image for illustration: The Parthenon in Athens by Steve Swayne, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Only recently has scaffolding been removed that has partially obscured the western façade of the Parthenon for the past two decades, resulting in a ‘purer visual state’ reports Open Culture.
Open Culture writes:
The press attention drawn by this event prompted Greece’s Minister of Culture Linda Mendoni to declare this the first time the Parthenon’s exterior has been completely free of scaffolding in about two centuries. Having been originally built in the fifth century BC, and come through most of that span much the worse for wear, it requires intensive and near-constant maintenance. Its inundation by visitors surely doesn’t help: an estimated 4.5 million people went to the Acropolis in 2024, the kind of figure that makes you believe in the diagnoses of global ‘overtourism’ thrown around these days. The Greek government’s countermeasures include a daily visitor cap of 20,000, implemented in 2023, and a requirement to reserve a timed entry slot.
If you’d like to see the wholly un-scaffolded Parthenon in person, you’d best reserve your own slot as soon as possible: more conservation work is scheduled to begin in November, albeit with temporary infrastructure designed to be ‘lighter and aesthetically much closer to the logic of the monument,’ as Mendoni has explained. But if you miss that window, don’t worry, since that operation should only last until early next summer, and upon its completion, ‘the Parthenon will be completely freed of this scaffolding too, and people will be able to see it truly free.’ Not that they’ll be able to see it for free: even now, a general-admission Acropolis reservation costs €30 (about $35 USD) during the summertime peak season. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft, not wealth, but it clearly lies within her powers to command a decent price.
