Parthenon Timeline

A major fire broke out in the Parthenon shortly after the middle of the third century AD, causing significant damage to the interior of the temple.

In 1456, Ottoman Turkish forces invaded Athens and laid siege to a Florentine army defending the Acropolis until June 1458, when it surrendered to the Turks.

Image source: History of Athens

As part of the Morean War (1684–1699), the Venetians sent an expedition led by Francesco Morosini to attack Athens and capture the Acropolis. The Ottomans fortified the Acropolis and used the Parthenon as a gunpowder magazine despite warnings of danger.

Image source: Morean War

On 26 September 1687 a Venetian mortar round, fired from the Hill of Philopappos, blew up the Ottoman munitions dump inside the Parthenon, devastating the building.

Image source: Siege of the Acropolis (1687)

For the next century and a half, parts of the remaining structure were looted for building material and especially valuable objects.

During the Greek War of Independence (1821–1833) which ended the 355-year Ottoman rule of Athens, the Acropolis was besieged twice, first by the Greeks in 1821–22 and then by the Ottoman forces in 1826–27.

Image source: Greek War of Independence

At some point in the fifth century, Athena's great cult image was looted by one of the emperors and taken to Constantinople, where it was later destroyed, possibly during the Fourth Crusade sack of Constantinople in 1204 AD.

It is debated exactly when during the 5th century the closure of the Parthenon as a temple occurred. The Parthenon was converted into a Christian church in the final decades of the fifth century to become the Church of the Parthenos Maria (Virgin Mary) or the Church of the Theotokos (Mother of God).

In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Parthénos was also applied to the Virgin Mary (Parthénos Maria) at this time.

In 1018, the emperor Basil II went on a pilgrimage to Athens after his final victory over the First Bulgarian Empire for the sole purpose of worshipping at the Parthenon.

After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-15th century, it became a mosque some time before the end of the fifteenth century.

When independent Greece gained control of Athens in 1832, the visible section of the minaret was demolished; only its base and spiral staircase up to the level of the architrave remain intact.

Most of the pediment sculpture pieces were removed and lost during renovations in either the eighth or the twelfth century.

The rediscovery of the Parthenon as an ancient monument dates back to the period of Renaissance Humanism; in 1436 Cyriacus of Ancona was the first after antiquity to describe the Parthenon and to call it by his name, which he had read many times in ancient texts, including that of Pausanias Periegetes.

Image source: Cyriacus of Ancona

In 1667, the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi expressed marvel at the Parthenon's sculptures and figuratively described the building as 'like some impregnable fortress not made by human agency.'

Image source: Evliya Çelebi

The French artist Jacques Carrey in 1674 visited the Acropolis and sketched the Parthenon's sculptural decorations. These drawings provide important, and sometimes the only, evidence of the condition of the sculptures prior to the devastation of 1687.

Image source: Jacques Carrey

Early in 1687, an engineer named Plantier sketched the Parthenon for the Frenchman Graviers d'Ortières, providing further documentation before the explosion later that year.

The statue of Poseidon was the largest sculpture in the pediment until it broke into pieces during Francesco Morosini's effort to remove it in 1688. That year the Venetians abandoned Athens, having considered but rejected blowing up what remained of the Parthenon.

From 1801 to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, removed about half the surviving Parthenon sculptures, sending them to Britain in efforts to establish a private museum. From 1800 to 1803 he controversially removed many surviving sculptures now known as the Elgin Marbles.

Image source: Elgin Marbles

The posterior piece of the Poseidon torso was found by Lusieri in the groundwork of a Turkish house in 1801 and is currently held in the British Museum.

The anterior portion of the Poseidon torso was revealed by Ross in 1835 and is now held in the Acropolis Museum of Athens.

In March 2011, archaeologists announced that they had discovered five metopes of the Parthenon in the south wall of the Acropolis, placed there in the 18th century when the wall was being repaired. It was previously presumed the missing metopes were destroyed in the 1687 explosion.

European surveyors produced the first measured drawings of the Parthenon, published in 1787 in the second volume of Antiquities of Athens Measured and Delineated, spurring philhellenism across Europe.

Image source: Nicholas Revett

The image of the small mosque within the Parthenon's cella has been preserved in Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière's photograph, published in Lerebours's Excursions Daguerriennes in 1842: the first photograph of the Acropolis.

Image source: Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière

An organised effort to preserve and restore buildings on the Acropolis began in 1975, when the Greek government established the Committee for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments (ESMA). Since then, numerous large-scale restoration projects have been undertaken.

Image source: Acropolis of Athens

In 1981, an earthquake caused damage to the east façade of the Parthenon.

In 1983, the Greek government formally asked the UK government to return the sculptures in the British Museum to Greece, and subsequently listed the dispute with UNESCO. In 2021, UNESCO called upon the UK government to resolve the issue at the intergovernmental level.

The last remaining slabs from the western section of the Parthenon frieze were removed from the monument in 1993 for fear of further damage.

Image source: Parthenon Frieze

Until cleaning of the remaining sculptures was completed in 2005, black crusts and coatings were present on the marble surface.

Between 20 January and the end of March 2008, 4200 items including some 80 artefacts dismantled from the monuments in recent years were removed from the old museum on the Acropolis to the new Acropolis Museum.

Image source: Acropolis Museum

In 2019, Greece's Central Archaeological Council approved a restoration of the interior cella's north wall, along with parts of others.

In March 2022, the Acropolis Museum launched a new website with photographs of all the frieze blocks preserved today in the Acropolis Museum, the British Museum and the Louvre.

Since the 19th century, the Parthenon's exterior has been encased in various extents of scaffolding until September 2025, when the scaffolding on the western side was removed temporarily. Greece intends to remove all scaffolding by 2026 after completion of restoration works.

The Parthenon's fully restored west pediment was unveiled in June 2026, marking a major milestone in the long-running conservation effort.