The Acropolis of Athens is a rocky hill rising 157 meters above sea level and approximately 70 meters above the level of the city of Athens. Its summit is trapezoidal, 300 meters long and up to 150 meters wide. The hill is inaccessible from all sides except the west, where the fortified entrance is located, adorned with the magnificent Propylaea.

History
It has been established that the hill was inhabited as early as the 3rd millennium BC. It was home to a settlement due to its natural fortification and sole access from the west, while the upper surface was broad enough to be habitable. The slopes offered water springs. Thucydides wrote: “The Acropolis, which now is the city, once was the city itself” (2.15.3). The local ruler’s megaron (great hall) stood where the Erechtheion was later built. Over time, the ruler gained power and peacefully united all of Attica under his control, except Eleusis.

According to tradition, the ruler who unified Attica was Theseus. This event is placed in the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC. The threat of hostile raids led him to fortify the Acropolis with a wall of large stones, later known as the Cyclopean Wall.

The hereditary monarchy was abolished after the failed Dorian invasion (11th century BC). Power passed to the landowning aristocracy, and an aristocratic regime was established. The Acropolis ceased to be an administrative center; governance shifted to the lower city, the asty. The Acropolis was now used primarily for religious ceremonies, although it continued to be referred to as “the city” until the 4th century BC.

In the 8th century BC, a small temple dedicated to the city’s patroness, Athena Polias, was built on the former site of the Mycenaean ruler’s palace. This temple is mentioned by Homer in both the Odyssey and the Iliad (Book 2.546–549). A wooden olive-wood statue of the goddess (a xoanon)—said to have fallen from the sky—was housed there. Nearby stood the tomb of Cecrops, Athena’s sacred olive tree, the Erechtheis sea, and the mark of Poseidon’s trident. Only two stone bases remain from that temple, near the south wall of the Erechtheion, which once supported the wooden columns of its porch.

A Reconstruction of the Acropolis as it looked in Antiquity, 19th century

In the 6th century BC, the sacred structures of the Athenians began to be built atop the hill, including the Hekatompedon, which was later destroyed during the Persian Wars. It was rebuilt as a much larger temple. The Hekatompedon, named for its length of 100 Athenian feet, was likely a Doric peripteral temple dedicated to Athena Pallas, protector of the city in times of war. The earlier temple of Athena Polias honored her as the guardian of fertility and agriculture.

Inscriptions and sculpture fragments from the Archaic period indicate the existence of smaller buildings, called oikemata, used to store money and precious offerings—five such structures have been identified through archaeological research.

During the rule of Peisistratus, the Acropolis housed numerous bronze and marble statues, vases, and other offerings dedicated by citizens to Athena.

After the Persian defeat in 465 BC, during the time of Pericles, the sacred buildings and walls were reconstructed under the supervision of the sculptor Phidias and architects Mnesikles, Kallikrates, and Kallimachos. The Parthenon, Erechtheion, Propylaea, and Temple of Athena Nike were built and richly decorated.

In the Roman era, a few insignificant additions were made. During the Byzantine period, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church. Under Frankish rule, it became a Catholic cathedral, and during the Ottoman era, a mosque.

The greatest damage occurred during the Ottoman period. The Turks stored gunpowder in the monuments. In 1645, lightning struck the Propylaea, causing an explosion. In 1687, during the Venetian siege led by Morosini, a bomb hit the Parthenon and destroyed much of it.

Further devastation was inflicted by Scottish Lord Elgin, who, before the Greek War of Independence in 1821, removed large sections of the Parthenon’s frieze, metopes, pediments, one Caryatid, and a column from the Erechtheion—transporting them to Britain. He bribed the Turkish authorities and, in return, gifted the Athenians a clock placed in the ancient Agora.

During the 1821 revolution, the Acropolis was alternately besieged by Greeks and Ottomans, suffering additional damage. In 1834, systematic archaeological restoration work began.

Tickets: €20 (April–October), €10 (November–March)
Opening hours: 08:00–20:00 (last admission: 19:30)
Free entry: On select days (as with the National Archaeological Museum) and every first Sunday (November–March)