2,000 year old ‘Aerides’ Clocktower in Athens
It is said to be the world’s first weather station, to date back more than 2,000 years, and to have been used by merchants to tell the time - even in darkness.
The Tower of the Winds, still standing on a slope on Athens’s ancient Acropolis hill despite attempts by Lord Elgin to move it to Britain, has been restored and re-opened to the public for the first time in nearly 200 years.
No one knows who funded its lavish construction - the octagonal monument is made almost entirely of Pentelic marble, the same used for the Parthenon and rarely found in buildings other than temples.
At nearly 14 meters (46 ft) tall, it is credited to the architect and astronomer Andronikos of Cyrrhus, but all these years later no one knows exactly how it worked.
While you are in Athens check out the 2,000-year-old marble clocktower known as ‘Aerides’ (Winds) situated in the heart of Athens- north of the Parthenon
‘Tower of the Winds’ is an octagonal Pentelic marble tower in the capital city’s Roman Agora and functioned as a horologion or "timepiece". The structure features a combination of sundials, a water clock, and a wind vane.
A leading monument in Athens, the 12-meter-tall ‘Tower of the Winds’ came to light in the 19th century following excavations by the Archaeological Society of Athens. It’s an octagonal time-telling structure (“horologion”) made of Pentelic marble and designed by Macedonian-born astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus in the 1st Century BC.
The most beautiful cities of Ancient Greece
* Image by Maria Theofanopoulou
