Greek island renewed by archeological restoration

Italian archaeologists reconstructed Rhodes' Acropolis of Lindos between 1936 and 1938. Now, after years of effort, a Greek team is almost finished repairing the Italians' often damaging work.

The third century BC Temple of the Lindian Athena, built on the site of a temple that was destroyed by fire in 392BC, is located 116 meters above sea level. It hovers over car-free, tourist-magnet Lindos. Athena worship started there in the 9th century BC, and the site's religious significance continued through Roman times.

Located 55km south of Rhodes town, Ancient Lindos is one of Greece's five most popular archaeological sites. In the summer, 3,000-4,000 tourists a day ascend to the site, many via pitiable, rented donkeys.

The tourist pilgrims pass sculptor Pythokritos' 180BC trireme relief, ascend a narrow staircase (lacking a guard rail), enter sections of a 14th-century Knights of St John castle and take in the view of the Hellenistic stoa. Their huge payoff is climbing a grand staircase to the Doric Athena shrine and seeing St Paul's Bay, located under the precipitous cliff.

This summer much of the stoa was roped off. Off-limits sections and scaffoldings have been the norm for tourists visiting Lindos since at least 1985. However, after this year, supports, cranes and workers will clear out of the site.

Classic methods


Ancient Lindos is one of Greece's five most popular archaeological sites

Maria Pikoula, the civil engineer on the renovation project, explains that in the 1930s the Italian archaeologists used corrosive iron rods, wood supports and - a favourite new material at the time - cement.

Pikoula notes that this early work by the archaeologists was rushed: "In a short period of time, the Italians did a lot of work, but they didn't take everything into account."

They didn't foresee cement's tendency to expand or iron's inclination towards oxidation, with the rocks suffering damage. (Archaeologists from Italy, whose country occupied the Dodecanese islands from 1912 to the end of World War Two, also worked on antiquities in Rhodes' Filerimos and Kameiros, as well as Rhodes town.)

Unlike the Athens Parthenon, the Lindos structures are not made of marble but of a more vulnerable, locally-found, calcareous sandstone.

The culture ministry staff returned to the ancients' construction techniques. The original builders fitted the rocks perfectly together, with only lead- or wood-filled gaps used to centre rocks. (Some of the original wooden pieces lasted into modern times at the site, which was first excavated by Danish Carlsberg Foundation archaeologists in the early 1900s.)

In a lengthy procedure, the ancients covered the sandstone with a protective white plaster. Pikoula adds: "The plaster probably was coloured, and a very good quality stucco was used."

Two decades of work


Most of the stoa work, including improvement of underground supports, took place between 1990 and 2000

In 1985, the renovation groundwork began, and the stoa's four columns were disassembled. In 1988, the stoa study and first preparation work began. In 1990, the funding was approved (with the European Union providing 75 percent of the funds and the Greek state the rest). Most of the stoa work, including improvement of underground supports, took place between 1990 and 2000.

A porous, yet hardy, rock was used from nearby site Sfougaria. (A massive crane hauled the huge rocks, which were cut and prepped outside town.) The team stuck to using ancient materials like bronze, with the exception of using titanium for the connection clamps and a new, non-damaging cement for some surfaces.

Pikoula notes that the team, which also includes architect Vasiliki Elefteriou and archaeologist Eleni Tskanika, follows the philosophy of making it clear to the visitor "what is old and new".

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