.
On the southern slope of the Acropolis, the citizen Herod Atticus erected an odeon in the II century, in memory of his wife Apia Annia Regila.
In the III century, by order of Flavio Septimius, what is currently called the Beulé Gate was built as the first entrance to the Acropolis before Propylaea. It consists of two 9 m high towers, one on each side of the gate. This door was discovered by the French archaeologist Charles Ernest Beulé in the year 1852.
Some buildings changed their original function, such as the theater of Dionysus, which became the scene of gladiatorial competitions.
Situation of the buildings
- Parthenon
- Ancient Temple of Athena
- Erecteion
- Statue of Athena Promacos
- Propile
- Temple of Athena Niké
- Eleusinion
- Sanctuary of Artemisa Brauronia
- Calcoteca
- Pandroseion
- Arrangement
- Athena Altar
- Shrine of Zeus Polieo
- Sanctuary of Pandion
- Odeon of Herod Attic
- Stoa de Eumenes
- Asclepius Sanctuary or Asclepeion
- Teatro de Dioniso Eléuteros
- Odeon of Pericles
- Tenos de Dioniso
- Aglaureion
Missing elements of the Acropolis
In the Acropolis there were other artistic elements that were destroyed or moved. About some of them there are descriptions provided by authors of Antiquity.
Among them, the enormous bronze statue made by Phidias of Athena Promachos, located at the entrance to the Acropolis, stands out, and of which Pausanias points out that:
..made by Fidias, it was made with the tithe of the spoil of the Marathon Medes. In the shield My, among other things, the wrestling of centurs and lapses followed, as it is said, drawings of Parrasio, the son of Evénor.Description of Greece, i, 28, 2.
Another notable statue made by Phidias for the Acropolis was the Athena Lemnia, so named because a group of colonists from the island of Lemnos had sent Pericles money to erect a statue dedicated to Athena.
The ancient temple of Athena housed an ancient xoanon made of olive wood that represented the goddess. This statue was highly revered as it was believed to have fallen from heaven at the time of Erechtheus. It was saved from the Persian looting since it was transferred to Salamis and later returned to be located in the Acropolis, in the Erechtheion. She was dressed in a new peplum every year and had gold jewelry.
A sculptural representation of the carites stood before the entrance to the Acropolis.
Moreover, in Athens, in front of the entrance to the Acropolis, the Carites were also three in number; along with them are mysteries that should not be revealed to many.Pauses, Description of Greece, book 9, xxxv.3.
Who was the one who first represented the Carites naked, in sculpture or in painting, I couldn't find out. During the most ancient period, both sculptors and painters represented them covered.[...] Socrates, son of Sophronisco, also made images of the Carites for the Athenians, who are at the entrance to the Acropolis. All these are equally covered.Book 9, xxxv.6-7.
Pausanias also gives the news of a construction located next to the theater of Dionysus, of which he says:
... as they say, it's a copy of the store of Jerjes. But it is the second, because the first was burned by Roman general Sila when he took Athens.Description of Greece, i, 20, 4.
On the northern slope of the Acropolis there was a sanctuary dedicated to the Dioscuri (the anakes, that is, 'the lords'). Hence its name, the Anaceo (Anákeion) or "temple of the lords". It must have been large, since it seems that military meetings were held there. According to Pausanias, Polygnotus painted the wedding of the daughters of Leucippus there, and Micon represented Jason and the Argonauts.
Nearby was the Aglaureion, which was a sanctuary located in a cave below the Arreforion where Aglaurus was worshipped.
On the southern slope of the Acropolis there was a golden Gorgon head, located on a wall called Noto.
A little above the Theater of Dionysus, at the foot of this slope, there was a cave on top of which was a tripod on which Apollo and Artemis were represented killing the children of Niobe. At the end of this slope, after the Asclepeion, a temple dedicated to the goddess Themis was erected. Before him was the tomb of Hippolytus.
Looting and archaeological excavations
During the four centuries of Ottoman occupation, no excavations or alterations were made to the Acropolis. Misinformation caused the Parthenon to be named as "Pantheon" and temple of a god unknown in Europe, according to the volume Turcograecia, published by M. Kraus in the year 1584. The ambassador of Louis XIII of France in Constantinople described Athens in his book Voyage du Levant (Paris, 1632), where he recounts that the Parthenon "was as if it had just been built".
A French consulate was established in 1658, and the first foreign visitors began to come. The French ambassador in Constantinople, in 1674, commissioned the artist Jacques Carrey to make a series of drawings of the Parthenon and its sculptures, which have subsequently been used to document the place before the attack it suffered in 1687 by the Venetians. under the command of Francesco Morosini, who also tried to take the sculptures from the chariots on the west pediment, with the result of complete destruction, due to the fall suffered by the sculptures down the slopes of the Acropolis. Some of his remains were collected by other soldiers and are found in various museums in Europe: Rome, Venice, Copenhagen.
During the 18th century the French organized an antiquities market in Athens and managed to transport a metope and the tombstone of the frieze from the Parthenon to Paris. In the middle of this same century, the Society of Diletanti of London commissioned the architect Nicholas Revert and the painter James Stuart to measure and draw the buildings and sculptures of Athens; As a result, in 1762, the first volume of the Antiquities of Athens was published, with great scientific work and magnificent drawings.
In the early 19th century, Lord Elgin, the British ambassador, transferred a large number of the Parthenon sculptures to Britain, (the so-called Elgin marbles) and after long negotiations they were acquired by the British government in 1816 for the British Museum in London.
When Greece gained independence in 1834, the first excavations began, directed by the architects Schaubert and Kleanthes, supervised by Leo Klenze, advisor to King Ludwig I of Bavaria (father of the then King of Greece Otto I). The Archaeological Society of Athens, in the year 1837, under the direction of Panagiotis Kavadias, had all the Turkish houses that had been built inside the Acropolis removed.
In 1866 Charles Ernest Beulé discovered a moat, in which, during the Persian invasion in 480 BC. C., fourteen kuroí sculptures had been hidden, of which the life-size Moscóforo is one of the main pieces. The rest of the excavations were carried out between the years 1885-1890, directed by Panagiotis Kavadias together with the architects Wilhelm Dörpfeld and Georg Kawerau.
Restoration
The most significant data of the restorations carried out from the XX century inside the Acropolis began with the proposal by Nikolaus Balanos in 1921, for the reconstruction of the Parthenon columns, a process that lasted until 1933.
Between 1979 and 1987, titanium armor and copies of architectural parts that were kept in the British Museum began to be placed in the Erechtheion, also replacing the caryatids with copies and transferring them under the custody of the Acropolis Museum. Also from then on, a new anastylosis of the Parthenon columns is being carried out, that is, collapsed columns are recovered and reorganized at different points with the help of scattered elements. Using this technique, the drums used by Balanos are being replaced by others made of Pentelic marble, and large blocks belonging to the temple that have been recovered and classified are being dismantled and assembled.
The Acropolis of Athens was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987.
One of the most ambitious projects of the Greek authorities has been the construction of the New Acropolis Museum, which houses many works of art that had to stop being located in their original location on the Acropolis for various reasons. There is also a continuing claim to the Elgin Marbles, held by the British Museum, for their return to Greece.
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