Spectacular 3D Video Depicts Ancient Athens as Never Seen Before

A spectacular 3D video reconstruction of ancient Athens in the late 5th century BC takes the viewer over the city and pinpoints its monuments, markets, temples, and neighborhoods.

The video made by Ancient Athens 3D and released in November presents the city the way it would have looked in the years before the defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.

The city of Athens was completely destroyed by the Persian army in the years 480 to 479 BC. In the years that followed, the Athenians managed to rebuild their city, and by the middle of the 5th century BC, the statesman and general Pericles ordered an extensive construction program that made Athens the center of classical Greece.

Since Athens is considered the birthplace of democracy, Pericles must be considered its father. By any measure, he was without a doubt the first great statesman in the entire world, making Athens a model city-state worthy of emulation by all the others.

Pericles led Athens from 461 to 429 BC, in a period historians term “The Golden Age of Pericles,” during which he firmly establishing the rule of democracy in the city.

It was the time when the great temples on the Acropolis hill were built, including the Parthenon and Erechtheion, in addition to many buildings of public administration for the Athenian Democracy.

Art, literature, and thought flourished in ancient Athens

In Athens, the fifth century BC served as a period in which art, literature, and thought flourished. This ultimately defines our image of ancient Greece.

As Patrick Garner, the author of three novels about Greek gods said, in the 21st century, much of what the world thinks of as ancient Greece is based on 5th century B.C. Greek architecture. We visualize the Parthenon atop the Acropolis in Athens, which was completed in 438 B.C. at the height of the Athenian empire.

We also picture the Erechtheion with its iconic Porch of the Maidens—six elegant Caryatids that for 2,400 years have stoically faced the Parthenon.

However, these marvels were hardly isolated achievements and are just a hint of the intellectual accomplishments of classical Greece, Garner added.

The video presents almost all of the important monuments, spaces, and areas within the city.

Ancient Athens 3D says that the 3D reconstructions were made after the most recently published international research, and great effort was made to be as accurate as possible. Of course, simplifications and artistic license are present in order to technically manage a big project like this one, it adds.

Related: From Pericles to Antetokounmpo: The History of Athens in 1,500 Words

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