The Ancient Agora of Athens is basically a whole mess of stuff. Severin and I walked around a bit but didn’t linger too long, mainly because it felt like we walked two miles around the entire outside of the perimeter of the place just trying to find the entrance. And also because there is a lot of stuff lying around everywhere and not a whole lot in terms of signage, explanations, etc. Our guidebook had a few details, but not a lot to really make me pause and admire. It’s also hard to get a sense of the layout of how the place would have looked because its sprawling with lots of trees and plants.
The main focal point of the Agora is the Stoa of Attalos, which was constructed in the 1950s as a replica of what would have been there 1800 years ago. It was partially funded by the Rockefellers. Interestingly, as I was just reading the Wikipedia page about the stoa, I learned that the 2003 Treaty of Accession, which set the groundwork for the largest expansion of the European Union ever (including the admission of Cyprus) was signed here.
The Church of the Apostles is an Orthodox Church from the late 10th century. Not as old as the other stuff in the Agora, but still pretty damn old. I loved all of the little details on it; Sev was getting a little impatient with me as I insisted on photographing it from all angles.
The oldest building in the Agora is the Temple of Hephaestus, completed in 315 BC. It is remarkably intact because it was used as a Greek Orthodox church from the 7th century AD until 1834. It is something I think about in Cyprus often, as there are so many buildings in beautiful ruins. Some conservationists would love for the buildings to remain unmodified and untouched in perpetuity. But if giving an old building a new purpose keeps it standing and in good shape, even if it means a cannibalization of its old and new uses, is that such a bad thing? When I think about some of the world’s most incredible and unique places, it’s precisely where cultures mix and collide over centuries where the most unique and spectacular sights are built– I’m thinking the Alhambra in Spain, or the gothic-cathedrals-turned-mosques here in Cyprus, or the Catholic churches in Ecuador where the indigenous slave laborers hid their own religious motifs into the frescoes on the ceiling.
