The Acropolis is located on a high rock which overlooks Athens. The first people arrived at what would become Athens around the end of the Stone Age, sometime between 3500 and 3200BC. They did not live on top of the hill, but around its sides, some using natural caves as homes.

By the early Bronze Age (3200–2000BC) they had begun to live on top of the rock using a deep fissure in the cliff-top as a well. By 1500BC, a king and nobles chose to live on the rock and, as the amount of room on the hilltop is small, most ordinary people were already living in villages on the lower ground.

In the 13th century BC, the area on top of the Acropolis started to be flattened to make it easier to build on. A king’s palace followed, together with a wall for defence, and a tower to guard the entrance up to the top of the rock.

The story of the Acropolis begins again in the 6th century BC when it became a religious sanctuary as opposed to the home of a king. By now the protector god of the city was Athena, and a temple to Athena was the first new thing to be built. That is called the Parthanon and it is by far the biggest temple in the Acropolis.

Over the years, the buildings on the Acropolis began to decay and needed to be repaired, both in later Greek times and in Roman times. Since 1975 there has been a vast project to restore and preserve the shattered remains of the buildings on the Acropolis. That is why you see the temples still propped up by scaffolding.