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Airbus A320 - Aegean Airlines - SX-DVJ (Named Exelixis, "www.discovergreece.com" special livery) - Taxiing at LGKR for takeoff to LGAV - 13.08.2015.
Airbus A320 - Aegean Airlines - SX-DVJ (Named Exelixis, "www.discovergreece.com" special livery) - Landing at LGKR from LGAV - 13.08.2015.
Xylokastro, ein Küstenort auf der Peloponnes, hat eine lange Geschichte, die eng mit der Region verbunden ist. Die Peloponnes ist eine bedeutende Halbinsel im Süden Griechenlands, die seit der Antike ein wichtiger Schauplatz historischer Ereignisse war. Die strategische Lage der Region machte sie zu einem zentralen Punkt in der Geschichte des antiken Griechenlands, insbesondere während der griechischen Klassik und im Byzantinischen Reich. Xylokastro selbst war historisch gesehen weniger ein Schauplatz großer Ereignisse, sondern eher ein landwirtschaftliches Zentrum und ein wichtiger Ort für den Handel entlang der Küste.
Der Hafen von Xylokastro spielte in der Vergangenheit eine wichtige Rolle für die lokale Wirtschaft. Er war ein Knotenpunkt für den Handel von landwirtschaftlichen Produkten, insbesondere Olivenöl und Wein, die in der Region produziert wurden. Heute dient der Hafen als Anlegeplatz für Fischerboote und kleinere Yachten und bietet einen malerischen Blick auf den Golf von Korinth.
Der Wald von Xylokastro, bekannt als Pefkias, ist ein weiteres bedeutendes Merkmal des Ortes. Dieser Kiefernwald erstreckt sich entlang der Küste und bietet sowohl Einheimischen als auch Besuchern einen Ort der Erholung. Der Pefkias-Wald wurde schon in der Antike erwähnt und war ein wichtiges Naturreservat. Heute ist er ein geschütztes Gebiet und bietet zahlreiche Wanderwege, die sich ideal für entspannte Spaziergänge eignen. Die dichte Vegetation und der Duft der Kiefern machen den Wald zu einem angenehmen Rückzugsort an heißen Sommertagen.
Historisch gesehen hat Xylokastro eine eher bescheidene Rolle in der Geschichte Griechenlands gespielt, aber seine natürliche Schönheit und seine Lage an der Küste machen es zu einem attraktiven Ziel. In der näheren Umgebung von Xylokastro befinden sich zahlreiche archäologische Stätten und historische Städte, die von der reichen Geschichte der Peloponnes zeugen. Dazu zählen antike Stätten wie Korinth, wo die Ruinen der berühmten Stadt besichtigt werden können.
Xylokastro bietet Reisenden die Möglichkeit, sowohl die natürliche Schönheit der griechischen Küste als auch die kulturelle Tiefe der Peloponnes zu erleben. Der Pefkias-Wald und der Hafen sind ideale Orte für entspannte Stunden in einer malerischen Umgebung.
Wikipedia-Link: [Xylokastro](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylokastro)
Kamera und Objektiv
Sony QX1 und Sony SEL18200
Sony A6500 und Sony SEL18200LE
Sony ILCE-7CR und Sony SEL24240
Bildinformation:
12MP - 3464 x 3465 px - ca. 3 bis 6MB
Bildbearbeitung: Adobe Photoshop Express
#Griechenland #Peloponnes #Xylokastro #Hafen #Wald #Pefkias #Naturfotografie #ReiseFotografie #Fotografie #Reisen #Sehenswürdigkeiten #Küstenlandschaft #GriechischeKüste #Korinth #HistorischeStätten #Kulturreise #GriechenlandEntdecken #Küstenorte #WandernInGriechenland #Naturerlebnis #GriechenlandFotografie #HafenXylokastro #XylokastroWald #PefkiasWald #GolfVonKorinth #Landschaftsfotografie #ReisezielGriechenland #NaturerlebnisGriechenland #Strandspaziergang #WandernPeloponnes #XylokastroHafen #UrlaubInGriechenland #PeloponnesGeschichte #AncientGreece #Photography #TravelPhotography #NaturePhotography #Greece #Peloponnese #Xylokastro #Port #Forest #Pefkias #GreeceCoast #Archaeology #HistoricalSites #DiscoverGreece #CulturalTravel #CoastalLandscape #LandscapePhotography #GreeceTravel #SeaPhotography #SummerHolidays #MediterraneanRegion #CoastalTowns #TravelDestinationGreece #NatureExperience #GreecePhotography #SunsetXylokastro #XylokastroPeloponnese #BeachXylokastro #PeloponneseHistory
The Acropolis of Athens (Ancient Greek: ἡ Ἀκρόπολις τῶν Ἀθηνῶν, romanized: hē Akropolis tōn Athēnōn; Modern Greek: Ακρόπολη Αθηνών, romanized: Akrópoli Athinón) is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens, Greece, and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word Acropolis is from Greek ἄκρον (akron) 'highest point, extremity' and πόλις (polis) 'city'. The term acropolis is generic and there are many other acropoleis in Greece. During ancient times the Acropolis of Athens was also more properly known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man Cecrops, the supposed first Athenian king.
While there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as early as the 4th (millennium?) BC, it was Pericles (c. 495–429 BC) in the fifth century BC who coordinated the construction of the buildings whose present remains are the site's most important ones, including the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. The Parthenon and the other buildings were seriously damaged during the 1687 siege by the Venetians during the Morean War when gunpowder being stored by the then Turkish rulers in the Parthenon was hit by a Venetian bombardment and exploded.
Sites at the acropolis.
1. Parthenon
2. Old Temple of Athena
3. Erechtheum
4. Statue of Athena Promachos
5. Propylaea
6. Temple of Athena Nike
7. Eleusinion
8. Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion
9. Chalkotheke
10. Pandroseion
11. Arrephorion
12. Altar of Athena
13. Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus
14. Sanctuary of Pandion
15. Odeon of Herodes Atticus
16. Stoa of Eumenes
17. Sanctuary of Asclepius or Asclepieion
18. Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus
19. Odeon of Pericles
20. Temenos of Dionysus Eleuthereus
21. Mycenaean fountain
The Acropolis Restoration Project began in 1975 to reverse the decay of centuries of attrition, pollution, destruction from military actions, and misguided past restorations. The project included the collection and identification of all stone fragments, even small ones, from the Acropolis and its slopes, and the attempt was made to restore as much as possible using reassembled original material (anastylosis), with new marble from Mount Pentelicus used sparingly. All restoration was made using titanium dowels and is designed to be completely reversible, in case future experts decide to change things. A combination of cutting-edge modern technology and extensive research and reinvention of ancient techniques were used.
The Parthenon colonnades, largely destroyed by Venetian bombardment during the 17th century, were restored, with many wrongly assembled columns now properly placed. The roof and floor of the Propylaea were partly restored, with sections of the roof made of new marble and decorated with blue and gold inserts, as in the original. Restoration of the Temple of Athena Nike was completed in 2010.
A total of 2,675 tons of architectural members were restored, with 686 stones reassembled from fragments of the originals, 905 patched with new marble, and 186 parts made entirely of new marble. A total of 530 cubic meters of new Pentelic marble were used.
In 2021, the addition of new reinforced concrete paths to the site to improve accessibility caused controversy among archaeologists.
Xylokastro, ein Küstenort auf der Peloponnes, hat eine lange Geschichte, die eng mit der Region verbunden ist. Die Peloponnes ist eine bedeutende Halbinsel im Süden Griechenlands, die seit der Antike ein wichtiger Schauplatz historischer Ereignisse war. Die strategische Lage der Region machte sie zu einem zentralen Punkt in der Geschichte des antiken Griechenlands, insbesondere während der griechischen Klassik und im Byzantinischen Reich. Xylokastro selbst war historisch gesehen weniger ein Schauplatz großer Ereignisse, sondern eher ein landwirtschaftliches Zentrum und ein wichtiger Ort für den Handel entlang der Küste.
Der Hafen von Xylokastro spielte in der Vergangenheit eine wichtige Rolle für die lokale Wirtschaft. Er war ein Knotenpunkt für den Handel von landwirtschaftlichen Produkten, insbesondere Olivenöl und Wein, die in der Region produziert wurden. Heute dient der Hafen als Anlegeplatz für Fischerboote und kleinere Yachten und bietet einen malerischen Blick auf den Golf von Korinth.
Der Wald von Xylokastro, bekannt als Pefkias, ist ein weiteres bedeutendes Merkmal des Ortes. Dieser Kiefernwald erstreckt sich entlang der Küste und bietet sowohl Einheimischen als auch Besuchern einen Ort der Erholung. Der Pefkias-Wald wurde schon in der Antike erwähnt und war ein wichtiges Naturreservat. Heute ist er ein geschütztes Gebiet und bietet zahlreiche Wanderwege, die sich ideal für entspannte Spaziergänge eignen. Die dichte Vegetation und der Duft der Kiefern machen den Wald zu einem angenehmen Rückzugsort an heißen Sommertagen.
Historisch gesehen hat Xylokastro eine eher bescheidene Rolle in der Geschichte Griechenlands gespielt, aber seine natürliche Schönheit und seine Lage an der Küste machen es zu einem attraktiven Ziel. In der näheren Umgebung von Xylokastro befinden sich zahlreiche archäologische Stätten und historische Städte, die von der reichen Geschichte der Peloponnes zeugen. Dazu zählen antike Stätten wie Korinth, wo die Ruinen der berühmten Stadt besichtigt werden können.
Xylokastro bietet Reisenden die Möglichkeit, sowohl die natürliche Schönheit der griechischen Küste als auch die kulturelle Tiefe der Peloponnes zu erleben. Der Pefkias-Wald und der Hafen sind ideale Orte für entspannte Stunden in einer malerischen Umgebung.
Wikipedia-Link: [Xylokastro](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylokastro)
Kamera und Objektiv
Sony QX1 und Sony SEL18200
Sony A6500 und Sony SEL18200LE
Sony ILCE-7CR und Sony SEL24240
Bildinformation:
12MP - 3464 x 3465 px - ca. 3 bis 6MB
Bildbearbeitung: Adobe Photoshop Express
#Griechenland #Peloponnes #Xylokastro #Hafen #Wald #Pefkias #Naturfotografie #ReiseFotografie #Fotografie #Reisen #Sehenswürdigkeiten #Küstenlandschaft #GriechischeKüste #Korinth #HistorischeStätten #Kulturreise #GriechenlandEntdecken #Küstenorte #WandernInGriechenland #Naturerlebnis #GriechenlandFotografie #HafenXylokastro #XylokastroWald #PefkiasWald #GolfVonKorinth #Landschaftsfotografie #ReisezielGriechenland #NaturerlebnisGriechenland #Strandspaziergang #WandernPeloponnes #XylokastroHafen #UrlaubInGriechenland #PeloponnesGeschichte #AncientGreece #Photography #TravelPhotography #NaturePhotography #Greece #Peloponnese #Xylokastro #Port #Forest #Pefkias #GreeceCoast #Archaeology #HistoricalSites #DiscoverGreece #CulturalTravel #CoastalLandscape #LandscapePhotography #GreeceTravel #SeaPhotography #SummerHolidays #MediterraneanRegion #CoastalTowns #TravelDestinationGreece #NatureExperience #GreecePhotography #SunsetXylokastro #XylokastroPeloponnese #BeachXylokastro #PeloponneseHistory
Das Kloster Korifis liegt auf einem Berg in der Nähe des Ortes Kamari und ist ein bedeutender Ort für die Geschichte und Kultur der Region. Gegründet im 12. Jahrhundert, war das Kloster über Jahrhunderte hinweg ein spirituelles Zentrum, das nicht nur religiöse, sondern auch kulturelle Bedeutung hatte. Es diente als Rückzugsort für Mönche und Gläubige und war ein Ort der Besinnung und des Gebets. Gleichzeitig spielte das Kloster eine wichtige Rolle in der Aufrechterhaltung der griechisch-orthodoxen Traditionen während der osmanischen Herrschaft über Griechenland.
Die Architektur des Klosters ist typisch für byzantinische Baukunst, mit einer zentralen Kirche, deren Kuppel das Zentrum des Gebäudes markiert. Die Wände der Kirche sind mit Fresken geschmückt, die Szenen aus der Bibel und das Leben der Heiligen darstellen. Diese Fresken sind über Jahrhunderte hinweg erhalten geblieben und wurden immer wieder restauriert, sodass sie heute ein beeindruckendes Zeugnis byzantinischer Kunst darstellen.
Besonders während der osmanischen Besatzung war das Kloster ein wichtiger Zufluchtsort für die griechische Bevölkerung. Es bot Schutz vor Übergriffen und war ein Ort des Widerstands gegen die osmanische Herrschaft. Die Mönche, die hier lebten, spielten eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Bewahrung der griechischen Kultur und Identität in einer Zeit, in der diese stark unter Druck stand. Noch heute erinnern viele historische Dokumente und Geschichten an diese Zeit und die Bedeutung des Klosters für die griechische Geschichte.
Im 19. Jahrhundert, nach der Befreiung Griechenlands, verlor das Kloster an Bedeutung und wurde zeitweise verlassen. Erst im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts wurde es wiederentdeckt und restauriert. Heute ist das Kloster ein beliebtes Ziel für Pilger und Touristen, die nicht nur die spirituelle Atmosphäre, sondern auch die beeindruckende Landschaft genießen möchten.
Der Weg zum Kloster führt durch eine malerische Bergstraße, die atemberaubende Ausblicke auf die Umgebung bietet. Das Kloster selbst liegt auf einer Anhöhe, von der aus man einen weiten Blick über die Peloponnes und das Meer hat. Besonders bei Sonnenuntergang bietet sich hier ein spektakuläres Panorama, das viele Besucher anzieht.
Das Kloster Korifis ist heute eine schöne Sehenswürdigkeit auf der Peloponnes. Es verbindet historische Bedeutung mit einer einzigartigen Lage inmitten der griechischen Berglandschaft. Der Sonnenuntergang, der das Kloster in ein goldenes Licht taucht, macht es zu einem beliebten Ziel für Reisende, die das kulturelle Erbe und die natürliche Schönheit Griechenlands erleben möchten.
Kamera und Objektiv
Sony QX1 und Sony SEL18200
Sony A6500 und Sony SEL18200LE
Sony ILCE-7CR und Sony SEL24240
Bildinformation:
12MP - 3464 x 3465 px - ca. 3 bis 6MB
Bildbearbeitung: Adobe Photoshop Express
#Griechenland #Peloponnes #KlosterKorifis #Kamari #Kloster #ByzantinischeArchitektur #Naturfotografie #Reisefotografie #Fotografie #Reisen #Sehenswürdigkeiten #GriechischeGeschichte #Sonnenuntergang #OrthodoxesChristentum #ByzantinischeKunst #Kulturreise #PeloponnesGeschichte #GriechischesKloster #MonasteryView #GreeceTravel #KlosterMoniKorifis #BergKloster #PeloponnesNatur #MediterraneLandschaft #KulturErleben #HistorischeStätten #GriechischeKultur #ReisezieleGriechenland #GriechenlandFotografie #EntdeckeGriechenland #SunsetPhotography #MountainViews #MountainMonastery #Photography #TravelPhotography #NaturePhotography #Greece #Peloponnese #Monastery #Sunset #HistoricalSites #DiscoverGreece #CulturalTravel #MountainLandscape #LandscapePhotography #GreeceTravel #OrthodoxChristianity #GreeceHistory
Xylokastro, ein Küstenort auf der Peloponnes, hat eine lange Geschichte, die eng mit der Region verbunden ist. Die Peloponnes ist eine bedeutende Halbinsel im Süden Griechenlands, die seit der Antike ein wichtiger Schauplatz historischer Ereignisse war. Die strategische Lage der Region machte sie zu einem zentralen Punkt in der Geschichte des antiken Griechenlands, insbesondere während der griechischen Klassik und im Byzantinischen Reich. Xylokastro selbst war historisch gesehen weniger ein Schauplatz großer Ereignisse, sondern eher ein landwirtschaftliches Zentrum und ein wichtiger Ort für den Handel entlang der Küste.
Der Hafen von Xylokastro spielte in der Vergangenheit eine wichtige Rolle für die lokale Wirtschaft. Er war ein Knotenpunkt für den Handel von landwirtschaftlichen Produkten, insbesondere Olivenöl und Wein, die in der Region produziert wurden. Heute dient der Hafen als Anlegeplatz für Fischerboote und kleinere Yachten und bietet einen malerischen Blick auf den Golf von Korinth.
Der Wald von Xylokastro, bekannt als Pefkias, ist ein weiteres bedeutendes Merkmal des Ortes. Dieser Kiefernwald erstreckt sich entlang der Küste und bietet sowohl Einheimischen als auch Besuchern einen Ort der Erholung. Der Pefkias-Wald wurde schon in der Antike erwähnt und war ein wichtiges Naturreservat. Heute ist er ein geschütztes Gebiet und bietet zahlreiche Wanderwege, die sich ideal für entspannte Spaziergänge eignen. Die dichte Vegetation und der Duft der Kiefern machen den Wald zu einem angenehmen Rückzugsort an heißen Sommertagen.
Historisch gesehen hat Xylokastro eine eher bescheidene Rolle in der Geschichte Griechenlands gespielt, aber seine natürliche Schönheit und seine Lage an der Küste machen es zu einem attraktiven Ziel. In der näheren Umgebung von Xylokastro befinden sich zahlreiche archäologische Stätten und historische Städte, die von der reichen Geschichte der Peloponnes zeugen. Dazu zählen antike Stätten wie Korinth, wo die Ruinen der berühmten Stadt besichtigt werden können.
Xylokastro bietet Reisenden die Möglichkeit, sowohl die natürliche Schönheit der griechischen Küste als auch die kulturelle Tiefe der Peloponnes zu erleben. Der Pefkias-Wald und der Hafen sind ideale Orte für entspannte Stunden in einer malerischen Umgebung.
Wikipedia-Link: [Xylokastro](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylokastro)
Kamera und Objektiv
Sony QX1 und Sony SEL18200
Sony A6500 und Sony SEL18200LE
Sony ILCE-7CR und Sony SEL24240
Bildinformation:
12MP - 3464 x 3465 px - ca. 3 bis 6MB
Bildbearbeitung: Adobe Photoshop Express
#Griechenland #Peloponnes #Xylokastro #Hafen #Wald #Pefkias #Naturfotografie #ReiseFotografie #Fotografie #Reisen #Sehenswürdigkeiten #Küstenlandschaft #GriechischeKüste #Korinth #HistorischeStätten #Kulturreise #GriechenlandEntdecken #Küstenorte #WandernInGriechenland #Naturerlebnis #GriechenlandFotografie #HafenXylokastro #XylokastroWald #PefkiasWald #GolfVonKorinth #Landschaftsfotografie #ReisezielGriechenland #NaturerlebnisGriechenland #Strandspaziergang #WandernPeloponnes #XylokastroHafen #UrlaubInGriechenland #PeloponnesGeschichte #AncientGreece #Photography #TravelPhotography #NaturePhotography #Greece #Peloponnese #Xylokastro #Port #Forest #Pefkias #GreeceCoast #Archaeology #HistoricalSites #DiscoverGreece #CulturalTravel #CoastalLandscape #LandscapePhotography #GreeceTravel #SeaPhotography #SummerHolidays #MediterraneanRegion #CoastalTowns #TravelDestinationGreece #NatureExperience #GreecePhotography #SunsetXylokastro #XylokastroPeloponnese #BeachXylokastro #PeloponneseHistory
Ios is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides, situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini.
Santorini, classically Thera and officially Thira, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago, which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini
Airbus A320-200 - Aegean Airlines - SX-DVJ (Named Exelixis, painted in discovergreece.com - special livery) - Landing at LGKR from LGAV - 13.08.2015.
The Theatre of Dionysus (or Theatre of Dionysos, Greek: Θέατρο του Διονύσου) is an ancient Greek theatre in Athens. It is built on the south slope of the Acropolis hill, originally part of the sanctuary of Dionysus Eleuthereus (Dionysus the Liberator). The first orchestra terrace was constructed on the site around the mid- to late-sixth century BC, where it hosted the City Dionysia. The theatre reached its fullest extent in the fourth century BC under the epistates of Lycurgus when it would have had a capacity of up to 25,000, and was in continuous use down to the Roman period. The theatre then fell into decay in the Byzantine era and was not identified, excavated and restored to its current condition until the nineteenth century.
The cult of Dionysus was introduced to Attica in the Archaic period with the earliest representation of the God dating to c. 580 BC. The City Dionysia (or Great Dionysia) began sometime in the Peisistratid era. and was reorganised during the Kleisthenic reforms of the 520s BC. The first dramatic performances likely took place in the Agora where it is recorded that the wooden bleachers set up for the plays (ikria) collapsed. This disaster perhaps prompted the removal of dramatic production to the Sanctuary of Dionysus on the Akropolis, which took place by the time of the 70th Olympiad in 499/496 BC. At the temenos the earliest structures were the Older Temple, which housed the xoanon of Dionysos, a retaining wall to the north and slightly further up the hill a circular terrace that would have been the first orchestra of the theatre. The excavations by Wilhelm Dörpfeld identified the foundations of this terrace as a section of polygonal masonry, indicating an archaic date. It is probable there was an altar, or thymele, in the centre of the orchestra. No formally constructed stone seating existed at this point; only ikria and the natural amphitheatre of the hill served as a theatron.
Besides the archaeological evidence, there is the literary testimonia of the contemporary plays from which there are clues as to the theatre's construction and scenography. For this earliest phase of the theatre there is the work of Aeschylus, who flourished in the 480–460s BC. The dramatic action of the plays does point to the presence of a skene or background scenery of some description, the strongest evidence of which is from the Oresteia that requires a number of entrances and exits from a palace door. Whether this was a temporary or permanent wooden structure or simply a tent remains unclear since there is no physical evidence for a skene building until the Periclean phase. However, the hypothesis of a skene is not contradicted by the known archaeology of the site. The Oresteia also refers to a roof from which a watchman looks out, a step to the palace and an altar. It is sometimes argued that an ekkyklema, a wheeled trolly, was used for the revelation of the bodies by Clytemnestra at line 1372 in Agamemnon, amongst other passages. If so it was an innovation of Aeschylus' stagecraft. However, Oliver Taplin questions the seemingly inconsistent use of the device for the dramatic passages claimed for it, and doubts whether the mechanism existed in Aeschylus' lifetime.
The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Greek art, and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy, and Western civilization.
The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian Empire invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC; work on the artwork and decorations continued until 432 BC. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire.
In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-15th century, it became a mosque. In the Morean War, a Venetian bomb landed on the Parthenon, which the Ottomans had used as a munitions dump, during the 1687 siege of the Acropolis. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon. From 1800 to 1803, the 7th Earl of Elgin took down some of the surviving sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or simply Greek Marbles, which, although he had the permission of the then Ottoman government, has subsequently become controversial. Since 1975, numerous large-scale restoration projects have been undertaken to preserve remaining artifacts and ensure its structural integrity.
In the mid-5th century BC, when the Athenian Acropolis became the seat of the Delian League, Pericles initiated the building project that lasted the entire second half of the century. The most important buildings visible on the Acropolis today – the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Erechtheion and the temple of Athena Nike – were erected during this period. The Parthenon was built under the general supervision of Phidias, who also had charge of the sculptural decoration. The architects Ictinos and Callicrates began their work in 447, and the building was substantially completed by 432. Work on the decorations continued until at least 431.
The Parthenon was built primarily by men who knew how to work marble. These quarrymen had exceptional skills and were able to cut the blocks of marble to very specific measurements. The quarrymen also knew how to avoid the faults, which were numerous in the Pentelic marble. If the marble blocks were not up to standard, the architects would reject them. The marble was worked with iron tools – picks, points, punches, chisels, and drills. The quarrymen would hold their tools against the marble block and firmly tap the surface of the rock.
A big project like the Parthenon attracted stonemasons from far and wide who travelled to Athens to assist in the project. Slaves and foreigners worked together with the Athenian citizens in the building of the Parthenon, doing the same jobs for the same pay. Temple building was a specialized craft, and there were not many men in Greece qualified to build temples like the Parthenon, so these men would travel and work where they were needed.
Other craftsmen were necessary for the building of the Parthenon, specifically carpenters and metalworkers. Unskilled labourers also had key roles in the building of the Parthenon. They loaded and unloaded the marble blocks and moved the blocks from place to place. In order to complete a project like the Parthenon, many different labourers were needed.
Η μέρα έφτασε! Ξεκινά αύριο το 2o Christmas Golf Cup στο Crete Golf Club. Ελάτε να παίξετε και να απολαύσετε τις εκπλήξεις που ετοιμάσαμε για τους λάτρεις του γκολφ και όχι μόνο! #TheCreteGolf #greekdestinations #DiscoverGreece #Cretegolfclub #galaxyhoteliraklio #lifeincrete #golf
The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens, Greece, and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word Acropolis is from the Greek words ἄκρον (akron, "highest point, extremity") and πόλις (polis, "city"). The term acropolis is generic and there are many other acropoleis in Greece. During ancient times the Acropolis of Athens was also more properly known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man Cecrops, the supposed first Athenian king.
While there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as early as the fourth millennium BC, it was Pericles (c. 495–429 BC) in the fifth century BC who coordinated the construction of the buildings whose present remains are the site's most important ones, including the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. The Parthenon and the other buildings were seriously damaged during the 1687 siege by the Venetians during the Morean War when gunpowder being stored by the then Turkish rulers in the Parthenon was hit by a Venetian bombardment and exploded.
History
Early settlement
The Acropolis is located on a flattish-topped rock that rises 150 m (490 ft) above sea level in the city of Athens, with a surface area of about 3 ha (7.4 acres). While the earliest artifacts date to the Middle Neolithic era, there have been documented habitations in Attica from the Early Neolithic period (6th millennium BC).
There is little doubt that a Mycenaean megaron palace stood upon the hill during the late Bronze Age. Nothing of this megaron survives except, probably, a single limestone column base and pieces of several sandstone steps. Soon after the palace was constructed, a Cyclopean massive circuit wall was built, 760 meters long, up to 10 meters high, and ranging from 3.5 to 6 meters thick. From the end of the Helladic IIIB (1300–1200 BC) on, this wall would serve as the main defense for the acropolis until the 5th century. The wall consisted of two parapets built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called emplekton (Greek: ἔμπλεκτον). The wall uses typical Mycenaean conventions in that it followed the natural contour of the terrain and its gate, which was towards the south, was arranged obliquely, with a parapet and tower overhanging the incomers' right-hand side, thus facilitating defense. There were two lesser approaches up the hill on its north side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he mentions the "strong-built house of Erechtheus" (Odyssey 7.81). At some time before the 13th century BC, an earthquake caused a fissure near the northeastern edge of the Acropolis. This fissure extended some 35 meters to a bed of soft marl in which a well was dug. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the well served as an invaluable, protected source of drinking water during times of siege for some portion of the Mycenaean period.
Archaic Acropolis
Not much is known about the architectural appearance of the Acropolis until the Archaic era. During the 7th and the 6th centuries BC, the site was controlled by Kylon during the failed Kylonian revolt, and twice by Peisistratos; each of these was attempts directed at seizing political power by coups d'état. Apart from the Hekatompedon mentioned later, Peisistratos also built an entry gate or propylaea. Nevertheless, it seems that a nine-gate wall, the Enneapylon, had been built around the acropolis hill and incorporated the biggest water spring, the Clepsydra, at the northwestern foot.
A temple to Athena Polias, the tutelary deity of the city, was erected between 570 and 550 BC. This Doric limestone building, from which many relics survive, is referred to as the Hekatompedon (Greek for "hundred–footed"), Ur-Parthenon (German for "original Parthenon" or "primitive Parthenon"), H–Architecture or Bluebeard temple, after the pedimental three-bodied man-serpent sculpture, whose beards were painted dark blue. Whether this temple replaced an older one or just a sacred precinct or altar is not known. Probably, the Hekatompedon was built where the Parthenon now stands.
Between 529 and 520 BC yet another temple was built by the Pisistratids, the Old Temple of Athena, usually referred to as the Arkhaios Neōs (ἀρχαῖος νεώς, "ancient temple"). This temple of Athena Polias was built upon the Dörpfeld foundations, between the Erechtheion and the still-standing Parthenon. The Arkhaios Neōs was destroyed as part of the Achaemenid destruction of Athens during the Second Persian invasion of Greece during 480–479 BC; however, the temple was probably reconstructed during 454 BC, since the treasury of the Delian League was transferred in its opisthodomos. The temple may have been burnt down during 406/405 BC as Xenophon mentions that the old temple of Athena was set afire. Pausanias does not mention it in his 2nd century AD Description of Greece.
Around 500 BC the Hekatompedon was dismantled to make place for a new grander building, the Older Parthenon (often referred to as the Pre-Parthenon or Early Parthenon). For this reason, Athenians decided to stop the construction of the Olympieion temple which was connoted with the tyrant Peisistratos and his sons, and, instead, used the Piraeus limestone destined for the Olympieion to build the Older Parthenon. To accommodate the new temple, the south part of the summit was cleared, made level by adding some 8,000 two-ton blocks of limestone, a foundation 11 m (36 ft) deep at some points, and the rest was filled with soil kept in place by the retaining wall. However, after the victorious Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the plan was revised and marble was used instead. The limestone phase of the building is referred to as Pre-Parthenon I and the marble phase as Pre-Parthenon II. In 485 BC, construction stalled to save resources as Xerxes became king of Persia, and war seemed imminent. The Older Parthenon was still under construction when the Persians invaded and sacked the city in 480 BC. The building was burned and looted, along with the Ancient Temple and practically everything else on the rock. After the Persian crisis had subsided, the Athenians incorporated many architectural parts of the unfinished temple (unfluted column drums, triglyphs, metopes, etc.) into the newly built northern curtain wall of the Acropolis, where they served as a prominent "war memorial" and can still be seen today. The devastated site was cleared of debris. Statuary, cult objects, religious offerings, and unsalvageable architectural members were buried ceremoniously in several deeply dug pits on the hill, serving conveniently as a fill for the artificial plateau created around the Classical Parthenon. This "Persian debris" was the richest archaeological deposit excavated on the Acropolis by 1890.
The Periclean building program
After winning at Eurymedon during 468 BC, Cimon and Themistocles ordered the reconstruction of the southern and northern walls of the Acropolis. Most of the major temples, including the Parthenon, were rebuilt by order of Pericles during the so-called Golden Age of Athens (460–430 BC). Phidias, an Athenian sculptor, and Ictinus and Callicrates, two famous architects, were responsible for the reconstruction.
During 437 BC, Mnesicles started building the Propylaea, a monumental gate at the western end of the Acropolis with Doric columns of Pentelic marble, built partly upon the old Propylaea of Peisistratos. These colonnades were almost finished during 432 BC and had two wings, the northern one decorated with paintings by Polygnotus. About the same time, south of the Propylaea, building started on the small Ionic Temple of Athena Nike in Pentelic marble with tetrastyle porches, preserving the essentials of Greek temple design. After an interruption caused by the Peloponnesian War, the temple was finished during the time of Nicias' peace, between 421 BC and 409 BC.
Construction of the elegant temple of Erechtheion in Pentelic marble (421–406 BC) was by a complex plan which took account of the extremely uneven ground and the need to circumvent several shrines in the area. The entrance, facing east, is lined with six Ionic columns. Unusually, the temple has two porches, one on the northwest corner borne by Ionic columns, the other, to the southwest, supported by huge female figures or caryatids. The eastern part of the temple was dedicated to Athena Polias, while the western part, serving the cult of the archaic king Poseidon-Erechtheus, housed the altars of Hephaestus and Voutos, brother of Erechtheus. Little is known about the original plan of the interior, which was destroyed by fire during the first century BC and has been rebuilt several times.
During the same period, a combination of sacred precincts including the temples of Athena Polias, Poseidon, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Herse, Pandrosos and Aglauros, with its Kore Porch (Porch of the Maidens) or Caryatids' Balcony was begun. Between the temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon, there was the Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia (or the Brauroneion), the goddess represented as a bear and worshipped in the deme of Brauron. According to Pausanias, a wooden statue or xoanon of the goddess and a statue of Artemis made by Praxiteles during the 4th century BC were both in the sanctuary.
Behind the Propylaea, Phidias' gigantic bronze statue of Athena Promachos ("Athena who fights in the front line"), built between 450 BC and 448 BC, dominated. The base was 1.50 m (4 ft 11 in) high, while the total height of the statue was 9 m (30 ft). The goddess held a lance, the gilt tip of which could be seen as a reflection by crews on ships rounding Cape Sounion, and a giant shield on the left side, decorated by Mys with images of the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. Other monuments that have left almost nothing visible to the present day are the Chalkotheke, the Pandroseion, Pandion's sanctuary, Athena's altar, Zeus Polieus's sanctuary and, from Roman times, the circular Temple of Roma and Augustus.
Hellenistic and Roman Period
During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many of the existing buildings in the area of the Acropolis were repaired to remedy damage from age and occasionally war. Monuments to foreign kings were erected, notably those of the Attalid kings of Pergamon Attalos II (in front of the NW corner of the Parthenon), and Eumenes II, in front of the Propylaea. These were rededicated during the early Roman Empire to Augustus or Claudius (uncertain) and Agrippa, respectively. Eumenes was also responsible for constructing a stoa on the south slope, similar to that of Attalos in the agora below.
During the Julio-Claudian period, the Temple of Roma and Augustus, a small, round edifice about 23 meters from the Parthenon, was to be the last significant ancient construction on the summit of the rock. Around the same time, on the north slope, in a cave next to the one dedicated to Pan since the Classical period, a sanctuary was founded where the archons dedicated to Apollo on assuming office. During 161 AD, on the south slope, the Roman Herodes Atticus built his grand amphitheater or odeon. It was destroyed by the invading Herulians a century later but was reconstructed during the 1950s.
During the 3rd century, under threat from a Herulian invasion, repairs were made to the Acropolis walls, and the Beulé Gate was constructed to restrict entrance in front of the Propylaea, thus returning the Acropolis to use as a fortress.
Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Period
During the Byzantine period, the Parthenon was used as a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the Latin Duchy of Athens, the Acropolis functioned as the city's administrative center, with the Parthenon as its cathedral, and the Propylaea as part of the ducal palace. A large tower was added, the Frankopyrgos, demolished during the 19th century.
After the Ottoman conquest of Greece, the Propylaea were used as the garrison headquarters of the Turkish army,[40] the Parthenon was converted into a mosque and the Erechtheum was turned into the governor's private harem. The buildings of the Acropolis suffered significant damage during the 1687 siege by the Venetians in the Morean War. The Parthenon, which was being used as a gunpowder magazine, was hit by artillery shot and damaged severely.
During subsequent years, the Acropolis was a site of bustling human activity with many Byzantine, Frankish, and Ottoman structures. The dominant feature during the Ottoman period was a mosque inside the Parthenon, complete with a minaret.
The Acropolis was besieged thrice during the Greek War of Independence—two sieges from the Greeks in 1821–1822 and one from the Ottomans in 1826–1827. A new bulwark named after Odysseas Androutsos was built by the Greeks between 1822 and 1825 to protect the recently rediscovered Klepsydra spring, which became the sole fresh water supply of the fortress.
Independent Greece
After independence, most features that dated from the Byzantine, Frankish, and Ottoman periods were cleared from the site in an attempt to restore the monument to its original form, "cleansed" of all later additions. The Parthenon mosque was demolished in 1843, and the Frankish Tower in 1875. German Neoclassicist architect Leo von Klenze was responsible for the restoration of the Acropolis in the 19th century, according to German historian Wolf Seidl, as described in his book Bavarians in Greece.
At the beginning of the Axis occupation of Greece in 1941, German soldiers raised the Nazi German War Flag over the Acropolis. It would be taken down by Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas in one of the first acts of resistance. In 1944 Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou arrived on the Acropolis to celebrate liberation from the Nazis.
Archaeological remains
The entrance to the Acropolis was a monumental gateway termed the Propylaea. To the south of the entrance is the tiny Temple of Athena Nike. At the centre of the Acropolis is the Parthenon or Temple of Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin). East of the entrance and north of the Parthenon is the temple known as the Erechtheum. South of the platform that forms the top of the Acropolis there are also the remains of the ancient, though often remodelled, Theatre of Dionysus. A few hundred metres away, there is the now partially reconstructed Odeon of Herodes Atticus.
All the valuable ancient artifacts are situated in the Acropolis Museum, which resides on the southern slope of the same rock, 280 metres from the Parthenon.
Site plan
Parthenon
Old Temple of Athena
Erechtheum
Statue of Athena Promachos
Propylaea
Temple of Athena Nike
Eleusinion
Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion
Chalkotheke
Pandroseion
Arrephorion
Altar of Athena
Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus
Sanctuary of Pandion
Odeon of Herodes Atticus
Stoa of Eumenes
Sanctuary of Asclepius or Asclepieion
Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus
Odeon of Pericles
Temenos of Dionysus Eleuthereus
Mycenaean fountain
The Acropolis Restoration Project
The Acropolis Restoration Project began in 1975 to reverse the decay of centuries of attrition, pollution, destruction from military actions, and misguided past restorations. The project included the collection and identification of all stone fragments, even small ones, from the Acropolis and its slopes, and the attempt was made to restore as much as possible using reassembled original material (anastylosis), with new marble from Mount Pentelicus used sparingly. All restoration was made using titanium dowels and is designed to be completely reversible, in case future experts decide to change things. A combination of cutting-edge modern technology and extensive research and reinvention of ancient techniques were used.
The Parthenon colonnades, largely destroyed by Venetian bombardment during the 17th century, were restored, with many wrongly assembled columns now properly placed. The roof and floor of the Propylaea were partly restored, with sections of the roof made of new marble and decorated with blue and gold inserts, as in the original. Restoration of the Temple of Athena Nike was completed in 2010.
A total of 2,675 tons of architectural members were restored, with 686 stones reassembled from fragments of the originals, 905 patched with new marble, and 186 parts made entirely of new marble. A total of 530 cubic meters of new Pentelic marble were used.
In 2021, the addition of new reinforced concrete paths to the site to improve accessibility caused controversy among archaeologists.
Cultural significance
Every four years, the Athenians had a festival called the Great Panathenaea that rivaled the Olympic Games in popularity. During the festival, a procession (believed to be depicted on the Parthenon frieze) traveled through the city via the Panathenaic Way and culminated on the Acropolis. There, a new robe of woven wool (peplos) was placed on either the statue of Athena Polias in the Erechtheum (during the annual Lesser Panathenaea) or the statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon (during the Great Panathenaea, held every four years).
Within the later tradition of Western civilization and Classical revival, the Acropolis, from at least the mid-18th century on, has often been invoked as a critical symbol of the Greek legacy and of the glories of Classical Greece.
Most of the artifacts from the temple are housed today in the Acropolis Museum at the foot of the ancient rock.
Geology
The Acropolis is a klippe consisting of two lithostratigraphic units: the Athens schist and the overlying Acropolis limestone. The Athens schist is a soft reddish rock dating from the late Cretaceous period. The original sediments were deposited in a river delta approximately 72 million years ago. The Acropolis limestone dates from the late Jurassic period, predating the underlying Athens schist by about 30 million years. The Acropolis limestone was thrust over the Athens schist by compressional tectonic forces, forming a nappe or overthrust sheet. Erosion of the limestone nappe led to the eventual detachment of the Acropolis, forming the present-day feature. Where the Athens schist and the limestone meet there are springs and karstic caves.
Many of the hills in the Athens region were formed by the erosion of the same nappe as the Acropolis. These include the hills of Lykabettos, Areopagus, and Mouseion.
The marble used for the buildings of the Acropolis was sourced from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus, a mountain to the northeast of the city.
Geological instability
The limestone that the Acropolis is built upon is unstable because of the erosion and tectonic shifts that the region is prone to. This instability can cause rock slides that cause damage to the historic site. Various measures have been implemented to protect the site including retaining walls, drainage systems, and rock bolts. These measures work to counter the natural processes that threaten the historic site.
Athens is a major coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, and it is both the capital and the largest city of Greece. With its urban area's population numbering over three million, it is also the eighth largest urban area in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. The city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.
Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason, it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a huge cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2023, Athens metropolitan area and its surrounding municipalities (consisting the regional area of Attica) has a population of approximately 3.8 million.
Athens is a Beta-status global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in Southeastern Europe. It also has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the 2nd busiest passenger port in Europe, and the 13th largest container port in the world. The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens metropolitan area or Greater Athens extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits as well as its urban agglomeration, with a population of 3,638,281 (2021) over an area of 2,928.717 km2 (1,131 sq mi). Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland.
The heritage of the Classical Era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments, and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western culture. The city also retains Roman, Byzantine and a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the Architectural Trilogy of Athens, consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of five cities to have hosted the Summer Olympics on multiple occasions. Athens joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Etymology and names
In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic), which is a plural word. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē). It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica. In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city. Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city,[24] because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.
According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city; they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge. According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's poem Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree. Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil. Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthonous (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect. In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").
During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. Variant names included Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases. King Alphonse X of Castile gives the pseudo-etymology 'the one without death/ignorance'. In Ottoman Turkish, it was called آتينا Ātīnā, and in modern Turkish, it is Atina.
History
Main article: History of Athens
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Athens.
Historical affiliations
Kingdom of Athens 1556 BC–1068 BC
City-state of Athens 1068 BC–322 BC
Hellenic League 338 BC–322 BC
Kingdom of Macedonia 322 BC–148 BC
Roman Republic 146 BC–27 BC
Roman Empire 27 BC–395 AD
Eastern Roman Empire 395–1205
Duchy of Athens 1205–1458
Ottoman Empire 1458–1822, 1827–1832
Greece 1822–1827, 1832–present
Antiquity
The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years (3000 BC). By 1400 BC, the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization, and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls. Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards. Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.
By the sixth century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.
The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. In the second century AD, The Roman emperor Hadrian, himself an Athenian citizen, ordered the construction of a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
In the early 4th century AD, the Eastern Roman Empire began to be governed from Constantinople, and with the construction and expansion of the imperial city, many of Athens's works of art were taken by the emperors to adorn it. The Empire became Christianized, and the use of Latin declined in favour of exclusive use of Greek; in the Roman imperial period, both languages had been used. In the later Roman period, Athens was ruled by the emperors continuing until the 13th century, its citizens identifying themselves as citizens of the Roman Empire ("Rhomaioi"). The conversion of the empire from paganism to Christianity greatly affected Athens, resulting in reduced reverence for the city.[33] Ancient monuments such as the Parthenon, Erechtheion and the Hephaisteion (Theseion) were converted into churches. As the empire became increasingly anti-pagan, Athens became a provincial town and experienced fluctuating fortunes.
The city remained an important center of learning, especially of Neoplatonism—with notable pupils including Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea and emperor Julian (r. 355–363)—and consequently a center of paganism. Christian items do not appear in the archaeological record until the early 5th century. The sack of the city by the Herules in 267 and by the Visigoths under their king Alaric I (r. 395–410) in 396, however, dealt a heavy blow to the city's fabric and fortunes, and Athens was henceforth confined to a small fortified area that embraced a fraction of the ancient city. The emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) banned the teaching of philosophy by pagans in 529, an event whose impact on the city is much debated, but is generally taken to mark the end of the ancient history of Athens. Athens was sacked by the Slavs in 582, but remained in imperial hands thereafter, as highlighted by the visit of the emperor Constans II (r. 641–668) in 662/3 and its inclusion in the Theme of Hellas.
Middle Ages
The city was threatened by Saracen raids in the 8th–9th centuries—in 896, Athens was raided and possibly occupied for a short period, an event which left some archaeological remains and elements of Arabic ornamentation in contemporary buildings—but there is also evidence of a mosque existing in the city at the time. In the great dispute over Byzantine Iconoclasm, Athens is commonly held to have supported the iconophile position, chiefly due to the role played by Empress Irene of Athens in the ending of the first period of Iconoclasm at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. A few years later, another Athenian, Theophano, became empress as the wife of Staurakios (r. 811–812).
Invasion of the empire by the Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, and the ensuing civil wars, largely passed the region by and Athens continued its provincial existence unharmed. When the Byzantine Empire was rescued by the resolute leadership of the three Komnenos emperors Alexios, John and Manuel, Attica and the rest of Greece prospered. Archaeological evidence tells us that the medieval town experienced a period of rapid and sustained growth, starting in the 11th century and continuing until the end of the 12th century.
The Agora (marketplace) had been deserted since late antiquity, began to be built over, and soon the town became an important centre for the production of soaps and dyes. The growth of the town attracted the Venetians, and various other traders who frequented the ports of the Aegean, to Athens. This interest in trade appears to have further increased the economic prosperity of the town.
The 11th and 12th centuries were the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Athens. Almost all of the most important Middle Byzantine churches in and around Athens were built during these two centuries, and this reflects the growth of the town in general. However, this medieval prosperity was not to last. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade conquered Athens and the city was not recovered from the Latins before it was taken by the Ottoman Turks. It did not become Greek in government again until the 19th century.
From 1204 until 1458, Athens was ruled by Latins in three separate periods, following the Crusades. The "Latins", or "Franks", were western Europeans and followers of the Latin Church brought to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Crusades. Along with rest of Byzantine Greece, Athens was part of the series of feudal fiefs, similar to the Crusader states established in Syria and on Cyprus after the First Crusade. This period is known as the Frankokratia.
Ottoman Athens
The first Ottoman attack on Athens, which involved a short-lived occupation of the town, came in 1397, under the Ottoman generals Yaqub Pasha and Timurtash. Finally, in 1458, Athens was captured by the Ottomans under the personal leadership of Sultan Mehmed II. As the Ottoman Sultan rode into the city, he was greatly struck by the beauty of its ancient monuments and issued a firman (imperial edict) forbidding their looting or destruction, on pain of death. The Parthenon was converted into the main mosque of the city.
Under Ottoman rule, Athens was denuded of any importance and its population severely declined, leaving it as a "small country town" (Franz Babinger). From the early 17th century, Athens came under the jurisdiction of the Kizlar Agha, the chief black eunuch of the Sultan's harem. The city had originally been granted by Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) to Basilica, one of his favourite concubines, who hailed from the city, in response of complaints of maladministration by the local governors. After her death, Athens came under the purview of the Kizlar Agha.
The Turks began a practice of storing gunpowder and explosives in the Parthenon and Propylaea. In 1640, a lightning bolt struck the Propylaea, causing its destruction. In 1687, during the Morean War, the Acropolis was besieged by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini, and the temple of Athena Nike was dismantled by the Ottomans to fortify the Parthenon. A shot fired during the bombardment of the Acropolis caused a powder magazine in the Parthenon to explode (26 September), and the building was severely damaged, giving it largely the appearance it has today. The Venetian occupation of Athens lasted for six months, and both the Venetians and the Ottomans participated in the looting of the Parthenon. One of its western pediments was removed, causing even more damage to the structure. During the Venetian occupation, the two mosques of the city were converted into Catholic and Protestant churches, but on 9 April 1688 the Venetians abandoned Athens again to the Ottomans.
Modern history
In 1822, a Greek insurgency captured the city, but it fell to the Ottomans again in 1826 (though Acropolis held till June 1827). Again the ancient monuments suffered badly. The Ottoman forces remained in possession until March 1833, when they withdrew. At that time, the city (as throughout the Ottoman period) had a small population of an estimated 400 houses, mostly located around the Acropolis in the Plaka.
Following the Greek War of Independence and the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, Athens was chosen to replace Nafplio as the second capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834, largely because of historical and sentimental reasons. At the time, after the extensive destruction it had suffered during the war of independence, it was reduced to a town of about 4,000 people (less than half its earlier population) in a loose swarm of houses along the foot of the Acropolis. The first King of Greece, Otto of Bavaria, commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert to design a modern city plan fit for the capital of a state.
The first modern city plan consisted of a triangle defined by the Acropolis, the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos and the new palace of the Bavarian king (now housing the Greek Parliament), so as to highlight the continuity between modern and ancient Athens. Neoclassicism, the international style of this epoch, was the architectural style through which Bavarian, French and Greek architects such as Hansen, Klenze, Boulanger or Kaftantzoglou designed the first important public buildings of the new capital. In 1896, Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games. During the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War and Greek genocide, swelled Athens's population; nevertheless it was most particularly following World War II, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion.
In the 1980s, it became evident that smog from factories and an ever-increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to congestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge.[citation needed] A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city. In 2004, Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Geography
Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens Basin or the Attica Basin (Greek: Λεκανοπέδιο Αθηνών/Αττικής). The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aigaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east. Beyond Mount Aegaleo lies the Thriasian plain, which forms an extension of the central plain to the west. The Saronic Gulf lies to the southwest. Mount Parnitha is the tallest of the four mountains (1,413 m (4,636 ft)), and has been declared a national park. The Athens urban area spreads over 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Agios Stefanos in the north to Varkiza in the south. The city is located in the north temperate zone, 38 degrees north of the equator.
Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and provides a view of the entire Attica Basin. The meteorology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world because its mountains cause a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the Greek government's difficulties controlling industrial pollution, was responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced. This issue is not unique to Athens; for instance, Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer from similar atmospheric inversion problems.
The Cephissus river, the Ilisos and the Eridanos stream are the historical rivers of Athens.
Environment
By the late 1970s, the pollution of Athens had become so destructive that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, "...the carved details on the five the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated." A series of measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in the improvement of air quality; the appearance of smog (or nefos as the Athenians used to call it) has become less common.
Measures taken by the Greek authorities throughout the 1990s have improved the quality of air over the Attica Basin. Nevertheless, air pollution still remains an issue for Athens, particularly during the hottest summer days. In late June 2007, the Attica region experienced a number of brush fires, including a blaze that burned a significant portion of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha, considered critical to maintaining a better air quality in Athens all year round. Damage to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the improvement of air quality in the city.
The major waste management efforts undertaken in the last decade (particularly the plant built on the small island of Psytalia) have greatly improved water quality in the Saronic Gulf, and the coastal waters of Athens are now accessible again to swimmers.
Parks and zoos
Parnitha National Park is punctuated by well-marked paths, gorges, springs, torrents and caves dotting the protected area. Hiking and mountain-biking in all four mountains are popular outdoor activities for residents of the city. The National Garden of Athens was completed in 1840 and is a green refuge of 15.5 hectares in the centre of the Greek capital. It is to be found between the Parliament and Zappeion buildings, the latter of which maintains its own garden of seven hectares. Parts of the City Centre have been redeveloped under a masterplan called the Unification of Archeological Sites of Athens, which has also gathered funding from the EU to help enhance the project. The landmark Dionysiou Areopagitou Street has been pedestrianised, forming a scenic route. The route starts from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, continues under the southern slopes of the Acropolis near Plaka, and finishes just beyond the Temple of Hephaestus in Thiseio. The route in its entirety provides visitors with views of the Parthenon and the Agora (the meeting point of ancient Athenians), away from the busy City Centre.
The hills of Athens also provide green space. Lycabettus, Philopappos hill and the area around it, including Pnyx and Ardettos hill, are planted with pines and other trees, with the character of a small forest rather than typical metropolitan parkland. Also to be found is the Pedion tou Areos (Field of Mars) of 27.7 hectares, near the National Archaeological Museum. Athens' largest zoo is the Attica Zoological Park, a 20-hectare (49-acre) private zoo located in the suburb of Spata. The zoo is home to around 2000 animals representing 400 species, and is open 365 days a year. Smaller zoos exist within public gardens or parks, such as the zoo within the National Garden of Athens.
Climate
Athens has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). According to the meteorological station near the city center which is operated by the National Observatory of Athens, the downtown area has an annual average temperature of 19.2 °C (66.6 °F) while parts of the urban agglomeration may reach up to 19.8 °C (67.6 °F), being affected by the urban heat island effect. Athens receives about 433.1 millimetres (17.05 in) of precipitation per year, largely concentrated during the colder half of the year with the remaining rainfall falling sparsely, mainly during thunderstorms. Fog is rare in the city center, but somewhat more frequent in areas to the east, close to mount Hymettus.
The southern section of the Athens metropolitan area (i.e., Elliniko, Athens Riviera) lies in the transitional zone between Mediterranean (Csa) and hot semi-arid climate (BSh), with its port-city of Piraeus being the most extreme example, receiving just 331.9 millimetres (13.07 in) per year. The areas to the south generally see less extreme temperature variations as their climate is moderated by the Saronic gulf. The northern part of the city (i.e., Kifissia), owing to its higher elevation, features moderately lower temperatures and slightly increased precipitation year-round. The generally dry climate of the Athens basin compared to the precipitation amounts seen in a typical Mediterranean climate is due to the rain shadow effect caused by the Pindus mountain range and the Dirfys and Parnitha mountains, substantially drying the westerly and northerly winds respectively.
Snowfall is not very common, though it occurs almost annually, but it usually does not cause heavy disruption to daily life, in contrast to the northern parts of the city, where blizzards occur on a somewhat more regular basis. The most recent examples include the snowstorms of 16 February 2021 and 24 January 2022, when the entire urban area was blanketed in snow.
Athens may get particularly hot in the summer, owing partly to the strong urban heat island effect characterizing the city. In fact, Athens is considered to be the hottest city in mainland Europe, and is the first city in Europe to appoint a chief heat officer to deal with severe heat waves. Temperatures of 47.5°C have been reported in several locations of the metropolitan area, including within the urban agglomeration. Metropolitan Athens was until 2021 the holder of the World Meteorological Organization record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe with 48.0 °C (118.4 °F) which was recorded in the areas of Elefsina and Tatoi on 10 July 1977.
Administration
Athens became the capital of Greece in 1834, following Nafplion, which was the provisional capital from 1829. The municipality (City) of Athens is also the capital of the Attica region. The term Athens can refer either to the Municipality of Athens, to Greater Athens or urban area, or to the entire Athens Metropolitan Area.
The large City Centre (Greek: Κέντρο της Αθήνας) of the Greek capital falls directly within the Municipality of Athens or Athens Municipality (Greek: Δήμος Αθηναίων)—also City of Athens. Athens Municipality is the largest in population size in Greece. Piraeus also forms a significant city centre on its own within the Athens Urban Area and it is the second largest in population size within it.
Athens Urban Area
The Athens Urban Area (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Αθηνών), also known as Urban Area of the Capital (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Πρωτεύουσας) or Greater Athens (Greek: Ευρύτερη Αθήνα), today consists of 40 municipalities, 35 of which make up what was referred to as the former Athens Prefecture municipalities, located within 4 regional units (North Athens, West Athens, Central Athens, South Athens); and a further 5 municipalities, which make up the former Piraeus Prefecture municipalities, located within the regional unit of Piraeus as mentioned above.
The Athens Municipality forms the core and center of Greater Athens, which in its turn consists of the Athens Municipality and 40 more municipalities, divided in four regional units (Central, North, South and West Athens), accounting for 2,611,713 people (in 2021) within an area of 361 km2 (139 sq mi). Until 2010, which made up the abolished Athens Prefecture and the municipality of Piraeus, the historic Athenian port, with 4 other municipalities make up the regional unit of Piraeus. The regional units of Central Athens, North Athens, South Athens, West Athens and Piraeus with part of East and West Attica regional units combined make up the continuous Athens Urban Area, also called the "Urban Area of the Capital" or simply "Athens" (the most common use of the term), spanning over 412 km2 (159 sq mi), with a population of 3,059,764 people as of 2021. The Athens Urban Area is considered to form the city of Athens as a whole, despite its administrative divisions, which is the largest in Greece and the 9th most populated urban area in Europe.
Demographics
The Municipality of Athens has an official population of 643,452 people (in 2021). According to the 2021 Population and Housing Census, The four regional units that make up what is referred to as Greater Athens have a combined population of 2,611,713 . They together with the regional unit of Piraeus (Greater Piraeus) make up the dense Athens Urban Area which reaches a total population of 3,059,764 inhabitants (in 2021).
The municipality (Center) of Athens is the most populous in Greece, with a population of 643,452 people (in 2021) and an area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi), forming the core of the Athens Urban Area within the Attica Basin. The incumbent Mayor of Athens is Kostas Bakoyannis of New Democracy. The municipality is divided into seven municipal districts which are mainly used for administrative purposes.
For the Athenians the most popular way of dividing the downtown is through its neighbourhoods such as Pagkrati, Ampelokipoi, Goudi, Exarcheia, Patisia, Ilisia, Petralona, Plaka, Anafiotika, Koukaki, Kolonaki and Kypseli, each with its own distinct history and characteristics.
Safety
Athens ranks in the lowest percentage for the risk on frequency and severity of terrorist attacks according to the EU Global Terrorism Database (EIU 2007–2016 calculations). The city also ranked 35th in Digital Security, 21st on Health Security, 29th on Infrastructure Security and 41st on Personal Security globally in a 2017 The Economist Intelligence Unit report. It also ranks as a very safe city (39th globally out of 162 cities overall) on the ranking of the safest and most dangerous countries. As May 2022 the crime index from Numbeo places Athens at 56.33 (moderate), while its safety index is at 43.68.Crime in Athens According to a Mercer 2019 Quality of Living Survey, Athens ranks 89th on the Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranking.
Economy
Athens is the financial capital of Greece. According to data from 2014, Athens as a metropolitan economic area produced US$130 billion as GDP in PPP, which consists of nearly half of the production for the whole country. Athens was ranked 102nd in that year's list of global economic metropolises, while GDP per capita for the same year was 32,000 US-dollars.
Athens is one of the major economic centres in south-eastern Europe and is considered a regional economic power. The port of Piraeus, where big investments by COSCO have already been delivered during the recent decade, the completion of the new Cargo Centre in Thriasion, the expansion of the Athens Metro and the Athens Tram, as well as the Hellenikon metropolitan park redevelopment in Elliniko and other urban projects, are the economic landmarks of the upcoming years.
Prominent Greek companies such as Hellas Sat, Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Mytilineos Holdings, Titan Cement, Hellenic Petroleum, Papadopoulos E.J., Folli Follie, Jumbo S.A., OPAP, and Cosmote have their headquarters in the metropolitan area of Athens. Multinational companies such as Ericsson, Sony, Siemens, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft, Teleperformance, Novartis, Mondelez and Coca-Cola also have their regional research and development headquarters in the city.
The banking sector is represented by National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Piraeus Bank, while the Bank of Greece is also situated in the City Centre. The Athens Stock Exchange was severely hit by the Greek government-debt crisis and the decision of the government to proceed into capital controls during summer 2015. As a whole the economy of Athens and Greece was strongly affected, while data showed a change from long recession to growth of 1.4% from 2017 onwards.
Tourism is also a leading contributor to the economy of the city, as one of Europe's top destinations for city-break tourism, and also the gateway for excursions to both the islands and other parts of the mainland. Greece attracted 26.5 million visitors in 2015, 30.1 million visitors in 2017, and over 33 million in 2018, making Greece one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world, and contributing 18% to the country's GDP. Athens welcomed more than 5 million tourists in 2018, and 1.4 million were "city-breakers"; this was an increase by over a million city-breakers since 2013.
Tourism
Athens has been a destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the city's infrastructure and social amenities have improved, in part because of its successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The Greek Government, aided by the EU, has funded major infrastructure projects such as the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, the expansion of the Athens Metro system, and the new Attiki Odos Motorway
Education
Located on Panepistimiou Street, the old campus of the University of Athens, the National Library, and the Athens Academy form the "Athens Trilogy" built in the mid-19th century. The largest and oldest university in Athens is the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Most of the functions of NKUA have been transferred to a campus in the eastern suburb of Zografou. The National Technical University of Athens is located on Patision Street.
The University of West Attica is the second largest university in Athens. The seat of the university is located in the western area of Athens, where the philosophers of Ancient Athens delivered lectures. All the activities of UNIWA are carried out in the modern infrastructure of the three University Campuses within the metropolitan region of Athens (Egaleo Park, Ancient Olive Groove and Athens), which offer modern teaching and research spaces, entertainment and support facilities for all students. Other universities that lie within Athens are the Athens University of Economics and Business, the Panteion University, the Agricultural University of Athens and the University of Piraeus.
There are overall ten state-supported Institutions of Higher (or Tertiary) education located in the Athens Urban Area, these are by chronological order: Athens School of Fine Arts (1837), National Technical University of Athens (1837), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1837), Agricultural University of Athens (1920), Athens University of Economics and Business (1920), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (1927), University of Piraeus (1938), Harokopio University of Athens (1990), School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (2002), University of West Attica (2018). There are also several other private colleges, as they called formally in Greece, as the establishment of private universities is prohibited by the constitution. Many of them are accredited by a foreign state or university such as the American College of Greece and the Athens Campus of the University of Indianapolis.
Culture
The city is a world centre of archaeological research. Alongside national academic institutions, such as the Athens University and the Archaeological Society, it is home to multiple archaeological museums, taking in the National Archaeological Museum, the Cycladic Museum, the Epigraphic Museum, the Byzantine & Christian Museum, as well as museums at the ancient Agora, Acropolis, Kerameikos, and the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum. The city is also the setting for the Demokritos laboratory for Archaeometry, alongside regional and national archaeological authorities forming part of the Greek Department of Culture.
Athens hosts 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes which promote and facilitate research by scholars from their home countries. As a result, Athens has more than a dozen archaeological libraries and three specialized archaeological laboratories, and is the venue of several hundred specialized lectures, conferences and seminars, as well as dozens of archaeological exhibitions each year. At any given time, hundreds of international scholars and researchers in all disciplines of archaeology are to be found in the city.
Athens' most important museums include:
the National Archaeological Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the country, and one of the most important internationally, as it contains a vast collection of antiquities. Its artefacts cover a period of more than 5,000 years, from late Neolithic Age to Roman Greece;
the Benaki Museum with its several branches for each of its collections including ancient, Byzantine, Ottoman-era, Chinese art and beyond;
the Byzantine and Christian Museum, one of the most important museums of Byzantine art;
the National Art Gallery, the nation's eponymous leading gallery, which reopened in 2021 after renovation;
the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2000 in a former brewery building;
the Numismatic Museum, housing a major collection of ancient and modern coins;
the Museum of Cycladic Art, home to an extensive collection of Cycladic art, including its famous figurines of white marble;
the New Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, and replacing the old museum on the Acropolis. The new museum has proved considerably popular; almost one million people visited during the summer period June–October 2009 alone. A number of smaller and privately owned museums focused on Greek culture and arts are also to be found.
the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, a museum which displays artifacts from the burial site of Kerameikos. Much of the pottery and other artifacts relate to Athenian attitudes towards death and the afterlife, throughout many ages.
the Jewish Museum of Greece, a museum which describes the history and culture of the Greek Jewish community.
Architecture
Athens incorporates architectural styles ranging from Greco-Roman and Neoclassical to Modern. They are often to be found in the same areas, as Athens is not marked by a uniformity of architectural style. A visitor will quickly notice the absence of tall buildings: Athens has very strict height restriction laws in order to ensure the Acropolis Hill is visible throughout the city. Despite the variety in styles, there is evidence of continuity in elements of the architectural environment throughout the city's history.
For the greatest part of the 19th century Neoclassicism dominated Athens, as well as some deviations from it such as Eclecticism, especially in the early 20th century. Thus, the Old Royal Palace was the first important public building to be built, between 1836 and 1843. Later in the mid and late 19th century, Theophil Freiherr von Hansen and Ernst Ziller took part in the construction of many neoclassical buildings such as the Athens Academy and the Zappeion Hall. Ziller also designed many private mansions in the centre of Athens which gradually became public, usually through donations, such as Schliemann's Iliou Melathron.
Beginning in the 1920s, modern architecture including Bauhaus and Art Deco began to exert an influence on almost all Greek architects, and buildings both public and private were constructed in accordance with these styles. Localities with a great number of such buildings include Kolonaki, and some areas of the centre of the city; neighbourhoods developed in this period include Kypseli.
In the 1950s and 1960s during the extension and development of Athens, other modern movements such as the International style played an important role. The centre of Athens was largely rebuilt, leading to the demolition of a number of neoclassical buildings. The architects of this era employed materials such as glass, marble and aluminium, and many blended modern and classical elements. After World War II, internationally known architects to have designed and built in the city included Walter Gropius, with his design for the US Embassy, and, among others, Eero Saarinen, in his postwar design for the east terminal of the Ellinikon Airport.
Urban sculpture
Across the city numerous statues or busts are to be found. Apart from the neoclassicals by Leonidas Drosis at the Academy of Athens (Plato, Socrates, Apollo and Athena), others in notable categories include the statue of Theseus by Georgios Fytalis at Thiseion; depictions of philhellenes such as Lord Byron, George Canning, and William Gladstone; the equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis by Lazaros Sochos in front of the Old Parliament; statues of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais at the University; of Evangelos Zappas and Konstantinos Zappas at the Zappeion; Ioannis Varvakis at the National Garden; the" Woodbreaker" by Dimitrios Filippotis; the equestrian statue of Alexandros Papagos in the Papagou district; and various busts of fighters of Greek independence at the Pedion tou Areos. A significant landmark is also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma.
Entertainment and performing arts
Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other city in the world, including the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus, home to the Athens Festival, which runs from May to October each year. In addition to a large number of multiplexes, Athens plays host to open air garden cinemas. The city also supports music venues, including the Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Moussikis), which attracts world class artists. The Athens Planetarium, located in Andrea Syngrou Avenue, in Palaio Faliro is one of the largest and best equipped digital planetaria in the world. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, inaugurated in 2016, will house the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera. In 2018 Athens was designated as the World Book Capital by UNESCO.
Restaurants, tavernas and bars can be found in the entertainment hubs in Plaka and the Trigono areas of the historic centre, the inner suburbs of Gazi and Psyrri are especially busy with nightclubs and bars, while Kolonaki, Exarchia, Metaxourgeio, Koukaki and Pangrati offer more of a cafe and restaurant scene. The coastal suburbs of Microlimano, Alimos and Glyfada include many tavernas, beach bars and busy summer clubs.
The most successful songs during the period 1870–1930 were the Athenian serenades (Αθηναϊκές καντάδες), based on the Heptanesean kantádhes (καντάδες 'serenades'; sing.: καντάδα) and the songs performed on stage (επιθεωρησιακά τραγούδια 'theatrical revue songs') in revues, musical comedies, operettas and nocturnes that were dominating Athens' theatre scene.
In 1922, following the war, genocide and later population exchange suffered by the Greek population of Asia Minor, many ethnic Greeks fled to Athens. They settled in poor neighbourhoods and brought with them Rebetiko music, making it also popular in Greece, and which later became the base for the Laïko music. Other forms of song popular today in Greece are elafrolaika, entechno, dimotika, and skyladika. Greece's most notable, and internationally famous, composers of Greek song, mainly of the entechno form, are Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. Both composers have achieved fame abroad for their composition of film scores.
The renowned American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas spent her teenage years in Athens, where she settled in 1937. Her professional opera career started in 1940 in Athens, with the Greek National Opera. In 2018, the city's municipal Olympia Theatre was renamed to "Olympia City Music Theatre 'Maria Callas'" and in 2023, the Municipality inaugurated the Maria Callas Museum, housing it in a neoclassical building on 44 Mitropoleos street.
Sports
The Panathenaic Stadium of Athens (Kallimarmaron) dates back to the fourth century BC and has hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
Agia Sophia Stadium
Athens has a long tradition in sports and sporting events, serving as home to the most important clubs in Greek sport and housing a large number of sports facilities. The city has also been host to sports events of international importance.
Athens has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in 1896 and 2004. The 2004 Summer Olympics required the development of the Athens Olympic Stadium, which has since gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, and one of its most interesting modern monuments. The biggest stadium in the country, it hosted two finals of the UEFA Champions League, in 1994 and 2007. Athens' other major stadiums are the Karaiskakis Stadium located in Piraeus, a sports and entertainment complex, host of the 1971 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, and Agia Sophia Stadium located in Nea Filadelfeia.
Athens has hosted the EuroLeague final three times, the
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The Temple of Olympian Zeus is a former colossal temple at the centre of the Greek capital, Athens. It was dedicated to "Olympian" Zeus, a name originating from his position as head 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, but it was not completed until the reign of Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, some 638 years after the project had begun. During the Roman period, the temple, which included 104 colossal columns, was renowned as the largest temple in Greece and housed one of the largest cult statues in the ancient world.
The temple's glory was short-lived, as it fell into disuse after being pillaged during a barbarian invasion in 267 AD, just about a century after its completion. It was probably never repaired and was reduced to ruins thereafter. In the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, it was extensively quarried for building materials to supply building projects elsewhere in the city. However a substantial part of the temple remains today, notably 16 of the original gigantic columns, and it continues to be part of a very important archaeological site in Greece.
History
The temple is about 500 m (0.3 mi) south-east of the Acropolis, and about 700 m (0.4 mi) south of the center of Athens, Syntagma Square. Its foundations were laid on the site of an ancient outdoor sanctuary dedicated to Zeus. An earlier temple had stood there, constructed by the tyrant Peisistratus around 550 BC. The building was demolished after the death of Peisistratus and the construction of a colossal new Temple of Olympian Zeus was begun around 520 BC by his sons, Hippias and Hipparchos. They sought to surpass two famous contemporary temples, the Heraion of Samos and the second Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Designed by the architects Antistates, Callaeschrus, Antimachides and Phormos, the Temple of Olympian Zeus was intended to be built of local limestone in the Doric style on a colossal platform measuring 41 m (135 ft) by 108 m (354 ft). It was to be flanked by a double colonnade of eight columns across the front and back and twenty-one on the flanks, surrounding the cella.
The work was abandoned when the tyranny was overthrown and Hippias was expelled in 510 BC. Only the platform and some elements of the columns had been completed by that point, and the temple remained in that state for 336 years. The temple was left unfinished during the years of Athenian democracy, apparently because the Greeks thought it was hubris to build on such a scale. In his treatise Politics, Aristotle cited the temple as an example of how tyrannies engaged the populace in great works for the state (like a white elephant) and left them no time, energy or means to rebel.
It was not until 174 BC that the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who presented himself as the earthly embodiment of Zeus, revived the project and placed the Roman architect Decimus Cossutius in charge. The design was changed to have three rows of eight columns across the front and back of the temple and a double row of twenty on the flanks, for a total of 104 columns. The columns would stand 17 m (56 ft) high and 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in diameter. The building material was changed to the expensive but high-quality Pentelic marble and the order was changed from Doric to Corinthian, marking the first time that this order had been used on the exterior of a major temple. However, the project ground to a halt again in 164 BC with the death of Antiochus. The temple was still only half-finished by that stage.
Serious damage was inflicted on the partly built temple by Lucius Cornelius Sulla's sack of Athens in 86 BC. While looting the city, Sulla seized some of the incomplete columns and transported them to Rome, where they were re-used in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. A half-hearted attempt was made to complete the temple during Augustus' reign as the first Roman emperor, but it was not until the accession of Hadrian in the 2nd century AD that the project was finally completed, around 638 years after it had begun.
Am 5. Juli 2024 bot der Besuch von Kamari auf der Peloponnes in Griechenland einen klaren Himmel und milde Temperaturen, ideal, um den Sonnenuntergang am Strand zu genießen. Die sanfte Brise und die angenehme Wärme des Abends schufen eine perfekte Kulisse für die Erkundung der Umgebung und das Erleben der Natur.
Kamari, ein kleiner Ort auf der Peloponnes, ist von einer reichen Geschichte umgeben, die tief in die antike griechische Zivilisation verwurzelt ist. Die Peloponnes ist eine Halbinsel im Süden Griechenlands und hat im Laufe der Jahrhunderte zahlreiche bedeutende Ereignisse erlebt. Bereits in der Antike war die Region von großer Bedeutung, da sie Heimatstadt vieler bekannter Städte und Schauplatz berühmter Schlachten war.
Die Lage von Kamari an der Küste macht den Ort zu einem idealen Ausgangspunkt, um die natürliche Schönheit der Region zu erkunden. Die Küste der Peloponnes ist geprägt von felsigen Buchten, malerischen Stränden und klarem Wasser, das zu den schönsten in Griechenland zählt. Die Landschaft der Umgebung bietet ein faszinierendes Wechselspiel von Bergen und Meer, das über Jahrtausende hinweg die Menschen in dieser Region beeinflusst hat.
Historisch gesehen war die Peloponnes schon immer eine strategisch wichtige Region. Städte wie Sparta, Korinth und Mykene sind untrennbar mit der Geschichte der Peloponnes verbunden. In unmittelbarer Nähe von Kamari befinden sich auch einige dieser historischen Stätten, die heute als bedeutende archäologische Ausgrabungen bekannt sind. Die Verbindung von Natur und Geschichte verleiht der Region eine besondere Bedeutung, die sich in vielen Aspekten der Kultur widerspiegelt.
Der Strand von Kamari ist ein beliebter Ort, um den Tag zu verbringen, besonders in den frühen Abendstunden, wenn die Sonne langsam im Westen untergeht. Der Sonnenuntergang taucht das Meer und den Himmel in intensive Farben, was für Fotografen und Naturliebhaber besonders reizvoll ist. Diese ruhigen Momente am Strand, begleitet von den sanften Wellen des Meeres, bieten eine Gelegenheit zur Entspannung und zur Reflexion über die Geschichte und Kultur dieser faszinierenden Region.
Als Reiseziel bietet Kamari auf der Peloponnes die Möglichkeit, sowohl die natürliche Schönheit der griechischen Küste zu erleben als auch in die tief verwurzelte Geschichte der Region einzutauchen. Die Mischung aus historischen Stätten und atemberaubenden Landschaften macht Kamari zu einem interessanten Ziel für Reisende, die sowohl Kultur als auch Natur genießen möchten.
Wikipedia-Link: [Peloponnes](de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnes)
Kamera und Objektiv
Sony QX1 und Sony SEL18200
Sony A6500 und Sony SEL18200LE
Sony ILCE-7CR und Sony SEL24240
Bildinformation:
12MP - 3464 x 3465 px - ca. 3 bis 6MB
Bildbearbeitung: Adobe Photoshop Express
#Griechenland #Peloponnes #Kamari #Sonnenuntergang #Strand #Mittelmeer #Naturfotografie #ReiseFotografie #Fotografie #Reisen #Sehenswürdigkeiten #GriechischeKüste #Archäologie #HistorischeStätten #GriechenlandEntdecken #Kulturreise #Küstenlandschaft #Landschaftsfotografie #GriechenlandReise #Meeresfotografie #SonnenuntergangFotografie #Sommerabend #Mittelmeerraum #Küstenorte #ReisezielGriechenland #Naturerlebnis #GriechenlandFotografie #SonnenuntergangKamari #KamariPeloponnes #StrandKamari #PeloponnesGeschichte #MythologieGriechenland #AncientGreece #Photography #TravelPhotography #NaturePhotography #Greece #Peloponnese #Kamari #Sunset #Beach #Mediterranean #GreeceCoast #Archaeology #HistoricalSites #DiscoverGreece #CulturalTravel #CoastalLandscape #LandscapePhotography #GreeceTravel #SeaPhotography #SunsetPhotography #SummerEvening #MediterraneanRegion #CoastalTowns #TravelDestinationGreece #NatureExperience #GreecePhotography #SunsetKamari #KamariPeloponnese #BeachKamari #PeloponneseHistory #GreekMythology
Santorini, classically Thera and officially Thira, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago, which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and contains the richest collection of Greek Antiquity artifacts worldwide. It is situated in the Exarcheia area in central Athens between Epirus Street, Bouboulinas Street and Tositsas Street while its entrance is on the Patission Street adjacent to the historical building of the Athens Polytechnic university.
History
The first national archaeological museum in Greece was established by the governor of Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias in Aigina in 1829. Subsequently, the archaeological collection was relocated to a number of exhibition places until 1858, when an international architectural competition was announced for the location and the architectural design of the new museum.
The current location was proposed and the construction of the museum's building began in 1866 and was completed in 1889 using funds from the Greek Government, the Greek Archaeological Society and the society of Mycenae. Major benefactors were Eleni Tositsa who donated the land for the building of the museum, and Demetrios and Nikolaos Vernardakis from Saint Petersburg who donated a large amount for the completion of the museum.
The initial name for the museum was The Central Museum. It was renamed to its current name in 1881 by Prime Minister of Greece Charilaos Trikoupis. In 1887 the important archaeologist Valerios Stais became the museum's curator.
During World War II the museum was closed and the antiquities were sealed in special protective boxes and buried, in order to avoid their destruction and looting. In 1945 exhibits were again displayed under the direction of Christos Karouzos and Semni Karouzou. The south wing of the museum houses the Epigraphic Museum with the richest collection of inscriptions in the world. The inscriptions museum expanded between 1953 and 1960 with the architectural designs of Patroklos Karantinos.
In 2023, the Greek government approved plans for a 20,000 square metre underground extension to the museum. The extension is expected to be completed by 2028 and will also feature a rooftop garden.
The building
The museum has an imposing neo-classical design which was very popular in Europe at the time and is in accordance with the classical style artifacts that it houses. The initial plan was conceived by the architect Ludwig Lange and it was later modified by Panagis Kalkos who was the main architect, Armodios Vlachos and Ernst Ziller. At the front of the museum there is a large neo-classic design garden which is decorated with sculptures.
Expansions and renovations
The building has undergone many expansions. Most important were the construction of a new east wing in the early 20th century based on the plans of Anastasios Metaxas and the construction of a two-storeyed building, designed by George Nomikos, during 1932–1939. These expansions were necessary to accommodate the rapidly growing collection of artifacts. The most recent refurbishment of the museum took more than 1.5 years to complete, during which the museum remained completely closed. It reopened in July 2004, in time for the Athens Olympics and it included an aesthetic and technical upgrade of the building, installation of a modern air-conditioning system, reorganisation of the museum's collection and repair of the damage caused by the 1999 earthquake. The Minoan frescoes rooms opened to the public in 2005. In May 2008 the Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis inaugurated the much anticipated collection of Egyptian antiquities and the collection of Eleni and Antonis Stathatos.
In 2020, there was renewed discussion regarding the need to further expand the museum to adjacent areas. A new plan was made for a subterranean expansion at the front of the museum.
In 2023, the Greek government approved plans for a 20,000 square metre underground extension to the museum. The extension is expected to be completed by 2028 and will also feature a rooftop garden.
Prehistoric collection
The prehistoric collection displays objects from the Neolithic era (6800–3000 BC), Early and Mid-Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC and 2000 to 1700 BC respectively), objects classified as Cycladic and Mycenaean art.
Mycenean art collection
Mycenean civilization is represented by stone, bronze and ceramic pots, figurines, ivory, glass and faience objects, golden seals and rings from the vaulted tombs in Mycenae and other locations in the Peloponnese (Tiryns and Dendra in Argolis, Pylos in Messinia and Vaphio in Lakonia). Of great interest are the two golden cups from Vafeio showing a scene of the capture of a bull.
Heinrich Schliemann finds
Mycenean collection includes also the magnificent 19th-century finds of Heinrich Schliemann in Mycenae from the Grave Circle A and the earlier Grave Circle B. Most notable are the golden funerary masks which covered the faces of deceased Mycenean nobles. Among them, the most famous is the one that was named erroneously as the mask of Agamemnon. There are also finds from the citadel of Mycenae including relief stelae, golden containers, glass, alabaster and amber tools and jewels. Other features include an ivory carving of two goddesses with a child, a painted limestone head of a goddess and the famous warrior's vase dating from the 12th century.
Egyptian art collection
The Egyptian collection dates back to the last twenty years of the 19th century. Notable is the donation of the Egyptian government which in 1893 offered nine mummies of the era of the Pharaohs from Bab el-Gasus. However, the Egyptian collection is mainly by two donors, Ioannis Dimitriou (in 1880) and of Alexandros Rostovic (in 1904). In total the collection includes more than 6000 artefacts, 1100 of which are available presently for the public. The collection is considered to be one of the best collections of Egyptian art in the world. The exhibition features rare statues, tools, jewels, mummies, a wooden body tag for a mummy, a stunning bronze statue of a princess, intact bird eggs and a 3000-year-old loaf of bread with a bite-sized chunk missing. The exhibition centrepiece is a bronze statue of the princess-priestess Takushit, dating to around 670 BC. Standing 70 cm high and wearing a gown covered in hieroglyphs, the statue was found south of Alexandria in 1880.
Stathatos collection
The Stathatos collection is named for the donors and major Greek benefactors Antonis and Eleni Stathatos. The collection features about 1000 objects, mainly jewels as well as metal objects, vases, and pottery from the Middle Bronze Age to post-Byzantine era. Features of special note are the Hellenistic period golden jewels from Karpenissi and Thessaly.
Artists and artifacts
Some of the ancient artists whose work is presented in the museum are Myron, Scopas, Euthymides, Lydos, Agoracritus, Agasias, Pan Painter, Wedding Painter, Meleager Painter, Cimon of Cleonae, Nessos Painter, Damophon, Aison (vase painter), Analatos Painter, Polygnotos (vase painter), Hermonax.
Collections include sculpture work, Loutrophoros, amphora, Hydria, Skyphos, Krater, Pelike, and lekythos vessels, Stele, frescoes, jewellery, weapons, tools, coins, toys and other ancient items.
Artifacts derive from archaeological excavations in Santorini, Mycenae, Tiryns, Dodona, Vaphio, Rhamnous, Lycosura, Aegean islands, Delos, the Temple of Aphaea in Aegina, the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in Sparta, Pylos, Thebes, Athens, Vari Cave, the Antikythera wreck and from various other places in Greece.
The museum houses the archaic terracota statuette daidala that inspired the designers of the 2004 Athens Olympics maskots Athena and Phevos.
New exhibits
Two of the newest exhibits of the museum include a 4th-century BC golden funerary wreath and a 6th-century BC marble statue of a woman, which were returned as stolen artifacts to Greece in 2007 by the Getty Museum in California, after a 10-year-long legal dispute between the Getty Center and the Greek Government. One year earlier, the Los Angeles foundation agreed to return a 4th-century BC tombstone from near Greek Thebes and a 6th-century BC votive relief from the island of Thassos.
Museum highlights
Antikythera Ephebe
Antikythera mechanism
Aphrodite of Syracuse
Apollo Omphalos
Armed Aphrodite
Artemision Bronze
Atalante Hermes
Bronze Statuette of Athletic Spartan Girl
Bust of Antinous
Capitoline Venus
Daidala
Diadumenos
Dipylon inscription
Funerary naiskos of Aristonautes
Funerary Stela of Demokleides
Great Eleusinian Relief
Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros
Heracles of Antikythera
Hermes Criophorus
Hermes of Aegium
Jockey of Artemision
Kouroi and Korai:
Kroisos Kouros
Merenda Kouros
Phrasikleia Kore
Sounion Kouros
Lemnos stela
Lenormant Athena
Lycosoura Artemis
Lycosoura Demeter
Mantineia Base
Marathon Boy
Mask of Agamemnon
Mycenean Warrior Vase
Nestor's Cup
Nike of Epidaurus
Nike of Megara
Ninnion Tablet
Pitsa panels
Poseidon of Melos
Rhyton in the shape of a bull head
Theseus Ring
Varvakeion Athena
Wall frescoes from Tiryns and Santorini
Library of archaeology
The museum houses a 118-year-old library of archeology with rare ancient art, science and philosophy books and publications. The library has some 20,000 volumes, including rare editions dating to the 17th century. The bibliography covers archaeology, history, arts, ancient religions and ancient Greek philosophy, as well as Ancient Greek and Latin literature. Of particular value are the diaries of various excavations including those of Heinrich Schliemann. The collection of archaeology books is the richest of its kind in Greece. The Library has been recently renovated with funds from the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation. Its renovation was completed on 26 May 2008 and is now named after Alexander Onassis.
Athens is a major coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, and it is both the capital and the largest city of Greece. With its urban area's population numbering over three million, it is also the eighth largest urban area in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. The city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.
Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason, it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a huge cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2023, Athens metropolitan area and its surrounding municipalities (consisting the regional area of Attica) has a population of approximately 3.8 million.
Athens is a Beta-status global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in Southeastern Europe. It also has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the 2nd busiest passenger port in Europe, and the 13th largest container port in the world. The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens metropolitan area or Greater Athens extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits as well as its urban agglomeration, with a population of 3,638,281 (2021) over an area of 2,928.717 km2 (1,131 sq mi). Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland.
The heritage of the Classical Era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments, and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western culture. The city also retains Roman, Byzantine and a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the Architectural Trilogy of Athens, consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of five cities to have hosted the Summer Olympics on multiple occasions. Athens joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Etymology and names
In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic), which is a plural word. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē). It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica. In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city. Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city,[24] because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.
According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city; they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge. According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's poem Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree. Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil. Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthonous (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect. In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").
During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. Variant names included Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases. King Alphonse X of Castile gives the pseudo-etymology 'the one without death/ignorance'. In Ottoman Turkish, it was called آتينا Ātīnā, and in modern Turkish, it is Atina.
History
Main article: History of Athens
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Athens.
Historical affiliations
Kingdom of Athens 1556 BC–1068 BC
City-state of Athens 1068 BC–322 BC
Hellenic League 338 BC–322 BC
Kingdom of Macedonia 322 BC–148 BC
Roman Republic 146 BC–27 BC
Roman Empire 27 BC–395 AD
Eastern Roman Empire 395–1205
Duchy of Athens 1205–1458
Ottoman Empire 1458–1822, 1827–1832
Greece 1822–1827, 1832–present
Antiquity
The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years (3000 BC). By 1400 BC, the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization, and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls. Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards. Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.
By the sixth century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.
The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. In the second century AD, The Roman emperor Hadrian, himself an Athenian citizen, ordered the construction of a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
In the early 4th century AD, the Eastern Roman Empire began to be governed from Constantinople, and with the construction and expansion of the imperial city, many of Athens's works of art were taken by the emperors to adorn it. The Empire became Christianized, and the use of Latin declined in favour of exclusive use of Greek; in the Roman imperial period, both languages had been used. In the later Roman period, Athens was ruled by the emperors continuing until the 13th century, its citizens identifying themselves as citizens of the Roman Empire ("Rhomaioi"). The conversion of the empire from paganism to Christianity greatly affected Athens, resulting in reduced reverence for the city.[33] Ancient monuments such as the Parthenon, Erechtheion and the Hephaisteion (Theseion) were converted into churches. As the empire became increasingly anti-pagan, Athens became a provincial town and experienced fluctuating fortunes.
The city remained an important center of learning, especially of Neoplatonism—with notable pupils including Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea and emperor Julian (r. 355–363)—and consequently a center of paganism. Christian items do not appear in the archaeological record until the early 5th century. The sack of the city by the Herules in 267 and by the Visigoths under their king Alaric I (r. 395–410) in 396, however, dealt a heavy blow to the city's fabric and fortunes, and Athens was henceforth confined to a small fortified area that embraced a fraction of the ancient city. The emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) banned the teaching of philosophy by pagans in 529, an event whose impact on the city is much debated, but is generally taken to mark the end of the ancient history of Athens. Athens was sacked by the Slavs in 582, but remained in imperial hands thereafter, as highlighted by the visit of the emperor Constans II (r. 641–668) in 662/3 and its inclusion in the Theme of Hellas.
Middle Ages
The city was threatened by Saracen raids in the 8th–9th centuries—in 896, Athens was raided and possibly occupied for a short period, an event which left some archaeological remains and elements of Arabic ornamentation in contemporary buildings—but there is also evidence of a mosque existing in the city at the time. In the great dispute over Byzantine Iconoclasm, Athens is commonly held to have supported the iconophile position, chiefly due to the role played by Empress Irene of Athens in the ending of the first period of Iconoclasm at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. A few years later, another Athenian, Theophano, became empress as the wife of Staurakios (r. 811–812).
Invasion of the empire by the Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, and the ensuing civil wars, largely passed the region by and Athens continued its provincial existence unharmed. When the Byzantine Empire was rescued by the resolute leadership of the three Komnenos emperors Alexios, John and Manuel, Attica and the rest of Greece prospered. Archaeological evidence tells us that the medieval town experienced a period of rapid and sustained growth, starting in the 11th century and continuing until the end of the 12th century.
The Agora (marketplace) had been deserted since late antiquity, began to be built over, and soon the town became an important centre for the production of soaps and dyes. The growth of the town attracted the Venetians, and various other traders who frequented the ports of the Aegean, to Athens. This interest in trade appears to have further increased the economic prosperity of the town.
The 11th and 12th centuries were the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Athens. Almost all of the most important Middle Byzantine churches in and around Athens were built during these two centuries, and this reflects the growth of the town in general. However, this medieval prosperity was not to last. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade conquered Athens and the city was not recovered from the Latins before it was taken by the Ottoman Turks. It did not become Greek in government again until the 19th century.
From 1204 until 1458, Athens was ruled by Latins in three separate periods, following the Crusades. The "Latins", or "Franks", were western Europeans and followers of the Latin Church brought to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Crusades. Along with rest of Byzantine Greece, Athens was part of the series of feudal fiefs, similar to the Crusader states established in Syria and on Cyprus after the First Crusade. This period is known as the Frankokratia.
Ottoman Athens
The first Ottoman attack on Athens, which involved a short-lived occupation of the town, came in 1397, under the Ottoman generals Yaqub Pasha and Timurtash. Finally, in 1458, Athens was captured by the Ottomans under the personal leadership of Sultan Mehmed II. As the Ottoman Sultan rode into the city, he was greatly struck by the beauty of its ancient monuments and issued a firman (imperial edict) forbidding their looting or destruction, on pain of death. The Parthenon was converted into the main mosque of the city.
Under Ottoman rule, Athens was denuded of any importance and its population severely declined, leaving it as a "small country town" (Franz Babinger). From the early 17th century, Athens came under the jurisdiction of the Kizlar Agha, the chief black eunuch of the Sultan's harem. The city had originally been granted by Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) to Basilica, one of his favourite concubines, who hailed from the city, in response of complaints of maladministration by the local governors. After her death, Athens came under the purview of the Kizlar Agha.
The Turks began a practice of storing gunpowder and explosives in the Parthenon and Propylaea. In 1640, a lightning bolt struck the Propylaea, causing its destruction. In 1687, during the Morean War, the Acropolis was besieged by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini, and the temple of Athena Nike was dismantled by the Ottomans to fortify the Parthenon. A shot fired during the bombardment of the Acropolis caused a powder magazine in the Parthenon to explode (26 September), and the building was severely damaged, giving it largely the appearance it has today. The Venetian occupation of Athens lasted for six months, and both the Venetians and the Ottomans participated in the looting of the Parthenon. One of its western pediments was removed, causing even more damage to the structure. During the Venetian occupation, the two mosques of the city were converted into Catholic and Protestant churches, but on 9 April 1688 the Venetians abandoned Athens again to the Ottomans.
Modern history
In 1822, a Greek insurgency captured the city, but it fell to the Ottomans again in 1826 (though Acropolis held till June 1827). Again the ancient monuments suffered badly. The Ottoman forces remained in possession until March 1833, when they withdrew. At that time, the city (as throughout the Ottoman period) had a small population of an estimated 400 houses, mostly located around the Acropolis in the Plaka.
Following the Greek War of Independence and the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, Athens was chosen to replace Nafplio as the second capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834, largely because of historical and sentimental reasons. At the time, after the extensive destruction it had suffered during the war of independence, it was reduced to a town of about 4,000 people (less than half its earlier population) in a loose swarm of houses along the foot of the Acropolis. The first King of Greece, Otto of Bavaria, commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert to design a modern city plan fit for the capital of a state.
The first modern city plan consisted of a triangle defined by the Acropolis, the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos and the new palace of the Bavarian king (now housing the Greek Parliament), so as to highlight the continuity between modern and ancient Athens. Neoclassicism, the international style of this epoch, was the architectural style through which Bavarian, French and Greek architects such as Hansen, Klenze, Boulanger or Kaftantzoglou designed the first important public buildings of the new capital. In 1896, Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games. During the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War and Greek genocide, swelled Athens's population; nevertheless it was most particularly following World War II, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion.
In the 1980s, it became evident that smog from factories and an ever-increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to congestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge.[citation needed] A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city. In 2004, Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Geography
Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens Basin or the Attica Basin (Greek: Λεκανοπέδιο Αθηνών/Αττικής). The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aigaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east. Beyond Mount Aegaleo lies the Thriasian plain, which forms an extension of the central plain to the west. The Saronic Gulf lies to the southwest. Mount Parnitha is the tallest of the four mountains (1,413 m (4,636 ft)), and has been declared a national park. The Athens urban area spreads over 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Agios Stefanos in the north to Varkiza in the south. The city is located in the north temperate zone, 38 degrees north of the equator.
Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and provides a view of the entire Attica Basin. The meteorology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world because its mountains cause a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the Greek government's difficulties controlling industrial pollution, was responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced. This issue is not unique to Athens; for instance, Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer from similar atmospheric inversion problems.
The Cephissus river, the Ilisos and the Eridanos stream are the historical rivers of Athens.
Environment
By the late 1970s, the pollution of Athens had become so destructive that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, "...the carved details on the five the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated." A series of measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in the improvement of air quality; the appearance of smog (or nefos as the Athenians used to call it) has become less common.
Measures taken by the Greek authorities throughout the 1990s have improved the quality of air over the Attica Basin. Nevertheless, air pollution still remains an issue for Athens, particularly during the hottest summer days. In late June 2007, the Attica region experienced a number of brush fires, including a blaze that burned a significant portion of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha, considered critical to maintaining a better air quality in Athens all year round. Damage to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the improvement of air quality in the city.
The major waste management efforts undertaken in the last decade (particularly the plant built on the small island of Psytalia) have greatly improved water quality in the Saronic Gulf, and the coastal waters of Athens are now accessible again to swimmers.
Parks and zoos
Parnitha National Park is punctuated by well-marked paths, gorges, springs, torrents and caves dotting the protected area. Hiking and mountain-biking in all four mountains are popular outdoor activities for residents of the city. The National Garden of Athens was completed in 1840 and is a green refuge of 15.5 hectares in the centre of the Greek capital. It is to be found between the Parliament and Zappeion buildings, the latter of which maintains its own garden of seven hectares. Parts of the City Centre have been redeveloped under a masterplan called the Unification of Archeological Sites of Athens, which has also gathered funding from the EU to help enhance the project. The landmark Dionysiou Areopagitou Street has been pedestrianised, forming a scenic route. The route starts from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, continues under the southern slopes of the Acropolis near Plaka, and finishes just beyond the Temple of Hephaestus in Thiseio. The route in its entirety provides visitors with views of the Parthenon and the Agora (the meeting point of ancient Athenians), away from the busy City Centre.
The hills of Athens also provide green space. Lycabettus, Philopappos hill and the area around it, including Pnyx and Ardettos hill, are planted with pines and other trees, with the character of a small forest rather than typical metropolitan parkland. Also to be found is the Pedion tou Areos (Field of Mars) of 27.7 hectares, near the National Archaeological Museum. Athens' largest zoo is the Attica Zoological Park, a 20-hectare (49-acre) private zoo located in the suburb of Spata. The zoo is home to around 2000 animals representing 400 species, and is open 365 days a year. Smaller zoos exist within public gardens or parks, such as the zoo within the National Garden of Athens.
Climate
Athens has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). According to the meteorological station near the city center which is operated by the National Observatory of Athens, the downtown area has an annual average temperature of 19.2 °C (66.6 °F) while parts of the urban agglomeration may reach up to 19.8 °C (67.6 °F), being affected by the urban heat island effect. Athens receives about 433.1 millimetres (17.05 in) of precipitation per year, largely concentrated during the colder half of the year with the remaining rainfall falling sparsely, mainly during thunderstorms. Fog is rare in the city center, but somewhat more frequent in areas to the east, close to mount Hymettus.
The southern section of the Athens metropolitan area (i.e., Elliniko, Athens Riviera) lies in the transitional zone between Mediterranean (Csa) and hot semi-arid climate (BSh), with its port-city of Piraeus being the most extreme example, receiving just 331.9 millimetres (13.07 in) per year. The areas to the south generally see less extreme temperature variations as their climate is moderated by the Saronic gulf. The northern part of the city (i.e., Kifissia), owing to its higher elevation, features moderately lower temperatures and slightly increased precipitation year-round. The generally dry climate of the Athens basin compared to the precipitation amounts seen in a typical Mediterranean climate is due to the rain shadow effect caused by the Pindus mountain range and the Dirfys and Parnitha mountains, substantially drying the westerly and northerly winds respectively.
Snowfall is not very common, though it occurs almost annually, but it usually does not cause heavy disruption to daily life, in contrast to the northern parts of the city, where blizzards occur on a somewhat more regular basis. The most recent examples include the snowstorms of 16 February 2021 and 24 January 2022, when the entire urban area was blanketed in snow.
Athens may get particularly hot in the summer, owing partly to the strong urban heat island effect characterizing the city. In fact, Athens is considered to be the hottest city in mainland Europe, and is the first city in Europe to appoint a chief heat officer to deal with severe heat waves. Temperatures of 47.5°C have been reported in several locations of the metropolitan area, including within the urban agglomeration. Metropolitan Athens was until 2021 the holder of the World Meteorological Organization record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe with 48.0 °C (118.4 °F) which was recorded in the areas of Elefsina and Tatoi on 10 July 1977.
Administration
Athens became the capital of Greece in 1834, following Nafplion, which was the provisional capital from 1829. The municipality (City) of Athens is also the capital of the Attica region. The term Athens can refer either to the Municipality of Athens, to Greater Athens or urban area, or to the entire Athens Metropolitan Area.
The large City Centre (Greek: Κέντρο της Αθήνας) of the Greek capital falls directly within the Municipality of Athens or Athens Municipality (Greek: Δήμος Αθηναίων)—also City of Athens. Athens Municipality is the largest in population size in Greece. Piraeus also forms a significant city centre on its own within the Athens Urban Area and it is the second largest in population size within it.
Athens Urban Area
The Athens Urban Area (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Αθηνών), also known as Urban Area of the Capital (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Πρωτεύουσας) or Greater Athens (Greek: Ευρύτερη Αθήνα), today consists of 40 municipalities, 35 of which make up what was referred to as the former Athens Prefecture municipalities, located within 4 regional units (North Athens, West Athens, Central Athens, South Athens); and a further 5 municipalities, which make up the former Piraeus Prefecture municipalities, located within the regional unit of Piraeus as mentioned above.
The Athens Municipality forms the core and center of Greater Athens, which in its turn consists of the Athens Municipality and 40 more municipalities, divided in four regional units (Central, North, South and West Athens), accounting for 2,611,713 people (in 2021) within an area of 361 km2 (139 sq mi). Until 2010, which made up the abolished Athens Prefecture and the municipality of Piraeus, the historic Athenian port, with 4 other municipalities make up the regional unit of Piraeus. The regional units of Central Athens, North Athens, South Athens, West Athens and Piraeus with part of East and West Attica regional units combined make up the continuous Athens Urban Area, also called the "Urban Area of the Capital" or simply "Athens" (the most common use of the term), spanning over 412 km2 (159 sq mi), with a population of 3,059,764 people as of 2021. The Athens Urban Area is considered to form the city of Athens as a whole, despite its administrative divisions, which is the largest in Greece and the 9th most populated urban area in Europe.
Demographics
The Municipality of Athens has an official population of 643,452 people (in 2021). According to the 2021 Population and Housing Census, The four regional units that make up what is referred to as Greater Athens have a combined population of 2,611,713 . They together with the regional unit of Piraeus (Greater Piraeus) make up the dense Athens Urban Area which reaches a total population of 3,059,764 inhabitants (in 2021).
The municipality (Center) of Athens is the most populous in Greece, with a population of 643,452 people (in 2021) and an area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi), forming the core of the Athens Urban Area within the Attica Basin. The incumbent Mayor of Athens is Kostas Bakoyannis of New Democracy. The municipality is divided into seven municipal districts which are mainly used for administrative purposes.
For the Athenians the most popular way of dividing the downtown is through its neighbourhoods such as Pagkrati, Ampelokipoi, Goudi, Exarcheia, Patisia, Ilisia, Petralona, Plaka, Anafiotika, Koukaki, Kolonaki and Kypseli, each with its own distinct history and characteristics.
Safety
Athens ranks in the lowest percentage for the risk on frequency and severity of terrorist attacks according to the EU Global Terrorism Database (EIU 2007–2016 calculations). The city also ranked 35th in Digital Security, 21st on Health Security, 29th on Infrastructure Security and 41st on Personal Security globally in a 2017 The Economist Intelligence Unit report. It also ranks as a very safe city (39th globally out of 162 cities overall) on the ranking of the safest and most dangerous countries. As May 2022 the crime index from Numbeo places Athens at 56.33 (moderate), while its safety index is at 43.68.Crime in Athens According to a Mercer 2019 Quality of Living Survey, Athens ranks 89th on the Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranking.
Economy
Athens is the financial capital of Greece. According to data from 2014, Athens as a metropolitan economic area produced US$130 billion as GDP in PPP, which consists of nearly half of the production for the whole country. Athens was ranked 102nd in that year's list of global economic metropolises, while GDP per capita for the same year was 32,000 US-dollars.
Athens is one of the major economic centres in south-eastern Europe and is considered a regional economic power. The port of Piraeus, where big investments by COSCO have already been delivered during the recent decade, the completion of the new Cargo Centre in Thriasion, the expansion of the Athens Metro and the Athens Tram, as well as the Hellenikon metropolitan park redevelopment in Elliniko and other urban projects, are the economic landmarks of the upcoming years.
Prominent Greek companies such as Hellas Sat, Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Mytilineos Holdings, Titan Cement, Hellenic Petroleum, Papadopoulos E.J., Folli Follie, Jumbo S.A., OPAP, and Cosmote have their headquarters in the metropolitan area of Athens. Multinational companies such as Ericsson, Sony, Siemens, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft, Teleperformance, Novartis, Mondelez and Coca-Cola also have their regional research and development headquarters in the city.
The banking sector is represented by National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Piraeus Bank, while the Bank of Greece is also situated in the City Centre. The Athens Stock Exchange was severely hit by the Greek government-debt crisis and the decision of the government to proceed into capital controls during summer 2015. As a whole the economy of Athens and Greece was strongly affected, while data showed a change from long recession to growth of 1.4% from 2017 onwards.
Tourism is also a leading contributor to the economy of the city, as one of Europe's top destinations for city-break tourism, and also the gateway for excursions to both the islands and other parts of the mainland. Greece attracted 26.5 million visitors in 2015, 30.1 million visitors in 2017, and over 33 million in 2018, making Greece one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world, and contributing 18% to the country's GDP. Athens welcomed more than 5 million tourists in 2018, and 1.4 million were "city-breakers"; this was an increase by over a million city-breakers since 2013.
Tourism
Athens has been a destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the city's infrastructure and social amenities have improved, in part because of its successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The Greek Government, aided by the EU, has funded major infrastructure projects such as the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, the expansion of the Athens Metro system, and the new Attiki Odos Motorway
Education
Located on Panepistimiou Street, the old campus of the University of Athens, the National Library, and the Athens Academy form the "Athens Trilogy" built in the mid-19th century. The largest and oldest university in Athens is the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Most of the functions of NKUA have been transferred to a campus in the eastern suburb of Zografou. The National Technical University of Athens is located on Patision Street.
The University of West Attica is the second largest university in Athens. The seat of the university is located in the western area of Athens, where the philosophers of Ancient Athens delivered lectures. All the activities of UNIWA are carried out in the modern infrastructure of the three University Campuses within the metropolitan region of Athens (Egaleo Park, Ancient Olive Groove and Athens), which offer modern teaching and research spaces, entertainment and support facilities for all students. Other universities that lie within Athens are the Athens University of Economics and Business, the Panteion University, the Agricultural University of Athens and the University of Piraeus.
There are overall ten state-supported Institutions of Higher (or Tertiary) education located in the Athens Urban Area, these are by chronological order: Athens School of Fine Arts (1837), National Technical University of Athens (1837), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1837), Agricultural University of Athens (1920), Athens University of Economics and Business (1920), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (1927), University of Piraeus (1938), Harokopio University of Athens (1990), School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (2002), University of West Attica (2018). There are also several other private colleges, as they called formally in Greece, as the establishment of private universities is prohibited by the constitution. Many of them are accredited by a foreign state or university such as the American College of Greece and the Athens Campus of the University of Indianapolis.
Culture
The city is a world centre of archaeological research. Alongside national academic institutions, such as the Athens University and the Archaeological Society, it is home to multiple archaeological museums, taking in the National Archaeological Museum, the Cycladic Museum, the Epigraphic Museum, the Byzantine & Christian Museum, as well as museums at the ancient Agora, Acropolis, Kerameikos, and the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum. The city is also the setting for the Demokritos laboratory for Archaeometry, alongside regional and national archaeological authorities forming part of the Greek Department of Culture.
Athens hosts 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes which promote and facilitate research by scholars from their home countries. As a result, Athens has more than a dozen archaeological libraries and three specialized archaeological laboratories, and is the venue of several hundred specialized lectures, conferences and seminars, as well as dozens of archaeological exhibitions each year. At any given time, hundreds of international scholars and researchers in all disciplines of archaeology are to be found in the city.
Athens' most important museums include:
the National Archaeological Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the country, and one of the most important internationally, as it contains a vast collection of antiquities. Its artefacts cover a period of more than 5,000 years, from late Neolithic Age to Roman Greece;
the Benaki Museum with its several branches for each of its collections including ancient, Byzantine, Ottoman-era, Chinese art and beyond;
the Byzantine and Christian Museum, one of the most important museums of Byzantine art;
the National Art Gallery, the nation's eponymous leading gallery, which reopened in 2021 after renovation;
the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2000 in a former brewery building;
the Numismatic Museum, housing a major collection of ancient and modern coins;
the Museum of Cycladic Art, home to an extensive collection of Cycladic art, including its famous figurines of white marble;
the New Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, and replacing the old museum on the Acropolis. The new museum has proved considerably popular; almost one million people visited during the summer period June–October 2009 alone. A number of smaller and privately owned museums focused on Greek culture and arts are also to be found.
the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, a museum which displays artifacts from the burial site of Kerameikos. Much of the pottery and other artifacts relate to Athenian attitudes towards death and the afterlife, throughout many ages.
the Jewish Museum of Greece, a museum which describes the history and culture of the Greek Jewish community.
Architecture
Athens incorporates architectural styles ranging from Greco-Roman and Neoclassical to Modern. They are often to be found in the same areas, as Athens is not marked by a uniformity of architectural style. A visitor will quickly notice the absence of tall buildings: Athens has very strict height restriction laws in order to ensure the Acropolis Hill is visible throughout the city. Despite the variety in styles, there is evidence of continuity in elements of the architectural environment throughout the city's history.
For the greatest part of the 19th century Neoclassicism dominated Athens, as well as some deviations from it such as Eclecticism, especially in the early 20th century. Thus, the Old Royal Palace was the first important public building to be built, between 1836 and 1843. Later in the mid and late 19th century, Theophil Freiherr von Hansen and Ernst Ziller took part in the construction of many neoclassical buildings such as the Athens Academy and the Zappeion Hall. Ziller also designed many private mansions in the centre of Athens which gradually became public, usually through donations, such as Schliemann's Iliou Melathron.
Beginning in the 1920s, modern architecture including Bauhaus and Art Deco began to exert an influence on almost all Greek architects, and buildings both public and private were constructed in accordance with these styles. Localities with a great number of such buildings include Kolonaki, and some areas of the centre of the city; neighbourhoods developed in this period include Kypseli.
In the 1950s and 1960s during the extension and development of Athens, other modern movements such as the International style played an important role. The centre of Athens was largely rebuilt, leading to the demolition of a number of neoclassical buildings. The architects of this era employed materials such as glass, marble and aluminium, and many blended modern and classical elements. After World War II, internationally known architects to have designed and built in the city included Walter Gropius, with his design for the US Embassy, and, among others, Eero Saarinen, in his postwar design for the east terminal of the Ellinikon Airport.
Urban sculpture
Across the city numerous statues or busts are to be found. Apart from the neoclassicals by Leonidas Drosis at the Academy of Athens (Plato, Socrates, Apollo and Athena), others in notable categories include the statue of Theseus by Georgios Fytalis at Thiseion; depictions of philhellenes such as Lord Byron, George Canning, and William Gladstone; the equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis by Lazaros Sochos in front of the Old Parliament; statues of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais at the University; of Evangelos Zappas and Konstantinos Zappas at the Zappeion; Ioannis Varvakis at the National Garden; the" Woodbreaker" by Dimitrios Filippotis; the equestrian statue of Alexandros Papagos in the Papagou district; and various busts of fighters of Greek independence at the Pedion tou Areos. A significant landmark is also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma.
Entertainment and performing arts
Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other city in the world, including the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus, home to the Athens Festival, which runs from May to October each year. In addition to a large number of multiplexes, Athens plays host to open air garden cinemas. The city also supports music venues, including the Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Moussikis), which attracts world class artists. The Athens Planetarium, located in Andrea Syngrou Avenue, in Palaio Faliro is one of the largest and best equipped digital planetaria in the world. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, inaugurated in 2016, will house the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera. In 2018 Athens was designated as the World Book Capital by UNESCO.
Restaurants, tavernas and bars can be found in the entertainment hubs in Plaka and the Trigono areas of the historic centre, the inner suburbs of Gazi and Psyrri are especially busy with nightclubs and bars, while Kolonaki, Exarchia, Metaxourgeio, Koukaki and Pangrati offer more of a cafe and restaurant scene. The coastal suburbs of Microlimano, Alimos and Glyfada include many tavernas, beach bars and busy summer clubs.
The most successful songs during the period 1870–1930 were the Athenian serenades (Αθηναϊκές καντάδες), based on the Heptanesean kantádhes (καντάδες 'serenades'; sing.: καντάδα) and the songs performed on stage (επιθεωρησιακά τραγούδια 'theatrical revue songs') in revues, musical comedies, operettas and nocturnes that were dominating Athens' theatre scene.
In 1922, following the war, genocide and later population exchange suffered by the Greek population of Asia Minor, many ethnic Greeks fled to Athens. They settled in poor neighbourhoods and brought with them Rebetiko music, making it also popular in Greece, and which later became the base for the Laïko music. Other forms of song popular today in Greece are elafrolaika, entechno, dimotika, and skyladika. Greece's most notable, and internationally famous, composers of Greek song, mainly of the entechno form, are Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. Both composers have achieved fame abroad for their composition of film scores.
The renowned American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas spent her teenage years in Athens, where she settled in 1937. Her professional opera career started in 1940 in Athens, with the Greek National Opera. In 2018, the city's municipal Olympia Theatre was renamed to "Olympia City Music Theatre 'Maria Callas'" and in 2023, the Municipality inaugurated the Maria Callas Museum, housing it in a neoclassical building on 44 Mitropoleos street.
Sports
The Panathenaic Stadium of Athens (Kallimarmaron) dates back to the fourth century BC and has hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
Agia Sophia Stadium
Athens has a long tradition in sports and sporting events, serving as home to the most important clubs in Greek sport and housing a large number of sports facilities. The city has also been host to sports events of international importance.
Athens has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in 1896 and 2004. The 2004 Summer Olympics required the development of the Athens Olympic Stadium, which has since gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, and one of its most interesting modern monuments. The biggest stadium in the country, it hosted two finals of the UEFA Champions League, in 1994 and 2007. Athens' other major stadiums are the Karaiskakis Stadium located in Piraeus, a sports and entertainment complex, host of the 1971 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, and Agia Sophia Stadium located in Nea Filadelfeia.
Athens has hosted the EuroLeague final three times, the first in 1985 and second in 1993, both at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, most known as SEF, a large indoor arena, and the third time in 2007 at the Olympic Indoor Hall. Events in other sports such as athletics, volleyball, water polo etc., have been hosted in the capital's venues.
Athens is home to three European multi-sport clubs: Panathinaikos, originated in Athens city centre, Olympiacos, originated in the suburb of Piraeus and AEK Athens, originated in the suburb of Nea Filadelfeia. In football, Panathinaikos made it to the 1971 European Cup Final, Olympiacos have dominated domestic competitions, while AEK Athens is the other member of the big three. These clubs also have basketball teams; Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are among the top powers in European basketball, having won the Euroleague six times and three respectively, whilst AEK Athens was the first Greek team to win a European trophy in any team sport.
Other notable clubs within Athens are Athinaikos, Panionios, Atromitos, Apollon, Panellinios, Egaleo F.C., Ethnikos Piraeus, Maroussi BC and Peristeri B.C. Athenian clubs have also had domestic and international success in other sports.
The Athens area encompasses a variety of terrain, notably hills and mountains rising around the city, and the capital is the only major city in Europe to be bisected by a mountain range. Four mountain ranges extend into city boundaries and thousands of kilometres of trails criss-cross the city and neighbouring areas, providing exercise and wilderness access on foot and bike.
Beyond Athens and across the prefecture of Attica, outdoor activities include skiing, rock climbing, hang gliding and windsurfing. Numerous outdoor clubs serve these sports, including the Athens Chapter of the Sierra Club, which leads over 4,000 outings annually in the area.
Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics on 5 September 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland, after having lost a previous bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, to Atlanta, United States. It was to be the second time Athens would host the games, following the inaugural event of 1896. After an unsuccessful bid in 1990, the 1997 bid was radically improved, including an appeal to Greece's Olympic history. In the last round of voting, Athens defeated Rome with 66 votes to 41. Prior to this round, the cities of Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Cape Town had been eliminated from competition, having received fewer votes. Although the heavy cost was criticized, estimated at $1.5 billion, Athens was transformed into a more functional city that enjoys modern technology both in transportation and in modern urban development. The games welcomed over 10,000 athletes from all 202 countries.
Santorini, classically Thera and officially Thira, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago, which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera.
Ios is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides, situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini.
The Church of the Holy Trinity is a Byzantine-era church at Filellinon Street that serves the Russian Orthodox community of Athens, Greece.
History
The church is known by a variety of names: the Russian Church (Ρωσική Εκκλησία), or St. Nikodemos (Greek: Άγιος Νικόδημος), a name of modern origin that is a corruption of its original name Soteira Lykodimou (Σωτείρα Λυκοδήμου, "the [Virgin] Saviouress of Lykodemos"), with "Lykodemos" probably the family name of one of its founders. It was originally the katholikon of a large convent, but the rest of the convent was torn down in 1778 by the Ottoman governor, Hadji Ali Haseki, to construct new city wall.
The 19th-century Greek archaeologist K. Pittakes suggested a connection between the name "Lykodemos" and the classical Lyceum of Aristotle. While the suggestion can not be proved, excavations prior to the church's reconstruction in the 1850s revealed the foundations of an earlier church on the site, dating to the 6th century, when the city's Classical traditions were still remembered. However, the discovery of the Lyceum's actual site in 1996 disproved that theory.
A number of graffiti in the church indicate that the present structure was built before 1044 (or even earlier, 1031), and mention the name of the protoktetor ("first founder"), Stephen. Its morphology, which closely emulates that of Hosios Loukas, completed in 1011, indicates a terminus post quem for its construction. No further information about the church is known during the subsequent centuries, until the earthquake of 3 September 1705, when it suffered considerable damage, after which it is believed to have been repaired and its interior decoration renewed. However, the 19th-century Russian archimandrite Antonin further reported that the church was abandoned already in the 16th century, along with the wider area.
In 1821, during the Greek siege of the Acropolis, it was severely damaged by a cannonball fired by the Ottoman defenders: two-thirds of the dome and the entire west wall, as well as the vaults above the narthex, collapsed. As a result, after the end of the Greek War of Independence it was abandoned and gradually fell to ruin. In 1847, the Russian tsar Nicholas I proposed to acquire the church to provide religious services to the Russian community in Athens. The Greek government agreed, provided that the existing church be restored to its original state.
The technical committee assembled to examine the church initially concluded that it would be best if it were demolished and replaced by a new structure, but in the end, it was decided to restore and rebuild it as close as possible to the original. The work was carried out from 1850 to 1855, under the supervision of Greek Army major T. Vlasopoulos; the dome, western side and almost all vaults were removed and replaced, but the eastern side, much of the northern and southern side, as well as the lower parts of the western wall, are those of the original Byzantine building. A number of more or less radical interventions, however, were made that altered the building considerably. At the instigation of the French scholar A. Couchaud, all interior non-bearing walls were removed, in an attempt to restore the church to its "original" state. While some of these walls were indeed later 18th-century additions, many were integral to the original church, serving to delimit its functional spaces. Vlasopoulos also added "elaborate doorways, window mullions and above all the high chamfered marble crépis", which "detracted from the monument's authenticity", while the marble templon of the church was carried off and never restored. It is now known only through a drawing by the French A. Lenoir, probably sketched in 1840.
Description
The largest surviving Byzantine church in Athens, it is "clearly the earliest and most faithful copy" of the great katholikon of the Hosios Loukas monastery, both in morphology, dimensions—the Athenian church features measurements almost exactly three quarters those of Hosios Loukas—and in decoration. Its design is a typically middle Byzantine cross-in-square, with a dome resting on an octagonal base. The masonry is of high quality, with dressed stones separated by double courses of bricks. The exterior features pseudo-Kufic decorative designs of brick, similar to Hosios Loukas and another Athenian church, the Church of the Holy Apostles, which is roughly contemporary. Some are placed individually amidst the masonry, but others have been used to form a frieze running on three sides of the building, with champlevé ornaments on white plaster, emulating contemporary Byzantine art.
The present interior decoration consists of frescoes that were carried out as part of the mid-19th century restoration by the German artist Ludwig Thiersch, with the assistance of Nikiforos Lytras and Spyridon Hatzigiannopoulos. Save for a bust of Christ and two angels on an arch on the southern wall of the church, the previous interior decoration of the church has been lost. Most of what is known about it comes from the sketches made by the French scholar Paul Durand. From the available evidence, the building had undergone at least three further phases of decoration during its history until then, the last in the early 18th century, as part of the repairs to the damage caused by the 1705 earthquake. According to Durand's sketches, most of the decoration represented late examples of the Cretan School. however the dome paintings, which showed eight angels surrounding and supporting the large Christ Pantokrator in the dome, probably dated to the original decorative ensemble from the 11th century.
Athens is a major coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, and it is both the capital and the largest city of Greece. With its urban area's population numbering over three million, it is also the eighth largest urban area in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. The city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.
Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason, it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a huge cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2023, Athens metropolitan area and its surrounding municipalities (consisting the regional area of Attica) has a population of approximately 3.8 million.
Athens is a Beta-status global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in Southeastern Europe. It also has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the 2nd busiest passenger port in Europe, and the 13th largest container port in the world. The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens metropolitan area or Greater Athens extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits as well as its urban agglomeration, with a population of 3,638,281 (2021) over an area of 2,928.717 km2 (1,131 sq mi). Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland.
The heritage of the Classical Era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments, and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western culture. The city also retains Roman, Byzantine and a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the Architectural Trilogy of Athens, consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of five cities to have hosted the Summer Olympics on multiple occasions. Athens joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Etymology and names
In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic), which is a plural word. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē). It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica. In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city. Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city,[24] because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.
According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city; they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge. According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's poem Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree. Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil. Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthonous (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect. In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").
During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. Variant names included Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases. King Alphonse X of Castile gives the pseudo-etymology 'the one without death/ignorance'. In Ottoman Turkish, it was called آتينا Ātīnā, and in modern Turkish, it is Atina.
History
Main article: History of Athens
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Athens.
Historical affiliations
Kingdom of Athens 1556 BC–1068 BC
City-state of Athens 1068 BC–322 BC
Hellenic League 338 BC–322 BC
Kingdom of Macedonia 322 BC–148 BC
Roman Republic 146 BC–27 BC
Roman Empire 27 BC–395 AD
Eastern Roman Empire 395–1205
Duchy of Athens 1205–1458
Ottoman Empire 1458–1822, 1827–1832
Greece 1822–1827, 1832–present
Antiquity
The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years (3000 BC). By 1400 BC, the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization, and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls. Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards. Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.
By the sixth century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.
The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. In the second century AD, The Roman emperor Hadrian, himself an Athenian citizen, ordered the construction of a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
In the early 4th century AD, the Eastern Roman Empire began to be governed from Constantinople, and with the construction and expansion of the imperial city, many of Athens's works of art were taken by the emperors to adorn it. The Empire became Christianized, and the use of Latin declined in favour of exclusive use of Greek; in the Roman imperial period, both languages had been used. In the later Roman period, Athens was ruled by the emperors continuing until the 13th century, its citizens identifying themselves as citizens of the Roman Empire ("Rhomaioi"). The conversion of the empire from paganism to Christianity greatly affected Athens, resulting in reduced reverence for the city.[33] Ancient monuments such as the Parthenon, Erechtheion and the Hephaisteion (Theseion) were converted into churches. As the empire became increasingly anti-pagan, Athens became a provincial town and experienced fluctuating fortunes.
The city remained an important center of learning, especially of Neoplatonism—with notable pupils including Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea and emperor Julian (r. 355–363)—and consequently a center of paganism. Christian items do not appear in the archaeological record until the early 5th century. The sack of the city by the Herules in 267 and by the Visigoths under their king Alaric I (r. 395–410) in 396, however, dealt a heavy blow to the city's fabric and fortunes, and Athens was henceforth confined to a small fortified area that embraced a fraction of the ancient city. The emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) banned the teaching of philosophy by pagans in 529, an event whose impact on the city is much debated, but is generally taken to mark the end of the ancient history of Athens. Athens was sacked by the Slavs in 582, but remained in imperial hands thereafter, as highlighted by the visit of the emperor Constans II (r. 641–668) in 662/3 and its inclusion in the Theme of Hellas.
Middle Ages
The city was threatened by Saracen raids in the 8th–9th centuries—in 896, Athens was raided and possibly occupied for a short period, an event which left some archaeological remains and elements of Arabic ornamentation in contemporary buildings—but there is also evidence of a mosque existing in the city at the time. In the great dispute over Byzantine Iconoclasm, Athens is commonly held to have supported the iconophile position, chiefly due to the role played by Empress Irene of Athens in the ending of the first period of Iconoclasm at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. A few years later, another Athenian, Theophano, became empress as the wife of Staurakios (r. 811–812).
Invasion of the empire by the Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, and the ensuing civil wars, largely passed the region by and Athens continued its provincial existence unharmed. When the Byzantine Empire was rescued by the resolute leadership of the three Komnenos emperors Alexios, John and Manuel, Attica and the rest of Greece prospered. Archaeological evidence tells us that the medieval town experienced a period of rapid and sustained growth, starting in the 11th century and continuing until the end of the 12th century.
The Agora (marketplace) had been deserted since late antiquity, began to be built over, and soon the town became an important centre for the production of soaps and dyes. The growth of the town attracted the Venetians, and various other traders who frequented the ports of the Aegean, to Athens. This interest in trade appears to have further increased the economic prosperity of the town.
The 11th and 12th centuries were the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Athens. Almost all of the most important Middle Byzantine churches in and around Athens were built during these two centuries, and this reflects the growth of the town in general. However, this medieval prosperity was not to last. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade conquered Athens and the city was not recovered from the Latins before it was taken by the Ottoman Turks. It did not become Greek in government again until the 19th century.
From 1204 until 1458, Athens was ruled by Latins in three separate periods, following the Crusades. The "Latins", or "Franks", were western Europeans and followers of the Latin Church brought to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Crusades. Along with rest of Byzantine Greece, Athens was part of the series of feudal fiefs, similar to the Crusader states established in Syria and on Cyprus after the First Crusade. This period is known as the Frankokratia.
Ottoman Athens
The first Ottoman attack on Athens, which involved a short-lived occupation of the town, came in 1397, under the Ottoman generals Yaqub Pasha and Timurtash. Finally, in 1458, Athens was captured by the Ottomans under the personal leadership of Sultan Mehmed II. As the Ottoman Sultan rode into the city, he was greatly struck by the beauty of its ancient monuments and issued a firman (imperial edict) forbidding their looting or destruction, on pain of death. The Parthenon was converted into the main mosque of the city.
Under Ottoman rule, Athens was denuded of any importance and its population severely declined, leaving it as a "small country town" (Franz Babinger). From the early 17th century, Athens came under the jurisdiction of the Kizlar Agha, the chief black eunuch of the Sultan's harem. The city had originally been granted by Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) to Basilica, one of his favourite concubines, who hailed from the city, in response of complaints of maladministration by the local governors. After her death, Athens came under the purview of the Kizlar Agha.
The Turks began a practice of storing gunpowder and explosives in the Parthenon and Propylaea. In 1640, a lightning bolt struck the Propylaea, causing its destruction. In 1687, during the Morean War, the Acropolis was besieged by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini, and the temple of Athena Nike was dismantled by the Ottomans to fortify the Parthenon. A shot fired during the bombardment of the Acropolis caused a powder magazine in the Parthenon to explode (26 September), and the building was severely damaged, giving it largely the appearance it has today. The Venetian occupation of Athens lasted for six months, and both the Venetians and the Ottomans participated in the looting of the Parthenon. One of its western pediments was removed, causing even more damage to the structure. During the Venetian occupation, the two mosques of the city were converted into Catholic and Protestant churches, but on 9 April 1688 the Venetians abandoned Athens again to the Ottomans.
Modern history
In 1822, a Greek insurgency captured the city, but it fell to the Ottomans again in 1826 (though Acropolis held till June 1827). Again the ancient monuments suffered badly. The Ottoman forces remained in possession until March 1833, when they withdrew. At that time, the city (as throughout the Ottoman period) had a small population of an estimated 400 houses, mostly located around the Acropolis in the Plaka.
Following the Greek War of Independence and the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, Athens was chosen to replace Nafplio as the second capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834, largely because of historical and sentimental reasons. At the time, after the extensive destruction it had suffered during the war of independence, it was reduced to a town of about 4,000 people (less than half its earlier population) in a loose swarm of houses along the foot of the Acropolis. The first King of Greece, Otto of Bavaria, commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert to design a modern city plan fit for the capital of a state.
The first modern city plan consisted of a triangle defined by the Acropolis, the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos and the new palace of the Bavarian king (now housing the Greek Parliament), so as to highlight the continuity between modern and ancient Athens. Neoclassicism, the international style of this epoch, was the architectural style through which Bavarian, French and Greek architects such as Hansen, Klenze, Boulanger or Kaftantzoglou designed the first important public buildings of the new capital. In 1896, Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games. During the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War and Greek genocide, swelled Athens's population; nevertheless it was most particularly following World War II, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion.
In the 1980s, it became evident that smog from factories and an ever-increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to congestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge.[citation needed] A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city. In 2004, Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Geography
Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens Basin or the Attica Basin (Greek: Λεκανοπέδιο Αθηνών/Αττικής). The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aigaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east. Beyond Mount Aegaleo lies the Thriasian plain, which forms an extension of the central plain to the west. The Saronic Gulf lies to the southwest. Mount Parnitha is the tallest of the four mountains (1,413 m (4,636 ft)), and has been declared a national park. The Athens urban area spreads over 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Agios Stefanos in the north to Varkiza in the south. The city is located in the north temperate zone, 38 degrees north of the equator.
Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and provides a view of the entire Attica Basin. The meteorology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world because its mountains cause a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the Greek government's difficulties controlling industrial pollution, was responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced. This issue is not unique to Athens; for instance, Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer from similar atmospheric inversion problems.
The Cephissus river, the Ilisos and the Eridanos stream are the historical rivers of Athens.
Environment
By the late 1970s, the pollution of Athens had become so destructive that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, "...the carved details on the five the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated." A series of measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in the improvement of air quality; the appearance of smog (or nefos as the Athenians used to call it) has become less common.
Measures taken by the Greek authorities throughout the 1990s have improved the quality of air over the Attica Basin. Nevertheless, air pollution still remains an issue for Athens, particularly during the hottest summer days. In late June 2007, the Attica region experienced a number of brush fires, including a blaze that burned a significant portion of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha, considered critical to maintaining a better air quality in Athens all year round. Damage to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the improvement of air quality in the city.
The major waste management efforts undertaken in the last decade (particularly the plant built on the small island of Psytalia) have greatly improved water quality in the Saronic Gulf, and the coastal waters of Athens are now accessible again to swimmers.
Parks and zoos
Parnitha National Park is punctuated by well-marked paths, gorges, springs, torrents and caves dotting the protected area. Hiking and mountain-biking in all four mountains are popular outdoor activities for residents of the city. The National Garden of Athens was completed in 1840 and is a green refuge of 15.5 hectares in the centre of the Greek capital. It is to be found between the Parliament and Zappeion buildings, the latter of which maintains its own garden of seven hectares. Parts of the City Centre have been redeveloped under a masterplan called the Unification of Archeological Sites of Athens, which has also gathered funding from the EU to help enhance the project. The landmark Dionysiou Areopagitou Street has been pedestrianised, forming a scenic route. The route starts from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, continues under the southern slopes of the Acropolis near Plaka, and finishes just beyond the Temple of Hephaestus in Thiseio. The route in its entirety provides visitors with views of the Parthenon and the Agora (the meeting point of ancient Athenians), away from the busy City Centre.
The hills of Athens also provide green space. Lycabettus, Philopappos hill and the area around it, including Pnyx and Ardettos hill, are planted with pines and other trees, with the character of a small forest rather than typical metropolitan parkland. Also to be found is the Pedion tou Areos (Field of Mars) of 27.7 hectares, near the National Archaeological Museum. Athens' largest zoo is the Attica Zoological Park, a 20-hectare (49-acre) private zoo located in the suburb of Spata. The zoo is home to around 2000 animals representing 400 species, and is open 365 days a year. Smaller zoos exist within public gardens or parks, such as the zoo within the National Garden of Athens.
Climate
Athens has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). According to the meteorological station near the city center which is operated by the National Observatory of Athens, the downtown area has an annual average temperature of 19.2 °C (66.6 °F) while parts of the urban agglomeration may reach up to 19.8 °C (67.6 °F), being affected by the urban heat island effect. Athens receives about 433.1 millimetres (17.05 in) of precipitation per year, largely concentrated during the colder half of the year with the remaining rainfall falling sparsely, mainly during thunderstorms. Fog is rare in the city center, but somewhat more frequent in areas to the east, close to mount Hymettus.
The southern section of the Athens metropolitan area (i.e., Elliniko, Athens Riviera) lies in the transitional zone between Mediterranean (Csa) and hot semi-arid climate (BSh), with its port-city of Piraeus being the most extreme example, receiving just 331.9 millimetres (13.07 in) per year. The areas to the south generally see less extreme temperature variations as their climate is moderated by the Saronic gulf. The northern part of the city (i.e., Kifissia), owing to its higher elevation, features moderately lower temperatures and slightly increased precipitation year-round. The generally dry climate of the Athens basin compared to the precipitation amounts seen in a typical Mediterranean climate is due to the rain shadow effect caused by the Pindus mountain range and the Dirfys and Parnitha mountains, substantially drying the westerly and northerly winds respectively.
Snowfall is not very common, though it occurs almost annually, but it usually does not cause heavy disruption to daily life, in contrast to the northern parts of the city, where blizzards occur on a somewhat more regular basis. The most recent examples include the snowstorms of 16 February 2021 and 24 January 2022, when the entire urban area was blanketed in snow.
Athens may get particularly hot in the summer, owing partly to the strong urban heat island effect characterizing the city. In fact, Athens is considered to be the hottest city in mainland Europe, and is the first city in Europe to appoint a chief heat officer to deal with severe heat waves. Temperatures of 47.5°C have been reported in several locations of the metropolitan area, including within the urban agglomeration. Metropolitan Athens was until 2021 the holder of the World Meteorological Organization record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe with 48.0 °C (118.4 °F) which was recorded in the areas of Elefsina and Tatoi on 10 July 1977.
Administration
Athens became the capital of Greece in 1834, following Nafplion, which was the provisional capital from 1829. The municipality (City) of Athens is also the capital of the Attica region. The term Athens can refer either to the Municipality of Athens, to Greater Athens or urban area, or to the entire Athens Metropolitan Area.
The large City Centre (Greek: Κέντρο της Αθήνας) of the Greek capital falls directly within the Municipality of Athens or Athens Municipality (Greek: Δήμος Αθηναίων)—also City of Athens. Athens Municipality is the largest in population size in Greece. Piraeus also forms a significant city centre on its own within the Athens Urban Area and it is the second largest in population size within it.
Athens Urban Area
The Athens Urban Area (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Αθηνών), also known as Urban Area of the Capital (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Πρωτεύουσας) or Greater Athens (Greek: Ευρύτερη Αθήνα), today consists of 40 municipalities, 35 of which make up what was referred to as the former Athens Prefecture municipalities, located within 4 regional units (North Athens, West Athens, Central Athens, South Athens); and a further 5 municipalities, which make up the former Piraeus Prefecture municipalities, located within the regional unit of Piraeus as mentioned above.
The Athens Municipality forms the core and center of Greater Athens, which in its turn consists of the Athens Municipality and 40 more municipalities, divided in four regional units (Central, North, South and West Athens), accounting for 2,611,713 people (in 2021) within an area of 361 km2 (139 sq mi). Until 2010, which made up the abolished Athens Prefecture and the municipality of Piraeus, the historic Athenian port, with 4 other municipalities make up the regional unit of Piraeus. The regional units of Central Athens, North Athens, South Athens, West Athens and Piraeus with part of East and West Attica regional units combined make up the continuous Athens Urban Area, also called the "Urban Area of the Capital" or simply "Athens" (the most common use of the term), spanning over 412 km2 (159 sq mi), with a population of 3,059,764 people as of 2021. The Athens Urban Area is considered to form the city of Athens as a whole, despite its administrative divisions, which is the largest in Greece and the 9th most populated urban area in Europe.
Demographics
The Municipality of Athens has an official population of 643,452 people (in 2021). According to the 2021 Population and Housing Census, The four regional units that make up what is referred to as Greater Athens have a combined population of 2,611,713 . They together with the regional unit of Piraeus (Greater Piraeus) make up the dense Athens Urban Area which reaches a total population of 3,059,764 inhabitants (in 2021).
The municipality (Center) of Athens is the most populous in Greece, with a population of 643,452 people (in 2021) and an area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi), forming the core of the Athens Urban Area within the Attica Basin. The incumbent Mayor of Athens is Kostas Bakoyannis of New Democracy. The municipality is divided into seven municipal districts which are mainly used for administrative purposes.
For the Athenians the most popular way of dividing the downtown is through its neighbourhoods such as Pagkrati, Ampelokipoi, Goudi, Exarcheia, Patisia, Ilisia, Petralona, Plaka, Anafiotika, Koukaki, Kolonaki and Kypseli, each with its own distinct history and characteristics.
Safety
Athens ranks in the lowest percentage for the risk on frequency and severity of terrorist attacks according to the EU Global Terrorism Database (EIU 2007–2016 calculations). The city also ranked 35th in Digital Security, 21st on Health Security, 29th on Infrastructure Security and 41st on Personal Security globally in a 2017 The Economist Intelligence Unit report. It also ranks as a very safe city (39th globally out of 162 cities overall) on the ranking of the safest and most dangerous countries. As May 2022 the crime index from Numbeo places Athens at 56.33 (moderate), while its safety index is at 43.68.Crime in Athens According to a Mercer 2019 Quality of Living Survey, Athens ranks 89th on the Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranking.
Economy
Athens is the financial capital of Greece. According to data from 2014, Athens as a metropolitan economic area produced US$130 billion as GDP in PPP, which consists of nearly half of the production for the whole country. Athens was ranked 102nd in that year's list of global economic metropolises, while GDP per capita for the same year was 32,000 US-dollars.
Athens is one of the major economic centres in south-eastern Europe and is considered a regional economic power. The port of Piraeus, where big investments by COSCO have already been delivered during the recent decade, the completion of the new Cargo Centre in Thriasion, the expansion of the Athens Metro and the Athens Tram, as well as the Hellenikon metropolitan park redevelopment in Elliniko and other urban projects, are the economic landmarks of the upcoming years.
Prominent Greek companies such as Hellas Sat, Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Mytilineos Holdings, Titan Cement, Hellenic Petroleum, Papadopoulos E.J., Folli Follie, Jumbo S.A., OPAP, and Cosmote have their headquarters in the metropolitan area of Athens. Multinational companies such as Ericsson, Sony, Siemens, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft, Teleperformance, Novartis, Mondelez and Coca-Cola also have their regional research and development headquarters in the city.
The banking sector is represented by National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Piraeus Bank, while the Bank of Greece is also situated in the City Centre. The Athens Stock Exchange was severely hit by the Greek government-debt crisis and the decision of the government to proceed into capital controls during summer 2015. As a whole the economy of Athens and Greece was strongly affected, while data showed a change from long recession to growth of 1.4% from 2017 onwards.
Tourism is also a leading contributor to the economy of the city, as one of Europe's top destinations for city-break tourism, and also the gateway for excursions to both the islands and other parts of the mainland. Greece attracted 26.5 million visitors in 2015, 30.1 million visitors in 2017, and over 33 million in 2018, making Greece one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world, and contributing 18% to the country's GDP. Athens welcomed more than 5 million tourists in 2018, and 1.4 million were "city-breakers"; this was an increase by over a million city-breakers since 2013.
Tourism
Athens has been a destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the city's infrastructure and social amenities have improved, in part because of its successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The Greek Government, aided by the EU, has funded major infrastructure projects such as the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, the expansion of the Athens Metro system, and the new Attiki Odos Motorway
Education
Located on Panepistimiou Street, the old campus of the University of Athens, the National Library, and the Athens Academy form the "Athens Trilogy" built in the mid-19th century. The largest and oldest university in Athens is the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Most of the functions of NKUA have been transferred to a campus in the eastern suburb of Zografou. The National Technical University of Athens is located on Patision Street.
The University of West Attica is the second largest university in Athens. The seat of the university is located in the western area of Athens, where the philosophers of Ancient Athens delivered lectures. All the activities of UNIWA are carried out in the modern infrastructure of the three University Campuses within the metropolitan region of Athens (Egaleo Park, Ancient Olive Groove and Athens), which offer modern teaching and research spaces, entertainment and support facilities for all students. Other universities that lie within Athens are the Athens University of Economics and Business, the Panteion University, the Agricultural University of Athens and the University of Piraeus.
There are overall ten state-supported Institutions of Higher (or Tertiary) education located in the Athens Urban Area, these are by chronological order: Athens School of Fine Arts (1837), National Technical University of Athens (1837), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1837), Agricultural University of Athens (1920), Athens University of Economics and Business (1920), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (1927), University of Piraeus (1938), Harokopio University of Athens (1990), School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (2002), University of West Attica (2018). There are also several other private colleges, as they called formally in Greece, as the establishment of private universities is prohibited by the constitution. Many of them are accredited by a foreign state or university such as the American College of Greece and the Athens Campus of the University of Indianapolis.
Culture
The city is a world centre of archaeological research. Alongside national academic institutions, such as the Athens University and the Archaeological Society, it is home to multiple archaeological museums, taking in the National Archaeological Museum, the Cycladic Museum, the Epigraphic Museum, the Byzantine & Christian Museum, as well as museums at the ancient Agora, Acropolis, Kerameikos, and the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum. The city is also the setting for the Demokritos laboratory for Archaeometry, alongside regional and national archaeological authorities forming part of the Greek Department of Culture.
Athens hosts 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes which promote and facilitate research by scholars from their home countries. As a result, Athens has more than a dozen archaeological libraries and three specialized archaeological laboratories, and is the venue of several hundred specialized lectures, conferences and seminars, as well as dozens of archaeological exhibitions each year. At any given time, hundreds of international scholars and researchers in all disciplines of archaeology are to be found in the city.
Athens' most important museums include:
the National Archaeological Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the country, and one of the most important internationally, as it contains a vast collection of antiquities. Its artefacts cover a period of more than 5,000 years, from late Neolithic Age to Roman Greece;
the Benaki Museum with its several branches for each of its collections including ancient, Byzantine, Ottoman-era, Chinese art and beyond;
the Byzantine and Christian Museum, one of the most important museums of Byzantine art;
the National Art Gallery, the nation's eponymous leading gallery, which reopened in 2021 after renovation;
the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2000 in a former brewery building;
the Numismatic Museum, housing a major collection of ancient and modern coins;
the Museum of Cycladic Art, home to an extensive collection of Cycladic art, including its famous figurines of white marble;
the New Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, and replacing the old museum on the Acropolis. The new museum has proved considerably popular; almost one million people visited during the summer period June–October 2009 alone. A number of smaller and privately owned museums focused on Greek culture and arts are also to be found.
the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, a museum which displays artifacts from the burial site of Kerameikos. Much of the pottery and other artifacts relate to Athenian attitudes towards death and the afterlife, throughout many ages.
the Jewish Museum of Greece, a museum which describes the history and culture of the Greek Jewish community.
Architecture
Athens incorporates architectural styles ranging from Greco-Roman and Neoclassical to Modern. They are often to be found in the same areas, as Athens is not marked by a uniformity of architectural style. A visitor will quickly notice the absence of tall buildings: Athens has very strict height restriction laws in order to ensure the Acropolis Hill is visible throughout the city. Despite the variety in styles, there is evidence of continuity in elements of the architectural environment throughout the city's history.
For the greatest part of the 19th century Neoclassicism dominated Athens, as well as some deviations from it such as Eclecticism, especially in the early 20th century. Thus, the Old Royal Palace was the first important public building to be built, between 1836 and 1843. Later in the mid and late 19th century, Theophil Freiherr von Hansen and Ernst Ziller took part in the construction of many neoclassical buildings such as the Athens Academy and the Zappeion Hall. Ziller also designed many private mansions in the centre of Athens which gradually became public, usually through donations, such as Schliemann's Iliou Melathron.
Beginning in the 1920s, modern architecture including Bauhaus and Art Deco began to exert an influence on almost all Greek architects, and buildings both public and private were constructed in accordance with these styles. Localities with a great number of such buildings include Kolonaki, and some areas of the centre of the city; neighbourhoods developed in this period include Kypseli.
In the 1950s and 1960s during the extension and development of Athens, other modern movements such as the International style played an important role. The centre of Athens was largely rebuilt, leading to the demolition of a number of neoclassical buildings. The architects of this era employed materials such as glass, marble and aluminium, and many blended modern and classical elements. After World War II, internationally known architects to have designed and built in the city included Walter Gropius, with his design for the US Embassy, and, among others, Eero Saarinen, in his postwar design for the east terminal of the Ellinikon Airport.
Urban sculpture
Across the city numerous statues or busts are to be found. Apart from the neoclassicals by Leonidas Drosis at the Academy of Athens (Plato, Socrates, Apollo and Athena), others in notable categories include the statue of Theseus by Georgios Fytalis at Thiseion; depictions of philhellenes such as Lord Byron, George Canning, and William Gladstone; the equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis by Lazaros Sochos in front of the Old Parliament; statues of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais at the University; of Evangelos Zappas and Konstantinos Zappas at the Zappeion; Ioannis Varvakis at the National Garden; the" Woodbreaker" by Dimitrios Filippotis; the equestrian statue of Alexandros Papagos in the Papagou district; and various busts of fighters of Greek independence at the Pedion tou Areos. A significant landmark is also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma.
Entertainment and performing arts
Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other city in the world, including the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus, home to the Athens Festival, which runs from May to October each year. In addition to a large number of multiplexes, Athens plays host to open air garden cinemas. The city also supports music venues, including the Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Moussikis), which attracts world class artists. The Athens Planetarium, located in Andrea Syngrou Avenue, in Palaio Faliro is one of the largest and best equipped digital planetaria in the world. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, inaugurated in 2016, will house the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera. In 2018 Athens was designated as the World Book Capital by UNESCO.
Restaurants, tavernas and bars can be found in the entertainment hubs in Plaka and the Trigono areas of the historic centre, the inner suburbs of Gazi and Psyrri are especially busy with nightclubs and bars, while Kolonaki, Exarchia, Metaxourgeio, Koukaki and Pangrati offer more of a cafe and restaurant scene. The coastal suburbs of Microlimano, Alimos and Glyfada include many tavernas, beach bars and busy summer clubs.
The most successful songs during the period 1870–1930 were the Athenian serenades (Αθηναϊκές καντάδες), based on the Heptanesean kantádhes (καντάδες 'serenades'; sing.: καντάδα) and the songs performed on stage (επιθεωρησιακά τραγούδια 'theatrical revue songs') in revues, musical comedies, operettas and nocturnes that were dominating Athens' theatre scene.
In 1922, following the war, genocide and later population exchange suffered by the Greek population of Asia Minor, many ethnic Greeks fled to Athens. They settled in poor neighbourhoods and brought with them Rebetiko music, making it also popular in Greece, and which later became the base for the Laïko music. Other forms of song popular today in Greece are elafrolaika, entechno, dimotika, and skyladika. Greece's most notable, and internationally famous, composers of Greek song, mainly of the entechno form, are Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. Both composers have achieved fame abroad for their composition of film scores.
The renowned American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas spent her teenage years in Athens, where she settled in 1937. Her professional opera career started in 1940 in Athens, with the Greek National Opera. In 2018, the city's municipal Olympia Theatre was renamed to "Olympia City Music Theatre 'Maria Callas'" and in 2023, the Municipality inaugurated the Maria Callas Museum, housing it in a neoclassical building on 44 Mitropoleos street.
Sports
The Panathenaic Stadium of Athens (Kallimarmaron) dates back to the fourth century BC and has hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
Agia Sophia Stadium
Athens has a long tradition in sports and sporting events, serving as home to the most important clubs in Greek sport and housing a large number of sports facilities. The city has also been host to sports events of international importance.
Athens has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in 1896 and 2004. The 2004 Summer Olympics required the development of the Athens Olympic Stadium, which has since gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, and one of its most interesting modern monuments. The biggest stadium in the country, it hosted two finals of the UEFA Champions League, in 1994 and 2007. Athens' other major stadiums are the Karaiskakis Stadium located in Piraeus, a sports and entertainment complex, host of the 1971 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, and Agia Sophia Stadium located in Nea Filadelfeia.
Athens has hosted the EuroLeague final three times, the first in 1985 and second in 1993, both at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, most known as SEF, a large indoor arena, and the third time in 2007 at the Olympic Indoor Hall. Events in other sports such as athletics, volleyball, water polo etc., have been hosted in the capital's venues.
Athens is home to three European multi-sport clubs: Panathinaikos, originated in Athens city centre, Olympiacos, originated in the suburb of Piraeus and AEK Athens, originated in the suburb of Nea Filadelfeia. In football, Panathinaikos made it to the 1971 European Cup Final, Olympiacos have dominated domestic competitions, while AEK Athens is the other member of the big three. These clubs also have basketball teams; Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are among the top powers in European basketball, having won the Euroleague six times and three respectively, whilst AEK Athens was the first Greek team to win a European trophy in any team sport.
Other notable clubs within Athens are Athinaikos, Panionios, Atromitos, Apollon, Panellinios, Egaleo F.C., Ethnikos Piraeus, Maroussi BC and Peristeri B.C. Athenian clubs have also had domestic and international success in other sports.
The Athens area encompasses a variety of terrain, notably hills and mountains rising around the city, and the capital is the only major city in Europe to be bisected by a mountain range. Four mountain ranges extend into city boundaries and thousands of kilometres of trails criss-cross the city and neighbouring areas, providing exercise and wilderness access on foot and bike.
Beyond Athens and across the prefecture of Attica, outdoor activities include skiing, rock climbing, hang gliding and windsurfing. Numerous outdoor clubs serve these sports, including the Athens Chapter of the Sierra Club, which leads over 4,000 outings annually in the area.
Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics on 5 September 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland, after having lost a previous bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, to Atlanta, United States. It was to be the second time Athens would host the games, following the inaugural event of 1896. After an unsuccessful bid in 1990, the 1997 bid was radically improved, including an appeal to Greece's Olympic history. In the last round of voting, Athens defeated Rome with 66 votes to 41. Prior to this round, the cities of Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Cape Town had been eliminated from competition, having received fewer votes. Although the heavy cost was criticized, estimated at $1.5 billion, Athens was transformed into a more functional city that enjoys modern technology both in transportation and in modern urban development. The games welcomed over 10,000 athletes from all 202 countries.