This is thought to be one of the earliest known photographs capturing a group of tourists at the Acropolis of Athens, taken around the 1860s when the Greek capital was still a small town.
The identities of the individuals posing on the marble steps of the Parthenon remain unknown, but they are believed to be European upper-class travelers who visited Athens to experience the legacy of ancient Greek civilization, approximately thirty years after Greece’s liberation from Ottoman rule.
First photo of Athens Acropolis
In the distant year of 1842, French photographer and draughtsman Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey took the first-ever photograph of the ”Holy Rock.”
This photograph is a daguerreotype, one of Greece’s earliest surviving photographs.
De Prangey took the picture from the Hill of the Nymphs, also known today as the Hill of the National Observatory. It depicts part of the fortification of the Rock, the Parthenon, and some of the other ancient buildings of the Acropolis.
In the middle of the 19th century, Athens was a city undergoing significant transformation. After Greece gained independence, Athens, which had been a small town under Ottoman rule, was declared the capital of the new Greek state in 1834.
In the early 19th century, Athens was a modest settlement with a population of around 10,000. By the mid-19th century, its population had begun to grow steadily, reaching about 25,000 to 30,000, as people moved to the capital from other parts of Greece.
Despite modernizing efforts, Athens struggled with inadequate infrastructure, including poor water supply and sanitation. The rapid urban growth strained the city’s resources, and housing shortages were common.
Mid-19th century marked the early days of modern tourism in Athens
The mid-19th century marked the early days of modern tourism, particularly among Europeans, and Athens was a key destination for those interested in classical antiquity and the rediscovery of ancient Greek heritage.
Wealthy Europeans, especially those on the “Grand Tour” (a cultural and educational journey popular among the elite), frequently included Athens in their itineraries. Artists, archaeologists, and writers were particularly drawn to Athens as the cradle of Western civilization.
Some adventurous Americans and other non-Europeans also visited Athens, as travel to Greece was becoming increasingly feasible with the advent of steamships and improved infrastructure.
Traveling to Athens was not easy or convenient. Visitors often arrived by ship, landing at the nearby port of Piraeus, and then traveled by carriage or on foot to the city. Accommodations in Athens were limited, and amenities for tourists were sparse.
Local guides offered services to show visitors around the ruins, and many visitors sought to purchase antiquities as souvenirs, a practice that contributed to the looting of ancient sites.
Famous tourists and travelers to Athens Acropolis in the 19th century
Though Lord Byron visited Athens in the early 1800s, his writings inspired subsequent generations of travelers to follow in his footsteps. Figures like Charles Robert Cockerell and Edward Dodwell visited Athens during this time, documenting the ruins through drawings, paintings, and writings.
The Danish author of fairy tales Hans Christian Andersen visited Athens in 1841. He documented his impressions of the city and the Acropolis in his travelogue, A Poet’s Bazaar (En Digters Bazar), expressing admiration for the beauty of the ruins and the legacy of ancient Greece.
The famous author felt that Athens resembled a provincial Danish town, albeit one put together in great haste. He was impressed by the liveliness of the marketplace and the learning abilities of the Greeks. Hans Christian Andersen visited the Acropolis on a daily basis, whether to read his correspondence or to celebrate his birthday. He attended the theater as well as the Independence celebrations on March 25 and enjoyed the comforts of European-style hotels and coffee-shops, though he also dealt with dirty and ill-lit streets.
Although Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did not visit Greece, his son, August von Goethe, journeyed to Athens in the 19th century before his death. He was inspired by the cultural heritage of ancient Greece, an interest inherited from his father, who wrote extensively about classical antiquity.
Edward Lear, the English artist, writer, and poet visited Athens and produced sketches of the Acropolis and other landmarks. Lear’s artistic works, particularly his landscape drawings, captured the essence of Greece’s natural and architectural beauty.
Tourists’ image of Athens and Acropolis in the 19th century
Many foreign travelers in the mid-19th century noted the stark contrast between the grandeur of Athens’ ancient ruins and the simplicity of the modern city. They noted the city’s poverty, infrastructure challenges, and slow pace of modernization.
The image of the Greek kingdom that emerged was that of a country deprived of the elements that constituted an independent and civilized European state in the nineteenth century, says researcher Pandeleimon Hionidis.
Writing in the International Journal of Cultural and Digital Tourism, the Greek academic notes the main themes foreign travelers highlighted in the mid-19th century regarding Athens and Greece:
“Until 1843 the king was the absolute monarch and after that date, the constitution he granted did not challenge his authority. On the contrary, the representative system introduced methods of political corruption and a spirit of intense party struggle.
The revenues of the country and the money collected by the heavy taxation imposed upon the peasants were swallowed by the ineffective administration.
In agriculture, the methods used for the cultivation of the lands were still primitive. There were no industries, no railways, no roads. The progress in commerce was the result of individual efforts, of the special aptitudes of the Greek ‘character,’ while the government
seemed to detest any plan for the development of the natural resources of the country.
Even evidence of an ‘oriental barbarity’ was traceable in the Greek kingdom. Brigands infested the country many of whom were in close connection with the political circles. Foreign travelers risked their lives by wanting to realize their classical recollections.”
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