On the Acropolis
We do not know for sure the name of the architect who built the Erechtheion, a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, which, with its bold asymmetry and ideal connection with complex relief, anticipates the architecture of the New Age. We do not know the name of the sculptor who sculpted the figures of six caryatids, girls-columns that support the ceilings of the southern portico of the temple. We also do not know the purpose of this portico: after all, the portico is the entrance to the building decorated with a colonnade, and there is no main entrance as such in the portico of caryatids, only a small opening on the side and an inconspicuous opening in the wall of the temple.
However, we know exactly when the temple was built. Construction began in 421 BC. e., when, after ten years of the Peloponnesian War, Athens made a short-lived peace with Sparta, and ended in 406 BC, when the disastrous war for Athens was nearing an end. The Erechtheion was the last significant temple of Ancient Greece.



View of the Portico of the Caryatids from the southeast

We know why the temple dedicated to the gods Athena, Poseidon and the Athenian king Erechtheus was erected here - on the uneven northwestern tip of the Acropolis, almost over the cliff. At this place, according to legend, Athena and Poseidon argued for the possession of Attica. An olive tree, a gift from Athena, grew near the temple, and in the temple itself, a spring of salt water, a gift from Poseidon, beat. The greatest relic of the Athenians was kept in the Erechtheion - a wooden statue of Athena that fell from the sky, and the sacred snake of the goddess lived in a cave under the temple.

View of the Portico of the Caryatids from the west. Sacred Olive of Athens

The motif of the caryatids was found in Greek architecture before. The predecessors of the Erechtheion caryatids, which adorned the facades of two treasuries of the 6th century BC, have survived to this day. on the Sacred Way at Delphi.

Caryatid from the Treasury of the Siphnians at Delphi. OK. 525 BC
Delphi, museum

Why are column girls called caryatids? After all, the female statues of Ancient Greece are called "barks" (translated as "virgins"). The word "caryatid" was introduced by Vitruvius, a Roman architect and scientist of the 1st century AD. He associates the name "caryatid" with a story about women from the Greek region of Karia. The Carians made an alliance with the enemies of the Greeks, the Persians, were defeated by the Greeks, and in memory of the shame of Caria, caryatids appeared - columns in the form of Carian women, carrying the weight of architectural ceilings.

This legend, which guides are happy to tell tourists, despite the authority of Vitruvius, causes doubt among historians, but the name is already firmly rooted. The most plausible is another version: the girls are priestesses of the goddess Athena. This is confirmed by a discovery made in Italy in 1952. At the excavations of the villa of Emperor Hadrian in Tivoli, well-preserved copies of the Erechtheion caryatids were found with surviving hands. It turned out that with one hand the girls slightly held the edge of the clothes, in the other there was a vessel for sacrificial libations.

View of the portico of the Caryatids from the west

The height of the caryatids is 2.3 meters, the height of the plinth on which they stand is 2.6 meters. But in contrast to the high, long wall of the temple, the figures of the girls seem almost proportionate to human growth.
Six girls stand with one leg slightly bent at the knee. The three right and three left figures mirror each other: the figures on the right transfer their weight to the left foot, the figures on the left to the right. Obviously, the position of the hands of the statues that have not been preserved was also mirrored. The folds of thin clothes lie a little differently for each caryatid. The girls have beautiful complex hairstyles, a heavy wave of hair descending down the back strengthens the neck, which would otherwise seem too fragile.

View of the Portico of the Caryatids from the southwest

Like a jewel on a white satin, the portico of the caryatids stands out against the background of the smooth marble of the southern facade of the Erechtheion. Slender, majestic, strong, and at the same time feminine, the girls hold themselves freely and straight, not bowing their heads under their burden, as if not feeling its weight. It seems that the caryatids are about to take a step and move in a solemn procession to the Parthenon standing opposite.

View of the Portico of the Caryatids from the south

Procession is the key word for the entire ensemble of the Acropolis. The most important and colorful part of the Panathenaic Games - a festival in ancient Athens, held in honor of the patroness of the city, the goddess Athena, was the solemn procession of the townspeople to the Acropolis. At the head of the procession moved a special wagon - the so-called Panathenaic ship - with a magnificent peplos stretched instead of a sail, a new garment for the statue of Athena, which is in the Erechtheion. (There is a version that caryatids are priestess girls from noble families who wove peplos). Passing along the walls of the Parthenon, the participants of the Panathenaic procession saw a relief depicting the same procession. Among the figures on the relief are proud maidens in flowing clothes, like the twins of the Erechtheion caryatids.

Panathenaic procession. Water carriers. Fragment of the Parthenon frieze. 443-438 BC.
Athens, New Acropolis Museum

Caryatids have in common with the ensemble of the Acropolis not only their sculptural, but also their architectural essence. Wherever we look at the portico of the Caryatids, we will definitely see several columns of the western, eastern or northern facade of the temple. The interplay of columns and columnar figures is one of the charms of the Erechtheion. In their uniformity and compactness, bodies in flowing clothes with vertical folds are likened to antique columns with fluted grooves. However, let's not forget that, most likely, the caryatids, like other sculptures and reliefs of the Acropolis, were brightly colored. The resemblance of girls to columns was perhaps less evident than now.

View of the Portico of the Caryatids from the southeast

The most beautiful view of the portico of the Caryatids opens if you come close to the statues that are extreme from the west. No tourists are visible, Athena's olive leaves rustle, figures of caryatids loom against the sky, a white city spreads under the hill and for a moment it seems that these are the very ancient Athens and that almost nothing has changed in more than two thousand years ...

Museums
Alas! The city is not the same anymore, a new tree was planted on the site of the ancient olive tree of Athena in the 1920s, and most importantly, the caryatids are not the same either. Over the centuries, the Erechtheion, like the entire ensemble of the Acropolis, has experienced many disasters. In the 5th century AD the Byzantines turned the temple into a church, smashed the statues on the eastern façade, and filled the space between the caryatids with stone. At the beginning of the 11th century, Byzantium was supplanted by the Crusader knights. Athens became the center of the Duchy of Athens, and the rebuilt Erechtheion became part of the ducal palace. Later, Athens again went to Byzantium, which fell under the onslaught of the Turks, who had been in charge of the Acropolis since 1458. In the Erechtheion is the harem of the commandant of the fortress. The new conquerors did not destroy the statues, but, according to the ban on the image of people in the Koran, they cut off their faces (fortunately, not very diligently). The Erechtheion, although it suffered great damage, miraculously survived in 1687, when Athens was besieged by the Venetians and a shell hit the Parthenon, turned by the Turks into a powder warehouse.

Original caryatids in the New Acropolis Museum

Caryatids were endangered not only by invaders, but also by collectors. In 1802, the British envoy in Constantinople, Lord Elgin, a connoisseur and collector of antiquities, received permission from the Turkish Sultan "to take out of the country any piece of stone with inscriptions or images" and sent a collection of sculptures broken out on the Acropolis of incomparable value to Britain. Among these treasures was the Erechtheion caryatid (second from the west). The collector would have taken out all six, but when trying to break out the next caryatid (back from the east), difficulties arose. The lover of antiquity ordered the sawing of the statue, and when this failed, he simply threw the remains of the destroyed caryatid. The caryatid taken away by Lord Elgin is still in the British Museum, along with other marbles of the Acropolis, despite all the attempts of Greece to return the treasure.

Lord Elgin motivated his actions by the fact that he is saving the masterpieces of antiquity, which are threatened with destruction in Greece. And his arguments could be partially substantiated: the Erechtheion suffered again in the 1820s, during the Greco-Turkish war of liberation, when, among other destruction, the second caryatid from the east fell.

After Greece gained independence in 1833, the restoration of the architectural complex of the Acropolis began, which continues to this day. The British Museum first sent a cast from a caryatid taken away by Lord Elgin, and then a better copy made of artificial stone.
In the 20th century, the main enemy of the caryatids and other sculptures of the Acropolis was the aggressive environment. During the next restoration of the Erechtheion in the early 1980s, all the caryatids were replaced with copies and transferred to the Acropolis Museum, which opened on a hill in 1865, expanded several times, but still could not accommodate the finds of archaeologists and the original sculptures remaining in Greece.

At the end of 2008, newspapers wrote about an amazing event in the art world: the caryatids of the Erechtheion are leaving the Acropolis! With great care, the statues were transferred to the New Acropolis Museum, finally open at the foot of the hill, grandiose, ultra-modern and designed to take back all the works exported to England someday.

Such is the double life of the caryatids. On the Acropolis, exposed to the sun and wind, there are six skillful spears. In an ideal museum atmosphere, in the rays of artificial light, visitors are greeted by five originals. The caryatids are arranged in the same order as on the hill. Instead of one - a pass, one - almost destroyed. And in distant England in the hall of the British Museum is their lonely sister. Will they meet? Perhaps the newspapers will someday write about this sensation: the Erechtheion caryatid returns home to Greece ...

For centuries
Caryatids in world art are a topic for extensive and fascinating research. Archaeologists have found statues of caryatids guarding the tombs of the Hellenistic era (late 4th century BC - late 1st century BC) in Greece, modern Bulgaria and Libya. The ancient Romans placed figures of caryatids at the corners of sarcophagi.

Caryatid and atlas. Residential building in San Sebastian, Spain. End of the 19th century.

In the Middle Ages, interest in antiquity faded, and caryatids disappeared from the scene for a while, but since the Renaissance they have always inspired architects and interior designers. Every person who has traveled even a little will surely remember the caryatids he saw: perhaps these were the pavilions of the Louvre or the Louvre hall of caryatids, the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, the gallery of the Austrian parliament in Vienna, the gallery of the Sinkel store in Utrecht, the Belvedere in Peterhof, where almost the portico of the Erechtheion, the house in Denezhny Lane in Moscow, the cottage "Milos" in Feodosia are repeated ...

Caryatid and atlas.

In every European city where there is an old building, you will find dozens of houses with caryatids. Basically, these will be magnificent buildings of the second half of the 19th century, when architects were allowed to mix different styles. Caryatids decorate lanterns and city fountains, in historical interiors we will surely see fireplaces, candelabra, furniture with caryatids.

Caryatid and atlas. Residential building in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. Last third of the 19th century.

In recent decades, architects have rarely used the motif of caryatids, but each such work is significant and full of meaning. Three bronze caryatids support the cornice of the Supreme Court building in Warsaw (late 20th century). The figures are repeatedly reflected in the water and in the mirrored walls of the building, as if the shadows of the immortal caryatids of the Erechtheion emerge from the depths of centuries.

We climbed the Acropolis early in the morning among the first visitors. It was right: I can’t imagine how in the August heat you can wander along the rock during the day in a dense environment of tourists. In the morning it was wonderful - just you and the stones. Somewhere in the distance there are mountains and a huge city, but here there is silence and the opportunity to examine each of the marble squares of the Erechtheion, reddened from time to time:

The Erechtheion was built during the Peloponnesian War (421-406 BC) on the site of the legendary dispute between Athena and Poseidon for dominance over Attica. The dispute itself was visually represented nearby, on the pediment of the Parthenon. Between these two great temples was a bronze statue of Athena Promachos.

The Erechtheion is asymmetrical, since its architect had to take into account several shrines that were located on this site. This is an olive planted by Athena and traces from a gift from Poseidon. Here is how Pausanias writes about them, though already with skeptical remarks: “There is sea water here - since the building is double - in a deep well. There is no great miracle in this; even among those who live in the interior of the country, the same thing occurs, among other things among the Carians from Aphrodisia; it is interesting to note that in this well, with a south wind, the sound of waves is heard. And on the rock there is a sign of a trident. It is said that it is evidence of the dispute between Poseidon (with Athena) for the possession of this country.
http://library-institute.ru/books/pavsaniy-description_ellady.doc
The third shrine is the tomb of the Athenian king Kekrops. Above it is a portico with caryatids.

The building had two sanctuaries. A wall separated them. Each had its own entrance. A six-column portico led to the sanctuary of Athena Polias. Here was an ancient wooden statue of Athena, on which a peplos woven by Athenian girls was put on. The solemn procession during which this garment was delivered to the Acropolis is depicted on the frieze of the Parthenon. In addition, in the sanctuary there was a golden lamp of Callimachus, which was filled with oil once a year, and burned, according to Pausanias, day and night.

The Erechtheion is not only asymmetrical. Its premises are on two levels. The portico of the sanctuary of Athena is raised three meters above the portico leading to the sanctuaries of Poseidon.

The Ionic columns of the Erechtheion easily bear weight. The northern portico of the temple is better preserved than the eastern one. It led to several rooms. Let us again turn to Pausanias: “Entering this building meets three altars: one is Poseidon, on which, on the basis of the divine saying, they offer sacrifice to Erechtheus, the second is the hero But and the third altar of Hephaestus. There are paintings on the walls relating to the Butad family.”

The door of the northern portico of the Erechtheion is the only well-preserved door of an ancient Greek building from the 5th century BC. Profiles and exquisite embossed details have reached:

Behind the columns is a coffered ceiling:

The western wall of the Erechtheion was heavily remodeled in the Roman era. Then, instead of wooden lattices located between the columns, stone walls appeared with windows in the upper part.
The lush olive tree, which now adorns this part of the temple so much, was planted on the site of the legendary tree in the 19th century.

She is not in James Stewart's watercolor, which dates from the mid-18th century.
The Erechtheion was rebuilt not only by the Romans. It was remade by the Byzantines and Crusaders. In Turkish times, it housed a harem.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/51009-popup.html

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Erechtheion was almost completely dismantled. Hunt, Elgin's chaplain, offered to move the remains of the temple to England. But Elgin and Luzieri limited themselves to a column, part of a frieze and a caryatid. Edward Dodwell captured the famous portico in 1830, when a pillar was erected in place of a caryatid sent to England:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Dodwell1821039.jpg?uselang=uk

The sacking of the Acropolis was condemned as barbaric already in the 19th century. But in the middle of the 20th century it became clear that the atmosphere of a modern city is worse than robbers. The details of the Erechtheion transferred to the museum halls are incomparably better preserved than those that remained on the Acropolis.

The column, which now stands in the British Museum, was removed from the east portico of the temple.

Erechtheion

(Greek Ἐρέχθειον; English Erechtheion)

Opening hours: from 8.30 to 19.00 daily, except Monday.

The most sacred temple of the Acropolis in ancient Athens was the Erechtheion - a temple dedicated to Athena, Poseidon and the legendary Athenian king Erechtheus. The Erechtheion is the second most important monument of the Acropolis. In ancient times, it was the central temple dedicated to the cult of the goddess Athena. And if the Parthenon was assigned the role of a public temple, then the Erechtheion, rather, was a temple for priests. Here the main religious sacraments related to the worship of Athena were performed, and an ancient statue of this goddess was kept here. Also, the temple was a kind of repository of the most important relics of the policy. This function passed to him from the archaic Hekatompedon, most likely built under Peisistratus, and destroyed during the Greco-Persian wars.

The Erechtheion was conceived during the grandiose construction started by Pericles. It was necessary to build a temple for the ancient statue of Athena - the main shrine of the city, according to legend, fell from the sky. However, due to the Peloponnesian War, construction began only in 421 BC, after the Peace of Nicaea. Then it was interrupted and resumed only in 406 BC, by the architect Philokles.

Initially, the Erechtheion was called the temple of Athena Polada, or "the temple that keeps the ancient statue." Only in Roman times, another name spread to the building - the Erechtheion. It is not known exactly where it came from: legends explain its origin in different ways, linking the name with the name of the ancient Athenian king Erechtheus. Much here reminds of Erechtheus. Under the northern portico was the tomb of Erechtheus, and in the western part of the temple, next to the altar of Poseidon, was the sanctuary of Erechtheus. A high door, framed by a magnificent architraves, led here from the northern portico.

The temple is located on the site of the mythical dispute between Athena and Poseidon for the possession of Attica. In one of the halls of the Erechtheion one could see the trace left by the trident of Poseidon on the rock during his dispute with Athena, and to which the pilgrims brought libation gifts to Zeus. Since this shrine was always to be in the open air, openings were made in the ceiling of the portico, which have survived to this day.

The Erechtheion is a unique and absolutely original monument of ancient Greek architecture. The plan of the building is based on a rectangle measuring 23.5 m x 11.6 m. The temple itself is divided into two parts: western and eastern. The eastern and southern sides of the temple are 3.24 meters higher than the western and northern ones.

The eastern part of the Erechtheion was dedicated to Athena Polad. A staircase of fourteen steps leads from the eastern portico of the Erechtheion to a small courtyard below, which closes the six-columned northern portico of the Erechtheion. This portico once served as the main entrance to the western half of the temple.

The western half of the temple is dedicated to Poseidon and Erechtheus. Its front side is bounded from the outside by two antae, between which there are four attic semi-columns. In front of the western facade of the Erechtheion, since ancient times, the sacred olive tree of the goddess Athena has grown. Because of this, the western facade of the Erechtheion looks completely unusual for ancient Greek temples - it was impossible to arrange the same entrance portico here as on the eastern side, and then the four columns forming the western portico were raised to a plinth about four meters high, and the gaps between columns were blocked by a bronze lattice. From this side, the Erechtheion is more reminiscent of a residential building, a manor, and does not look like, in its asymmetry, a monumental building.

The southern portico, called Pandrozeion, after the name of one of the daughters of Kekrop - Pandrosa, did not have a frieze, and its architrave, consisting of three horizontal stripes, was supported not by columns, but by Caryatids. The stone caryatids of the Erechtheion are probably the most famous symbol of the Athenian Acropolis today. This is a completely unique monument that has no analogues in ancient Greek architecture. On a high, 2.6 m plinth, there are six statues of girls supporting the roof of the portico. Their figures are much higher than human height - 2.1 m.

There is an assumption that the prototypes of the caryatids of the Erechtheion were the harrephors - the servants of the cult of Athena, elected from the best families of Athens. Their functions included the manufacture of the sacred peplos, which was annually dressed up in the ancient statue of Athena, which was kept in the Erechtheion. The statues' hands have not been found. Probably, with one hand they supported their outfit, and in the other they held some kind of religious symbol. The faces of the Caryatids are turned towards the road along which the Panathenaic processions took place.

Real marble lace frames the portals of the doors, and crowns the top of the walls and porticos of the temple with a long, continuous ribbon. The skill of ancient sculptors captivates with the perfection and refinement of forms. Once the facades of the Erechtheion ended with a relief frieze that stretched along the perimeter of the entire building. The plot of the frieze was probably the myth of Erechtheus and the Cecropides. Its fragments have been preserved.

The internal structure of this wonderful temple is not known, because most of it was destroyed in the 7th century AD, when the Erechtheion was converted into a Christian temple. Obviously, the interior was divided by a blank wall into two almost equal parts. In the eastern part, in a marble cella, there was a wooden statue of the goddess Athena, which was made from the sacred olive tree. The cella of the temple of Athena did not communicate with the western part of the Erechtheion, dedicated to Poseidon and Erechtheus.

Poseidon and Erechtheus were worshiped in the western part of the temple, here was the altar of Hephaestus and the hero Wut, and an underground passage went down, which led to the habitat of the sacred Acropolis snake, which was sacrificed every year.

Like other buildings of the Athenian Acropolis, the Erechtheion was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. In Byzantine times, a Christian church was built in it. After the capture of the city by the Turks, the Erechtheion was turned into the harem of the Turkish ruler of Athens.

In 1802, the British envoy in Constantinople, Lord Elgin, who received permission from Sultan Selim III "to take out of the country any piece of stone with inscriptions or images," transported one of the Erechtheion's caryatids to Britain.

The temple was badly damaged in 1827, when it was destroyed during the battles of the Greeks for independence. The first restoration of the temple was carried out immediately after the conquest of independence by Greece, in 1837-1847. The temple was restored again in 1902-1909. The portico of the Caryatids, the northern and southern walls, and the western facade of the temple were restored.

The essence of the architectural composition of the Erechtheion consists of a striking, in its richness, temporal sequence of strictly thought-out and harmonized impressions that people get when viewing the building. The Erechtheion is very subtly included in the overall composition of the Acropolis. After examining the Erechtheion from different angles, visitors look at the Parthenon with new eyes, the monumentality of which now contrasts especially with the intimacy of the Erechtheion.

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Near the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is one of the most unusual temples of Hellas architecture - the Erechtheion. This is the last of the great temples of ancient Greece, created at the end of the "golden age" of the country.

History of creation

To be sure to be heard by Athena, one had to bring her gifts and offer prayers in the Parthenon, the main sanctuary of Attica, which, as it was believed, she visited most often. Therefore, this particular temple occupied a central place on the Acropolis, official ceremonies were held here, and pilgrims flocked here. However, a much higher spiritual significance for the Athenians was located north of the Parthenon. Erechtheion was erected here, named after the ancient king of Athens, Erechtheus.

According to legend, it was here that a dispute took place between Athena and Poseidon for the right to possess Attica. As you know, according to the terms of the dispute, the gods had to make gifts to the city. From the blow of Poseidon with a trident, a source of salt water clogged from the rock. Athena, touching the earth with a spear, grew an olive tree. The gift of the goddess was recognized as more valuable, and she became the patroness of Athens.

The idea of ​​building a temple in a sacred place belonged to Pericles, but it was realized after his death. Construction began in 421 BC. The author of the project and the head of the work was Mnesicles, the architect who created the main entrance to the Acropolis - the Propylaea.

It was a difficult time for Athens. In Greece, the Peloponnesian War was going on, in which, on the one hand, Athens and its allies acted, on the other, an alliance of policies led by Sparta, supported by the Persians. Military operations covered all of Greece and the western coast of Asia Minor and went on with varying degrees of success.

The Erechtheion was consecrated in 406 BC, and a year and a half later, Athens suffered a catastrophe. The city was taken by the Spartans, and an oligarchic regime was established in Attica. Athens never managed to regain its power. Thus, the Erechtheion became the "swan song" of the era of Athenian hegemony.

After the construction was completed, the main Athenian relics were transferred to the temple - the wooden xoan (idol) of Athens, which, according to legend, fell from the sky a thousand years before the construction of the temple, the statue of Hermes, brought to Athens by the first king of Attica, Kekrops, a lamp made of gold by the sculptor Callimachus and never extinguished, although oil was poured into it only once a year, as well as many other shrines. In the courtyard of the building, visitors were shown a well carved with the trident of Poseidon, and a legendary olive tree grew next to the temple. The tree burned down during the destruction of the Acropolis by the Persians, but then revived again.

The tombs of King Erechtheus in the northern portico, and Kekrops, which was located to the west of the building, enjoyed special reverence.

The architecture of the Erechtheion

The temple was dedicated to Athena, Poseidon and Erechtheus, it kept many shrines, so its layout is quite complex and unusual. In addition, the site on which the temple stands has a significant difference in height, so the individual parts of the building are located at different levels.

The building was erected in the Ionic style and has two cells - western and eastern. The eastern part was dedicated to Athena Poliada, the guardian of the city. The portico at the entrance consisted of six columns. Here was the famous xoan, in front of which an unquenchable lamp burned. Every year, on the day of the end of the Panathenaic Games, Athenian women brought a new peplos to the statue. It was believed that while the Xoan was in Athens, the city would remain impregnable for enemies.

The western part, dedicated to Poseidon and Erechtheus, is located 3 meters below the eastern one. The main entrance to the cella is located in the north, but both ends of this part of the building are decorated with porticos. The entrance was decorated with carved rosettes (vegetative ornaments). Rosettes in Greece were carved on funerary steles. The appearance of an ornament so rare for a temple in the northern portico is explained by the fact that it was here that Erechtheus was buried.

In total, there are three entrances to the western part. In addition to the altar of Poseidon, the altars of Hephaestus, the father of Erechtheus, and But, the brother of the king and the first priest of Athena, were installed here.

On the south side of the western part is the world-famous portico of Pandrosa, the daughter of Kekrops. Its architrave rests on six statues of caryatids, priestesses of Artemis. They are made of marble from Mount Pentelikon, the height of the statues is 2.1 m.

The cult of Artemis became widespread in Athens during the reign of the tyrant Peisistratus (6th century BC). Under him, caryatid statues became a popular sculptural decoration. They were even placed on graves. A temple of Artemis was erected on the Acropolis, which was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC. During the systematic development of the Acropolis during the time of Pericles, it was decided not to build a separate temple to Artemis (perhaps due to an elementary lack of space). However, the townspeople demanded to honor the goddess, so Mnesicles decided to attach such an unusual portico to the Erechtheion.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about the sculptural decorations of the temple. Outside, the building was surrounded by a frieze made of overlaid figures of white Parian marble on a dark background of dark Eleusinian stone. The surviving fragments of the frieze are so insignificant that they do not allow us to judge the plot with certainty. From the interior decoration, alas, not a trace remained.

The further fate of the temple

The Erechtheion remained the revered sanctuary of Athena until the spread of Christianity. The temple was repeatedly rebuilt and repaired, which allowed it to stand in relative safety for more than 2 thousand years.

The first rebuilding dates back to the Byzantine period, when the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos was located in the Erechtheion. After the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 and the formation of the Latin Empire, the temple was rebuilt into a palace, the residence of the Duke of Athens. During the Turkish rule, the temple was rebuilt again and turned into a harem of the local pasha.

Fatal for the Erechtheion, as well as for the entire Acropolis, was 1687, when Athens was besieged by the Venetians. The Turkish garrison settled on the Acropolis, and the citadel was subjected to intense artillery bombardment. The temple suffered irreparable damage, it actually turned into ruins.

The case of the Venetians was continued by Lord Elgin, the English ambassador in Constantinople at the beginning of the 19th century. With the permission of Sultan Selim III, he took to London many works of art from the Acropolis, including one of the caryatids. The removal was carried out haphazardly, and if fragments of the sculptures of the Erechtheion remained by that time on the Acropolis, then after this “saving of the ancient heritage” they practically lost their historical value and cannot serve as a basis for restoring the sculptural decoration of the temple.

The restoration of the Erechtheion began only after Greece gained independence and continues to this day. The portico of the Caryatids, which is the favorite and most visited attraction of the Acropolis for both tourists and locals, is the best preserved. But even in its current unenviable state, the Erechtheion, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, remains one of the pinnacles of ancient architecture.

The rocky rock of the Acropolis, which dominates the center of Athens, is the largest and most majestic ancient Greek shrine, dedicated mainly to the city's patron, Athena.

The most important events of the ancient Hellenes are connected with this sacred place: the myths of ancient Athens, the biggest religious holidays, the main religious events.
The temples of the Acropolis of Athens are in harmony with the natural environment and are unique masterpieces of ancient Greek architecture, expressing the innovative styles and correlations of classical art, they have had an indelible impact on the intellectual and artistic creativity of people for many centuries.

The Acropolis of the 5th century BC is the most accurate reflection of the splendor, power and wealth of Athens at its highest peak - the "golden age". In the form in which the Acropolis now appears before us, it was erected after its destruction by the Persians in 480 BC. e. Then the Persians were finally defeated and the Athenians vowed to restore their shrines. The reconstruction of the Acropolis begins in 448 BC, after the Battle of Plataea, on the initiative of Pericles.

- Temple Erechtheion

Myth of Erechtheus: Erechtheus was a beloved and revered Athenian king. Athens was at enmity with the city of Eleusis, during the battle, Erechtheus killed Eumollus, the leader of the Eleusinian army, and also the son of the god of the sea, Poseidon. For this, the Thunderer Zeus killed him with his lightning. The Athenians buried their beloved king and named the constellation Charioteer after him. At the same place, the architect Mnesicles erected a temple, named after Erichtheus.

This temple was built between 421 and 407 BC and contained the golden lamp of Kallimachou. The construction of the Erechtheion did not stop even during the long Peloponnesian War.

The Erechtheion was the most sacred place of worship in Athens. The ancient inhabitants of Athens in this temple worshiped Athena, Hephaestus, Poseidon, Kekropos (the first Athenian king).

The whole history of the city was concentrated at this point and therefore the construction of the Erechtheon temple began in this place:

♦ in this place a dispute broke out between Athena and Poseidon over the property of the city

♦ in the northern porch of the Erechtheion temple there is a hole where, according to legend, the sacred serpent Erechthonius lived

♦ here was the grave of Kekrops

The eastern porch has six Ionic columns, to the north there is a monumental entrance with a decorated gate, on the south side a porch with six girls, known as caryatids, who support the arch of the Erechtheion, at the moment they have been replaced by plaster copies. Five of the caryatids are in the new Acropolis Museum, one is in the British Museum.