Overview
Iktinos and Kallikrates built it and Pheidias oversaw the sculpture, including a twelve-metre gold and ivory Athena that vanished in antiquity. The building served as a church and then a mosque, and survived largely intact until 1687, when a Venetian shell hit the Ottoman powder store inside it and blew out the centre. Lord Elgin removed about half the surviving frieze in 1801–1812; it is in the British Museum, and Greece has asked for it back ever since.
Highlights
Walk the full circuit rather than stopping at the west front — the north colonnade shows the 1687 damage most clearly. The original frieze blocks still in Greece are in the Acropolis Museum, arranged as they sat on the building. Sunrise and the last hour give the marble its colour; midday flattens it.