The Most Remarkable Ancient Places in Greece
8 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable ancient places in Greece are Knossos, Parthenon and Odeon of Herodes Atticus. The list covers 8 ancient places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
In Greece, "ancient" covers three thousand years of making, from the palaces of the Bronze Age to the Roman buildings of the second century AD, and it includes the very works that defined the Western ideas of the temple, the theatre and the human figure in art. An ancient place here is often not just a ruin but a source: the forms seen in it were copied by Rome, revived in the Renaissance and repeated in capitals across the world. Bronze and marble sculpture belongs to this story as much as architecture.
The Bronze Age opens it. Knossos on Crete was the largest Minoan palace, a complex of courtyards, storerooms and painted halls. At Mycenae, the Lion Gate, built around 1250 BC, is crowned by a relief of two lions flanking a column, the only monumental Mycenaean sculpture still standing where it was set. The classical age produced the Parthenon in Athens, the temple of Athena completed in the fifth century BC, and the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, a Doric temple standing in a pine forest above the sea.
Two bronzes show the classical age in sculpture. The Charioteer of Delphi, cast around 470 BC, still has eyes of inlaid stone and glass and stands calm in a long pleated robe. The Artemision Bronze, a striding god poised to throw, was recovered from a shipwreck off Cape Artemision. Roman Greece is represented by the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a stone theatre beneath the Acropolis built in the second century AD and used again for performances today.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Knossos | Archaeological site | |
| 2 | Parthenon | Ruins | ✓ |
| 3 | Odeon of Herodes Atticus | Roman theatre | |
| 4 | Artemision Bronze | Sculpture | |
| 5 | Charioteer of Delphi | Sculpture | |
| 6 | Lion Gate, Mycenae | City gate | |
| 7 | Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae | Ruins | ✓ |
| 8 | Temple of Aphaia, Aegina | Ruins |
01 Knossos
Κνωσός
Greece · 4.2 km from Heraklion35.298° N 25.163° E
Image by davestem from Pixabay Knossos, on Kephala hill 5 km south of the centre of Heraklion, was the greatest centre of Minoan Crete and is often described as Europe's oldest city. People settled on the hill around 7000 BC, and by about 1900 BC they had built the first palace: a multi-storey complex around a central court, covering roughly 20,000 m², with storerooms, workshops, shrines and halls of state.
Did you know? The Throne Room, built in the 15th century BC, is considered the oldest throne room in Europe, and its alabaster seat the oldest stone throne on the continent.
02 Parthenon
Παρθενώνας
Greece · 1.6 km from Athens37.972° N 23.727° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay The Parthenon looks perfectly straight only because almost nothing about it actually is.
Did you know? On 26 September 1687 a Venetian mortar round hit gunpowder stored inside by the Ottoman garrison, and the blast killed about 300 people.
03 Odeon of Herodes Atticus
Ωδείο Ηρώδου του Αττικού
Greece · 1.7 km from Athens37.971° N 23.725° E
Image by 2770862 from Pixabay Built into the southwest slope of the Acropolis, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus shows Athens the Roman way: a steep semicircle of marble seats facing a stage building whose three-storey wall of arched openings still rises about 28 metres against the rock. Herodes Atticus, a rich Athenian orator and patron, completed it in AD 161 in memory of his Roman wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla, and gave it to the city.
Did you know? In 1973 the ancient theatre hosted the Miss Universe pageant, broadcast around the world from the foot of the Acropolis.
04 Artemision Bronze
Ποσειδώνας του Αρτεμισίου
Greece · 0.4 km from Athens37.989° N 23.732° E
George E. Koronaios · CC0 The Artemision Bronze, known as the God from the Sea, is one of the few large Greek bronzes of the classical period to survive, and it is one of the highlights of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Did you know? One theory links the cargo to Roman plunder from Corinth in 146 BC; another to the sack of Chalkis in 86 BC.
05 Charioteer of Delphi
Ηνίοχος
Greece38.480° N 22.500° E
Václav Moravec · CC BY-SA 4.0 8 m tall, made around 470 BC and now the centrepiece of the Delphi Archaeological Museum. It belonged to a victory monument at the Sanctuary of Apollo celebrating a chariot win in the Pythian Games of 478 or 474 BC. The inscription on its limestone base names the dedicator as Polyzalus, tyrant of Gela in Sicily.
Did you know? When excavated, the bronze had a bluish sheen, echoing Plutarch's remark on the strange blue patina of bronzes at Delphi; it has since turned largely green.
06 Lion Gate, Mycenae
Πύλη των Λεόντων
Greece37.731° N 22.756° E
Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 2.5 The Lion Gate was the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae in the Argolid, the fortress that gave its name to the late Bronze Age civilisation of mainland Greece. It was built around 1250 BC, when the circuit of walls was extended to enclose more of the hill, and it has never been buried: it has stood in view for more than three thousand years.
Did you know? The travel writer Pausanias saw and described the gate in the 2nd century AD, roughly 1,400 years after it was built.
07 Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae
Ναός Επικούριου Απόλλωνα
Greece37.430° N 21.900° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Jean Housen · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a bare limestone shoulder of Mount Kotilion, more than 1,100 metres up in the wild hills where ancient Arcadia met Messenia, stands one of the best-preserved temples of classical Greece. Its name, Bassai, means roughly a little vale among the rocks, and the setting is exactly that: grey stone, oak scrub and a long view over ridges towards the sea.
Did you know? Bassae became the first Greek site on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986.
08 Temple of Aphaia, Aegina
Ναός της Αφαίας
Greece · 26.2 km from Piraeus37.754° N 23.533° E
Image by aled7 from Pixabay On a hilltop in the east of Aegina, an island in the Saronic Gulf, the Doric columns of the Temple of Aphaia still stand around their cella, though the roof is long gone. Built around 500 BC, the temple is remarkable for an unusual plan and above all for its pediment sculptures, which capture the moment when Greek art was turning from the Archaic to the Early Classical style.
Did you know? Proposed construction dates for the surviving temple range from 510 to 470 BC, with around 500 BC most widely favoured.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most remarkable ancient places in Greece?
- On our list, Knossos ranks first, followed by Parthenon and Odeon of Herodes Atticus.
- Is the Artemision Bronze Zeus or Poseidon?
- No one is certain. The figure is shown throwing something that has been lost: a thunderbolt would make him Zeus, a trident Poseidon. Many scholars favour Zeus, partly because a trident would have blocked the view of the face.
- How old is the Lion Gate at Mycenae?
- The Lion Gate was built around 1250 BC, in the 13th century BC, as the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae. Its relief of two lions standing on either side of a column is the only monumental sculpture of the Mycenaean world to survive in place.
- Who built the Odeon of Herodes Atticus?
- The wealthy Athenian Herodes Atticus built it in 161 AD in memory of his wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla. Restored in the 1950s, it is used for concerts and performances during the Athens Festival.
- How many ancient places are on this list in Greece?
- The list covers 8 ancient places.