1. Parthenon
2. Old Temple of Athena
3. Erechtheum
4. Statue of Athena Promachos
5. Propylaea
6. Temple of Athena Nike
7. Eleusinion: An Athenian temple to Demeter, the Eleusinion was the place where all sacred objects associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries were kept between ceremonies. It was located at the base of the Acropolis.
8. Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion
9. Chalkotheke
10. Pandroseion
11. Arrephorion: a small building sited beside the north wall of the Acropolis. It provided the lodgings for the arrephores, the girls who worked for a whole year just below the acropolis weaving the new peplos for Panathenaic procession.
12. Altar of Athena
13. Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus: a walled open-air sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Polieus (city protector) around 500 BC, sited to the Erechtheion’s east. None of its foundations have been discovered and its trapezoid plan and many entrances have been worked out from rock cuttings on the acropolis. The eastern area of the sanctuary is thought to have housed the oxen for the annual Bouphonia or ox-sacrifice. Its main entrance had a pediment.
14. Sanctuary of Pandion: an open-air sanctuary or shrine at the south-east corner of the Acropolis, dedicated to Pandion I or Pandion II.
15. Odeon of Herodes Atticus
16. Stoa of Eumenes
17. Sanctuary of Asclepius or Asclepieion, the god of healing.
18. Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus
19. Odeon of Pericles
20. Temenos of Dionysus Eleuthereus
21. Aglaureion: a shrine to Aglauros
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their protector. Its construction began in 447 BC and was completed in 438 BC on the Athenian Acropolis, although decorations of the Parthenon continued until 431 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece and of Athenian democracy and one of the world’s greatest cultural monuments. The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a program of selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially ruined structure.
The Parthenon itself replaced an older temple of Athena, which historians call the Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon, that was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon was used as a treasury. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman Turk conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s, and it had a minaret built in it. On 26 September 1687, an Ottoman Turk ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures, with Ottoman Turk permission. These sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they are now displayed. The Greek government is committed to the return of the sculptures to Greece, so far with no success.