The history of Athens offers a vast field of investigation to specialists, given the large number of documents that came to their attention.

Athens has been inhabited without interruption for at least 3 000 years. In the first millennium BC. AD, it became one of the main cities of ancient Greece and its cultural achievements during the fifth century BC. AD have created the foundations of Western civilization.

During the Middle Ages, the city declined before recovering under the Byzantine Empire. Athens has also been relatively prosperous during the Crusades in taking advantage of Italian trade. After a long period of decline under the Ottoman Empire, Athens has again emerged in the nineteenth century as the capital of the independent Greek state.

The formation of the name would, according to some, the Indo-European root ath-probably meaning “head” or “summit” because of the Acropolis fortress located at the top of the hill of the same name, would be the “core founder” of the city. This also explains the origin of the mythological legend about the birth of the eponymous goddess, Athena that output would be “army” of the head of Zeus.

According to Thucydides, the name of Athens would come from the plural Athena , because he said the city would have caused a cluster of villages which merged in a large city.

It was located in a fertile valley surrounded by rivers about 20 km from the Saronic Gulf, central Plains céphisiennes. To the east, located on Mount Hymettus and north Mount Penteli. The River Kifissos once flowed in the city. There have been many historical events during the long periode of Athens history.

The ancient Athens was very small compared to the modern megalopolis. It was, intramural, an area of 2 km from east to west and a little less from north to south at its peak, it had yet also “suburbs” outside the walls. The Acropolis, from the center of the city, stood to the south and the Agora to 400 meters north of it, in what is now the Monastiraki district. The hill of the Pnyx, which met the Ecclesia, the assembly of Athenian citizens, was in the west.
Traces of human occupation are attested from the Neolithic to the site of the Acropolis  in the form of a small fort. But it is only following the Ionian invasions that Attica is organized in cities, including Cecropia, the future Athens.

C. 1400 BC. AD it became an important center of the Mycenaean civilization. Unlike other Mycenaean cities (including Mycenae and Pylos), it is not plundered or abandoned during the invasion of 1200 Doric Ave. AD
The Athenians said Ionian be “pure” and maintained that they had not mixed with Dorien. However, Athens lost the importance it had in Mycenaean times and then somewhat dark into oblivion, was once again a small fortified place.

In the eighth century BC. AD it becomes an important center of the Greek world because of its central location, its high on the Acropolis and access to the sea, an advantage over its rivals, the cities of Thebes and Sparta. Early in the first century it became a sovereign city-state, governed primarily by kings of Athens. They were at the head of Eupatridae (the “well born”), whose government was composed of a council which met on the hill of Ares, the Areopagus. This council elected representatives of the city, Archon and polémarques.

The church of the Holy Apostles is one of the oldest Christian churches (early 11th century A.D.) in the area of the ancient Greek Agora. It stands a little South of the Stoa of Attalus. A minute church, it has four apses and a narthex with the lower part of the walls built of massive blocks and the upper section in stone masonry, lined with bricks. Sotira Likodimou (Russian Church) This is the largest medieval structure in Athens. It was built in 1031, as part of a Roman Catholic monastery that survived until 1701, on the ruins of Roman Baths, formed an important monastic group, till its destruction from the Turks. The building was restored by Czar Alexander II in the 1850s. It is now used as the Russian Orthodox Church of Athens.It stands in Filellinon str. and belongs to the octagonal style with dome. Map of Athens – Regions – Athens center map – photo gallery Map of Piraeus – Regions – photo gallery Kapnikarea The church of Panagia is built on the ruins of an ancient temple, dedicated to a female goddess, possibly Athena or Demeter.This church stands in the middle of the street, about half way up on Ermou Street, and dates to the end of the 11th century A.D. Originally, it had been built in the cruciform style with dome supported on four pillars. Later, the small porch was added on the southern side and also the chapel on the northern side and the external narthex with the watershed roof on the western side. Church of Saint George Lycabettus   This is a white church situated at the  of Lycabettus Hill, with a spectacular view over Athens. It is said that in ancient times on this site stood the temple of the Akraios Zeus. The exact date of its construction is not known. It can be reached either on foot or by the cable car. The Kaisariani Monastery   The Monastery lies at a short distance to the east of Athens, on a hillside at the foot of Mt. Hymettos. It is enclosed by a high wall with two gates, one on the east and one on the west side. The interior of the church is decorated with wall paintings dated before 1700. Monastery of Daphni   Built in the 11th century, it is one of the finest Byzantine Monasteries around Athens

The are many important museums in Athens, the Byzantine Museum was founded in 1914. From 1930 on it has been housed in the “Ilisia” mansion, which belonged to the Duchess of Placentia and was built in 1848 by the architect Stamatis Kleanthes. It was transformed into a museum by the architect Aristotle Zachos. Today an addition is being made and a large extension with basement and buildings in part above ground. The architectural design is by Manos Perrakis.
The collections of the Byzantine Museum show the course of Greek art from the 4th to the 19th century. They comprise sculptural works, paintings and small works of all sorts. These works represent the artistic production of the Greek area, and other regions both central and peripheral of the Byzantine empire and subsequently of Hellenism on into post-Byzantine times.

The Museum collections include the following:

- Byzantine and post-Byzantine ikons.
- Sculpture
- Manuscripts
- Wall paintings
- Mosaics
- Small objects (cloth, coins, pottery, metal objects, silver)
- Wood carvings
- Patterns (anthibola), bronze engravings, lithographs
- A collection of old prints (incunabula)
- A collection of copies of paintings

The Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum (ILJM) is a centre for international jewelry studies. On permanent display are the creations by Ilias Lalaounis, an Athenian jeweler and goldsmith, elected member to the French Academy des Beaux-Arts. The Museum organizes temporary exhibitions on various aspects of modern or antique jewelry and runs a series of educational and cultural activities.

The Athens museum of Lalaounis operates as a non-profit cultural institution; following the combined approval of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance the Museum is a registered charity. The ILJM opened to the public in December 1994. It is housed in the old Ilias Lalaounis workshop on the south slope of the Acropolis. The building, a beautiful 1930s house, was renovated by Vassilis Gregoriadis on plans prepared by Bernard Zehrfuss.

The permanent exhibition displays 3000 pieces of jewelry and micro-sculpture from 45 collections designed by Lalaounis in the period 1940-1992. They include jewelry inspired by prehistoric art, Bronze Age Greece, Greek jewelry from the Classical and the Hellenistic periods, Byzantium, the art of Persia, the Ottoman Empire and the Far East, as well as creations marking developments in technology and science, from breakthroughs in biology to space travel.

The exhibition is documented by trilingual labels in Greek, English, and French. Guided tours are also given in German and Italian. A variety of videos in Greek, English, and French are available for show at all times in a specially provided Projection Room. Actual jewelry craftsmen may be seen at work in the Museum’s Model Workshop. There is a Cafe and restaurant on the ground floor, and a roof garden with a view to the South side of the Parthenon

The Epigraphical Museum was founded in 1885 and it was established in the ground floor of the building of the National Archaeological Museum, which was constructed between 1866 and 1889, according to architectural plans by L.Lange and E.Ziller.
It was renovated and extended in six new rooms, during the years 1953-1960, according to plans of the architect P.Karantinos.
It comprises a collection of Attic inscriptions and also a collection of inscriptions from other districts of Greece.

Decree of the Athenian people assembly (Demos) ordering, after a proposal of Themistocles, the evacuation of Athens, the mobilization of the fleet and other measures, before the Persian invasion in Attica in 480 B.C. (3rd cent. B.C. copy from Troizen). Height 0,61, width 0,37, thickness 0,09 m.

Sacred law concerning temple-worship on the Acropolis (including the so called Hekatompedon temple). The inscription is the finest example of stoichedon writing (letters arranged in ranks) of the Archaic period, (485/4 B.C.). Height 1,175, width 1,02, thickness 0,125 m.

Stele with building accounts concerning the construction of the Erectheion and the Parthenon on the Acropolis in the year 408/7 B.C. Height 0,955, width 0,445, thickness 0,10 m.

Stele, on which specifications (syngraphai) have been engraved for the construction of the “skeuotheke” (arsenal) at Piraeus, entrusted to the architects Philon and Euthydomos (347/6 B.C.). Height 1,175, width 0,54, thickness 0,10 m.
Inscribed poros stele, dedicated to the goddess Athena, concerning the institution of the Panathenaic Games (566 B.C.). Height 0,36, width 0,68, thickness 0,25 m.

Fragment of lime stone with a graffito found on the Athens Acropolis. The two preserved lines are written boustrophedon (i.e., from right to left and from left to right). The graffito is one of the earliest examples of Greek writing on stone (8th cent. B.C.). Height 0,082, width 0,081, thickness 0,015 m. On the Erehtheion are to be seen th Caryatides.
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Stele found in Eleusis with a decree of the Athenian people assembly (demos) concerning the offerings (“aparchai” i.e.first fruits) of cereals to the Eleusinian goddesses Demeter and Kore (Persephone) (circa 422 B.C.). Height 1,33, width 0,50, thickness 0,095 m.

Stele with the text of the Second Athenian League (378/7 B.C.). Height 1,99, width 0,50, thickness 0,17 m.
Stele bearing a 409/8 B.C. copy of the Draconian laws (7th cent. B.C.), concerning homicide. Height 1,025, width 0,72, thickness 0,135 m.
Altar dedecated to Apollo Pythios by Peisistratos the younger, grandson of the tyrant, during his archonship in Athens (circa 521 B.C.). Height 0,18, width 1,85, thickness 0,55 m.