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Athens: The Acropolis
Acropolis means 'High City'.
The Acropolis has been used as a place to live or a place to worship
since prehistoric times. The first temples to be built there were of wood
and were destroyed by fire.
Between 450 and 330 B.C. three main temples were built on the Acropolis and parts of them remain there today. The Acropolis is the most visited monument in Greece.
The Parthenon was
the most important monument of the ancient Greek civilisation.
This temple was completed in 432 B.C. and dedicated to the goddess
Athena. In ancient times there was a statue of Athena in the centre
of the temple .
The marble temple has eight columns on each of the narrow sides
and seventeen columns on each of the long sides. Decorations on
the Parthenon includes sculptured friezes showing figures of gods,
beasts and humans. Some of the sculptured pieces are in the British
Museum and others are in the Acropolis Museum.
Over the years the Parthenon has been used as a Christian church
and as a Muslim mosque. The Turks, who once conquered and ruled
Greece used it as a place to store explosives and in 1687 a bomb
fell on the ancient monument and a large part of it was destroyed.
The Erechtheion is a temple dedicated to the worship
of two gods, Athena and Poseidon. The
Caryatids are the statues of young women that support the roof
of the south porch of the temple.
The Temple of Athena Nike has a row of four columns in front of each of its narrow sides. It was built about 2424 years ago.
The Propylaea is the towering entrance and gateway to the Acropolis.
It was constructed in 437-432 B.C.
A large-scale project to rebuild and restore the ancient temples of the Acropolis began in the1970s and is still in progress.
Go here to visit the new Acropolis Museum which opened in 2009.
http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/?pname=Home&la=2s
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acknowledge where you find information
Acknowledge this page in your bibliography like this:
Thomas, Ron. & Sydenham, Shirley. Greece [Online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2009)
August 2009 copyright © kidcyber [2009]
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