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Temple of Aphrodite Urania

5th-century BC religious buildings and structuresAncient Agora of AthensAncient Greek buildings and structures in AthensInstances of Lang-el using second unnamed parameterLandmarks in Athens
Temples in ancient AthensTemples of Aphrodite
AgoraAthens5thcentury
AgoraAthens5thcentury

The Temple of Aphrodite Urania (Greek: Βωμός Αφροδίτης Ουρανίας, romanized: Vomós Afrodítis Ouranías) is a temple located north-west of the Ancient Agora of Athens, dedicated to the Greek goddess Aphrodite under her epithet Urania.The temple was built around the early 5th century BC. According to Pausanias, the sanctuary had a marble statue of the deity sculpted by the ancient Greek sculptor Phidias: Above the Kerameikos [in Athens] is a sanctuary of the Aphrodite Ourania (Heavenly); the first men to establish her cult were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians the Paphians of Kypros and the Phoinikians who live at Askalon in Palestine; the Phoinikians taught her worship to the people of Kythera. Among the Athenians the cult was established by Aegeus, who thought that he was childless (he had, in fact, no children at the time) and that his sisters had suffered their misfortune because of the wrath of Aphrodite Ourania (Heavenly). The statue still extant is of Parian marble and is the work of Pheidias. One of the Athenian parishes is that of the Athmoneis, who say that Porphyrion, an earlier king than Aktaios, founded their sanctuary of Ourania. But the traditions current among the Parishes often differ altogether from those of the city. If still in use by the 4th century, the temple would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. There are a few saved stones on the slope of the hill beside the train tracks and near the temple of her husband Hephaestus.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Temple of Aphrodite Urania (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Temple of Aphrodite Urania
Αδριανού, Athens Lower Petralona Suburb (1st District of Athens)

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N 37.976 ° E 23.7217 °
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Αδριανού
105 55 Athens, Lower Petralona Suburb (1st District of Athens)
Attica, Greece
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Temple of Ares
Temple of Ares

The Temple of Ares was a sanctuary dedicated to Ares, located in the northern part of the Ancient Agora of Athens. The Temple was identified as such by Pausanias but the ruins present today indicate a complex history. Ares had a temple somewhat like Athena's. The foundations are of early Greece construction and date, but fragments of the superstructure, now located at the western end of the temple, can be dated to the 5th century BC. From the fragments archaeologists are confident that they belonged to a Doric peripteral temple of a similar size, plan and date to the Temple of Hephaestus. Marks on the remaining stones indicate that the temple may have originally stood elsewhere and was dismantled, moved and reconstructed on the Roman base - a practice common during the Roman occupation of Greece. The temple probably came from the sanctuary of Athena Pallenis at modern Stavro, where foundations have been found but no temple remains are present. Pausanias described the sanctuary in the 1st century: [At Athens] is a sanctuary of Ares, where are placed two images of Aphrodite, one of Ares made by Alkamenes, and one of Athena made by a Parian of the name of Lokros. There is also an image of Enyo, made by the sons of Praxiteles. About the temple stand images of Herakles, Theseus, Apollo binding his hair with a fillet, and statues of Kalades, who it is said framed laws for the Athenians, and of Pindaros, the statue being one of the rewards the Athenians gave him for praising them in an ode. However, as the Roman Empire had adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire, in the late third and early fourth centuries, probably under the Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius I, the temple of Ares was destroyed and looted.