Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
from a pit on the Acropolis, where the Athenians buried them after the Battle of
Salamis.
The 570 BC youth bearing a calf is one of the rare male statues found. There are
also bronze figurines and finds from temples predating the Parthenon, which were
destroyed by the Persians, including wonderful pedimental sculptures from earlier
temples, such as Heracles slaying the Lernaian Hydra and a lioness devouring a
bull.
Five
Caryatids
, the maiden columns that held up the Erechtheion (the sixth is in
the British Museum), and a giant floralakrotirion(a decorative element placed on
the brick at the end of a gable of a classical building) that once crowned the south-
ern ridge of the Parthenon pediment are on this floor.
The museum's crowning glory is the top-floor
Parthenon Gallery
, a glass atrium
built in alignment with the temple, and a virtual replica of the cella of the Parthen-
on, which can be seen from the gallery. It showcases the temple's sculptures, met-
opes and 160m-long frieze, which for the first time in more than 200 years is
shown in sequence as one narrative about the Panathenaic Procession. The Pro-
cession starts at the southwest corner of the temple, with two groups splitting off
and meeting on the east side for the delivery of thepeplosto Athena. Interspersed
between the golden-hued originals are stark-white plaster replicas of the missing
pieces - the controversial Parthenon Marbles hacked off by Lord Elgin in 1801 and
later sold to the British Museum (more than half the frieze is in London). The sight
makes a compelling case for their reunification.
Don't miss the
movie
describing the history of the Acropolis.
TOP OF CHAPTER
North of the Acropolis: Monastiraki & Keramikos
Ancient Agora
HISTORIC SITE
( 210 321 0185;
http://odysseus.culture.gr
; Adrianou; adult/child €4/free, free with Acropolis
pass; 11am-3pm Mon, 8am-3pm Tue-Sun; Monastiraki)
The heart of ancient Athens was
the Agora, the lively, crowded focal point of administrative, commercial, political and
social activity. Socrates expounded his philosophy here, and in AD 49 St Paul came here
to win converts to Christianity.
First developed as a public site in the 6th century BC, the Agora was devastated by the
Persians in 480 BC, but a new one was built in its place almost immediately. It was flour-
