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.
Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals that recrystallize under the influence of heat, pressure, and aqueous solutions (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) and has a crystalline texture of varying thickness. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions.
The Temple of Olympian Zeus, also known as the Olympieion or Columns of the Olympian Zeus, is a former colossal temple at the centre of the Greek capital, Athens. It was dedicated to "Olympian" Zeus, a name originating from his position as head of the Olympian gods. Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world, but it was not completed until the reign of Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, some 638 years after the project had begun. During the Roman period, the temple, which included 104 colossal columns, was renowned as the largest temple in Greece and housed one of the largest cult statues in the ancient world.
Eileithyia or Ilithyia was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery, and the daughter of Zeus and Hera. In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon, who was the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that her cult is related with the cult of Eleusis. In his Seventh Nemean Ode, Pindar refers to her as the maid to or seated beside the Moirai (Fates) and responsible for the creation of offspring. Her son was Sosipolis, who was worshiped at Elis.
Hygieia is a goddess from Greek mythology. Hygieia is a goddess of health, cleanliness and hygiene. Her name is the source for the word "hygiene".
Marble has been the preferred material for stone monumental sculpture since ancient times, with several advantages over its more common geological "parent" limestone, in particular the ability to absorb light a small distance into the surface before refracting it in subsurface scattering. This gives an attractive soft appearance that is especially good for representing human skin, which can also be polished.
The sibyls were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by Pausanias when he described local traditions in his writings from the second century AD. At first, there appears to have been only a single sibyl. By the fourth century BC, there appear to have been at least three more, Phrygian, Erythraean, and Hellespontine. By the first century BC, there were at least ten sibyls, located in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor.
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:
The Treasury of Atreus or Tomb of Agamemnon is a large tholos or beehive tomb constructed between 1300 and 1250 BCE in Mycenae, Greece.
The Delphic Sibyl was a woman who was a prophet associated with early religious practices in Ancient Greece and is said to have been venerated from before the Trojan Wars as an important oracle. At that time Delphi was a place of worship for Gaia, the mother goddess connected with fertility rituals that are thought to have existed throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. As needed to maintain the religious tradition, the role of sibyl would pass to another priestess at each site.
Cyclopean masonry is a type of stonework found in Mycenaean architecture, built with massive limestone boulders, roughly fitted together with minimal clearance between adjacent stones and with clay mortar or no use of mortar. The boulders typically seem unworked, but some may have been worked roughly with a hammer and the gaps between boulders filled in with smaller chunks of limestone.
Bassae is an archaeological site in Oichalia, a municipality in the northeastern part of Messenia, Greece. In classical antiquity, it was part of Arcadia. Bassae lies near the village of Skliros, northeast of Figaleia, south of Andritsaina and west of Megalopolis. It is famous for the well-preserved mid- to late-5th century BC Temple of Apollo Epicurius.
Marmara Island is a Turkish island in the Sea of Marmara. With an area of 117.8 km2 (45.5 sq mi) it is the largest island in the Sea of Marmara and is the second largest island of Turkey after Gökçeada. It is the center of Marmara district in Balıkesir Province. Transportation is possible from Istanbul by ship and ferry, and by motorboat from Tekirdağ and Erdek. Marmara island is full of historical treasures which increase its attractiveness. The town of "Mermer Plaj"/Marble Beach takes its name from the marble for which the town is famous and which gives the island and the sea their name.
The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was an ancient Greek temple in Olympia, Greece, dedicated to the god Zeus. The temple, built in the second quarter of the fifth century BC, was the very model of the fully developed classical Greek temple of the Doric order.
A xoanon was a wooden cult image of Archaic Greece. Classical Greeks associated such cult objects, whether aniconic or effigy, with the legendary Daedalus. Many such cult images were preserved into historical times, though none are known to have survived to the modern day, except as copies in stone or marble. In the 2nd century CE, Pausanias described numerous xoana in his Description of Greece, notably the image of Hera in her temple at Samos. "The statue of the Samian Hera, as Aethilos [sic] says, was a wooden beam at first, but afterwards, when Prokles was ruler, it was humanized in form". In Pausanias' travels he never mentions seeing a xoanon of a "mortal man".
Jerusalem stone is a name applied to various types of pale limestone, dolomite and dolomitic limestone, common in and around Jerusalem that have been used in building since ancient times. One of these limestones, meleke, has been used in many of the region's most celebrated structures, including the Western Wall.
The Temple of Apollo, also known as Apollonion, was a major part of the Panhellenic religious sanctuary located in Central Greece at Delphi. The temple and sanctuary at large were dedicated to one of the major Greek deities, Apollo, the god of archery, music, light, prophecy, the arts, and healing. There have been several temples built at Delphi throughout the history of the site, though the visible ruins seen in modernity are those of the temple built in the 4th century B.C.E. before its destruction under the orders of Theodosius I in 390 C.E.. During antiquity, the temple was home to the famous Greek prophetess the Pythia, or the Oracle of Delphi, making the Temple of Apollo and the sanctuary at Delphi a major Panhellenic religious site as early as the 8th century B.C.E., and a place of great importance at many different periods of ancient Greek history. References to Delphi, the sanctuary, the temple, and the prophecies of the Pythia are made throughout ancient Greek mythology and historical accounts from the periods of its use.
Verd antique, also called verde antique, marmor thessalicum, or Ophite, is a serpentinite breccia popular since ancient times as a decorative facing stone. It is a dark, dull green, white-mottled serpentine, mixed with calcite, dolomite, or magnesite, which takes a high polish. The term verd antique has been documented in English texts as early as 1745.
