The first thing I noticed about Athens was that it is extremely mountainous. You look out over the city (and you can, because most of the time you are on a hill of some kind), and you can see how the city has been built up and over each of the hills and climbs onto the slopes of the mountains around it. At the same time, you can also feel that the ocean is close. With the way the weather is, and knowing that the port is just a short while away, it presents an interesting juxtaposition that I have never before experienced.
You also have to remember that people have lived in the area for something like 3000 years. It's not like the city has been planned out. And, the greater Athens area is home to 3.75 of the 11 million people living in Greece. So things feel rather cramped. There aren't highways, just streets with no markings down the middle of the road. There are also no skyscrapers or even new looking buildings, with the exception of one. It doesn't help that the country has been in recession for the last eight years, so the place is filled with half-built or empty buildings proclaiming their availability for rent or leasing.
Above it all, basically a city set on a hill, is the Parthenon. And it makes everything else worth it. Even from below you can tell that it is an amazing structure, and it is truly awe inspiring once you go up to it.
Before we go up, though, we have to go to the one building that is new, in what feels like the entire city. The Acropolis Museum is a fitting partner to the Parthenon itself, because it provides an understanding of the magnificence of the entire Acropolis when it was whole and in its full magnificence. While so many of the decorations, statues, and sculptures have either been lost to the sands of time or ruined through human ignorance, the museum helps each person to imagine what it used to look like with the bare minimum of what is actually available.
The Acropolis has actually been the place of two temples. The first Parthenon no longer stands and was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC. There are actually more of that Parthenon's decorations that survive, however, because when the Greeks saw their temple destroyed, they buried anything that wasn't destroyed and started over again. These decorations are now in the museum for all to see.
The most prevalent decoration are the Korai, female statues dedicated to Athena, and purchased by prominent citizens of Athens, as tithes or first offerings from these people. They are beautiful. Few, if any of them, are completely whole, but their faces express an optimism that represents the sentiment of that time period that nothing was too much for their goddess. When I asked the archeologist on duty which Kore was her favorite, she pointed to the Kore bearing a calf on her shoulders, specifically because it represented a collaboration of Egyptian and Greek influences.
It was beautiful, and they were all beautiful. The level of skill associated with the Korai demonstrated to me thtat these people really believed in their devotion to Athena, which I certainly appreciated. Thinking about the temple in our lives as members of the church, we want things to be perfect, and the Korai reflected that the Athenians wanted their temple to Athena to be perfect as well.
I loved the Korai. I'm not sure why they spoke to me the way they did, but looking at them helped me realize how important the Parthenon was in antiquity. Most of the decorations from later were destroyed or stolen, but these artifacts remain for all of us to appreciate. The fact that individual citizens had these Korai made for the temple gave me a sense of appreciation for the communal effort of the Parthenon as well. It truly is all remarkable.
The next level of the Acropolis Museum shifted about 30 degrees to run parallel to the Acropolis. This was done for a very specific purpose; the entire floor is a middle space encircled with friezes and sculptures from the Acropolis, and as you circle the friezes, they are in the exact place they would be if you transplanted them all onto the Acropolis today. It was a well thought-out plan by the architect, because you understood the scope of the Parthenon as you walked around.
Unfortunately, most of the sculptures from the front and back sides of the Acropolis were stolen or destroyed over the course of 2000 years. The Acropolis was, at various points, a church, a mosque, and a storage space from gunpowder. Most of the destruction of it, in fact, comes from when a cannonball hit the gunpowder storage inside it, causing a massive explosion that tore out one wall of the Parthenon. People also thought the statues desecrated Christianity, so they destroyed those, or the British stole some of them in the 1800s. It's honestly amazing that any of it survives to this day, but it does and the world is better for it.
As you walk around, you can see four scenes on the friezes which are still discernible today, despite the 2000 years since their making. There is the war between the Greeks and the Amazons, the battle between the giants and the Greek gods, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, and the fall of Troy. I thought it was interesting that most of the friezes showed the Greeks losing, as opposed to defeating the Centaurs or Amazons, but they all got their licks in, to be sure.
Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum. I took one picture of a Kore, but otherwise you have to look online, or go to the Museum yourself. It is well worth it!
You also have to remember that people have lived in the area for something like 3000 years. It's not like the city has been planned out. And, the greater Athens area is home to 3.75 of the 11 million people living in Greece. So things feel rather cramped. There aren't highways, just streets with no markings down the middle of the road. There are also no skyscrapers or even new looking buildings, with the exception of one. It doesn't help that the country has been in recession for the last eight years, so the place is filled with half-built or empty buildings proclaiming their availability for rent or leasing.
Above it all, basically a city set on a hill, is the Parthenon. And it makes everything else worth it. Even from below you can tell that it is an amazing structure, and it is truly awe inspiring once you go up to it.
Before we go up, though, we have to go to the one building that is new, in what feels like the entire city. The Acropolis Museum is a fitting partner to the Parthenon itself, because it provides an understanding of the magnificence of the entire Acropolis when it was whole and in its full magnificence. While so many of the decorations, statues, and sculptures have either been lost to the sands of time or ruined through human ignorance, the museum helps each person to imagine what it used to look like with the bare minimum of what is actually available.
The Acropolis has actually been the place of two temples. The first Parthenon no longer stands and was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC. There are actually more of that Parthenon's decorations that survive, however, because when the Greeks saw their temple destroyed, they buried anything that wasn't destroyed and started over again. These decorations are now in the museum for all to see.
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| Here's the Kore I mentioned! |
It was beautiful, and they were all beautiful. The level of skill associated with the Korai demonstrated to me thtat these people really believed in their devotion to Athena, which I certainly appreciated. Thinking about the temple in our lives as members of the church, we want things to be perfect, and the Korai reflected that the Athenians wanted their temple to Athena to be perfect as well.
I loved the Korai. I'm not sure why they spoke to me the way they did, but looking at them helped me realize how important the Parthenon was in antiquity. Most of the decorations from later were destroyed or stolen, but these artifacts remain for all of us to appreciate. The fact that individual citizens had these Korai made for the temple gave me a sense of appreciation for the communal effort of the Parthenon as well. It truly is all remarkable.
The next level of the Acropolis Museum shifted about 30 degrees to run parallel to the Acropolis. This was done for a very specific purpose; the entire floor is a middle space encircled with friezes and sculptures from the Acropolis, and as you circle the friezes, they are in the exact place they would be if you transplanted them all onto the Acropolis today. It was a well thought-out plan by the architect, because you understood the scope of the Parthenon as you walked around.
Unfortunately, most of the sculptures from the front and back sides of the Acropolis were stolen or destroyed over the course of 2000 years. The Acropolis was, at various points, a church, a mosque, and a storage space from gunpowder. Most of the destruction of it, in fact, comes from when a cannonball hit the gunpowder storage inside it, causing a massive explosion that tore out one wall of the Parthenon. People also thought the statues desecrated Christianity, so they destroyed those, or the British stole some of them in the 1800s. It's honestly amazing that any of it survives to this day, but it does and the world is better for it.
As you walk around, you can see four scenes on the friezes which are still discernible today, despite the 2000 years since their making. There is the war between the Greeks and the Amazons, the battle between the giants and the Greek gods, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, and the fall of Troy. I thought it was interesting that most of the friezes showed the Greeks losing, as opposed to defeating the Centaurs or Amazons, but they all got their licks in, to be sure.
Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum. I took one picture of a Kore, but otherwise you have to look online, or go to the Museum yourself. It is well worth it!
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| This is of the Parthenon, where you can just see a few pieces of the frieze. I think this is the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. |
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| On each end of the Acropolis were amazing statues depicting two scenes: the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the patronage of Athens (Athena won), and the birth of Athena. These are the only statues that remain on the pediments from those scenes. See the man and the horses head? The horse represents the birth of the sun each day, and the man is one of the river gods. |
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