ATHENS - CITY PLAN ,Route and Railway,1894 Antique Colour Map

HISTORICAL MAP CHART SHOWING LOCAL TOPOGRAPHY

Athens is the capital of Greece and one of the most famous cities in the world, named after goddess Athena. Athens was the leading city in Greece during the greatest period of Greek civilization during the 1st millennium BC. During the "Golden Age" of Greece (roughly 500 BC to 323 BC) it was the world's leading cultural and intellectual centre, and indeed the phrase "Western civilization" has its origins in ancient Athens' ideas, achievements, and practices. In 431 B.C, Athens went to war with another city-state, Sparta. Due to its losses during a plague, Athens was defeated by Sparta, and its walls were pulled down (however remnants of the original walls of the era are still to be found today, especially in the coastline of Piraeus). The schools of philosophy were closed in AD 529 by the Christian Byzantine Empire, which disapproved of the schools' pagan thinking. During the Byzantine era, Athens gradually lost a great deal of status and, by the time of the Crusades, it was already reduced to a provincial town. It faced a crushing blow between the 13th and 15th centuries, when the city was fought over by the Greek Byzantines and the 'French' and Italian Crusaders. In 1458 the city fell to the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror. As the Emperor entered the city, he was greatly struck by the beauty of its ancient monuments and issued a firman (imperial decree) that Athens' ruins not be disturbed, on pain of death. The Parthenon was in fact converted into the city's principal mosque and therefore preserved. Despite the Sultan's good intentions to preserve Athens as a model Ottoman provincial capital, the city's population went into decline and conditions worsened as the Ottoman Empire declined from the late 17th Century. As time went by, the Ottoman administration slackened its care for Athens' old buildings; the Parthenon (or Mosque) was used as a warehouse for ammunition during the Venetian siege of Athens in 1687, and consequently the temple was severely damaged when a Venetian shell targeted the site and set off several casks of gunpowder stored inside the Parthenon. The Ottoman Empire relinquished control of Athens after the Greek War of Independence (1821–1831). The city was inhabited by just around 5,000 people at the time it was adopted as the capital of the newly established Kingdom of Greece on 18 September 1834. MAP INCLUDES LEGEND OF THE SITES IN ATHENS

1890s Wood Engraving, Antique Map

Approximate Overall Size: 12 X 9 1/2 inches

CONDITION: Book Plate Map - Excellent Condition. Folded. German Text. Beautiful with excellent detail. Map Print is Blank on Reverse Side