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 and πόλις. 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.
Antenor was an Athenian sculptor. He is recorded as the creator of the joint statues of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton funded by the Athenians on the expulsion of Hippias. These statues were carried away to Susa by Xerxes I of Persia during the Greco-Persian Wars. Archaeologists have also established that a basis signed by "Antenor son of Eumares" belonged to a set of female figures in an archaic style which were displayed in the acropolis. The sculptor of the Harmodius and Aristogeiton is usually listed as the son of Euphranor.
The Erechtheion or Temple of Athena Polias is an ancient Greek Ionic temple on the north side of the Acropolis, Athens, which was primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
The Perserschutt, as it is called in the German language, is the collection of ancient votive and architectural sculptures that belonged to the Acropolis of Athens before being destroyed during the second Persian invasion of Greece, which took place between 480 and 479 BCE. After defeating the Achaemenid Empire, the Greeks cleared and buried what was left of the Acropolis following the Persian destruction of Athens and subsequently rebuilt the city. A team of French, German, and Greek archaeologists discovered and excavated what would become known as the Perserschutt in the 19th century, and a number of the collection's artifacts are on display at the Acropolis Museum.
Kritios was an Athenian sculptor, probably a pupil of Antenor, working in the early 5th century BCE, whose manner is on the cusp of the Late Archaic and the Severe style of Early Classicism in Attica. He was the teacher of Myron. With Nesiotes (Νησιώτης,) Kritios made the replacement of the Tyrannicides ("Tyrant-killers") group by Antenor, which had been carried off by the Persians in the first stage of the Greco-Persian Wars. The new group stood in the Agora of Athens and its composition is known from Roman copies.
The so-called Blond Kouros's Head of the Acropolis is the head of a lost marble statue of a young man of ca 480 BC, in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece. The head and part of the pelvis were found in 1923 northeast of the museum site on the Acropolis of Athens. It belongs to the late archaic or early classical period. The curly hair points more to the Archaic than the Classical period.
The marble Kritios Boy or Kritian Boy belongs to the Early Classical period of ancient Greek sculpture. It is the first statue from classical antiquity known to use contrapposto; Kenneth Clark called it "the first beautiful nude in art" The Kritios Boy is thus named because it is attributed, on slender evidence, to Kritios, who worked together with Nesiotes or their school, from around 480 BC. As currently mounted, the statue is considerably smaller than life-size at 117 cm, including the supports that replace the missing feet.
Kore is the modern term given to a type of free-standing ancient Greek sculpture of the Archaic period depicting female figures, always of a young age. Kouroi are the youthful male equivalent of kore statues.
The Old Temple of Athena or the Archaios Neos was an archaic Greek limestone Doric temple on the Acropolis of Athens probably built in the second half of the sixth-century BCE, and which housed the xoanon of Athena Polias. The existence of an archaic temple to Athena had long been conjectured from literary references until the discovery of substantial building foundations under the raised terrace between the Erechtheion and Parthenon in 1886 confirmed it. While it is uncontroversial that a temple stood on the central acropolis terrace in the late archaic period and was burnt down in the Persian invasion of 480, nevertheless questions of its nature, name, reconstruction and duration remain unresolved.
Moschophoros is an ancient Greek statue of the Archaic period, also known in English as The Calf Bearer. It was excavated in fragments in the Perserschutt on the Acropolis of Athens in 1864. The statue, dated c. 560 BC and estimated to have originally measured 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) in height, is now in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece.
The Peplos Kore is an ancient sculpture from the Acropolis of Athens. It is considered one of the best-known examples of Archaic Greek art. Kore is a type of archaic Greek statue that portrays a young woman with a stiff posture looking straight forward. Although this statue is one of the most famous examples of a kore, it is actually not considered a typical one. The statue is not completely straight, her face is leaned slightly to the side, and she is standing with her weight shifted to one leg. The other part of the statue's name, peplos, is based on the popular archaic Greek gown for women. When the statue was found it was initially thought that she was wearing a peplos, although it is now known that she is not.
The Korai of the Acropolis of Athens are a group of female statues (Korai), discovered in the Perserschutt of the Acropolis of Athens in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, all of the same typology and clear votive function. Through them it is possible to trace the stylistic evolution of Archaic Attic sculpture for almost a century, from 570 to 480 BC. This demonstrates in particular the beginning and development of Ionian influence on Athenian art of the second half of the 6th century BC. This was the period when Ionian elements first appear in the architectural works of the Peisistratids and close connections between Ionia and Athens developed. Towards the end of the 6th century BC this influence is seen to be overcome, or rather absorbed, and a new style is born, the so-called Severe style, with increasing Peloponnesian influence.
The Kore of Lyons is a Greek statue of Pentelic marble depicting a bust of a young girl of the kore type, conserved at the musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, France. Deriving from the Athenian Acropolis, it is generally dated to the 540s BC. Considered the centrepiece of the museum's antiquities department, the statue was acquired between 1808 and 1810.
The Nike of Callimachus also known as The Dedication of Callimachus, is a statue that the Athenians created in honour of Callimachus.
During the second Persian invasion of Greece, which took place between 480 and 479 BCE, Athens was captured and subsequently destroyed by the Achaemenid Empire. A prominent Greek city-state, it was attacked by the Persians in a two-phase offensive, amidst which the Persian king Xerxes the Great had issued an order calling for it to be torched. The Persian army commander Mardonius oversaw the razing of several structures of political and religious significance throughout the city, including the Acropolis, the Old Temple of Athena, and the Older Parthenon. A year later, the Greek coalition retook Athens and dealt a devastating defeat to the Persian army during the Battle of Plataea, killing Mardonius and setting the stage for the eventual expulsion of all Persian troops from Europe.
The Euthydikos Kore is a late archaic, Parian marble statue of the kore type, c 490–480 BCE, that once stood amongst the Akropolis votive sculptures. It was destroyed during the Persian invasion of 480 BCE and found in the Perserschutt. It is named after the dedication on the base of the sculpture, “Euthydikos son of Thaliarchos dedicated [me]”. It now stands in the Acropolis Museum.
The Temple of Roma and Augustus was a monopteral circular Ionic temple built on the Acropolis of Athens c. 19 BCE, likely coincident with Augustus' second visit to Athens. The structure was axially aligned with the eastern entrance of the Parthenon, placed 23 m (75 ft) eastward. The temple, which asserted the divinity of Rome and the Imperial cult in the context of the religious centre of the Acropolis, was a propaganda monument erected at a time of tension between Rome and Athens. Its ruins remain on the Acropolis.
Kore 670 is a Late Archaic Greek kore made of Parian marble, created in 520–510 BC, measuring 1.15 cm.
Nike Fixing her Sandal, also known as Nike Taking off her Sandal or Nike Sandalbinder, is an ancient marble relief depicting the ancient Greek goddess of victory Nike in the process of fixing or removing the sandal of her right foot. As part of a larger slab from a parapet, this fifth-century BC sculpture originally adorned the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis of Athens, and now it is kept in the Acropolis Museum of Athens, in Greece with inventory number 973.
