I sometimes will come across paintings of Acropolis and Athens in general from the 19th-20th century and i noticed it had in Acropolis painted a medieval tower which now is not there. What was the purpose of the tower and what happened to it?
Also were there rivers and other demolished monuments in Athens before like in the paintings?
You must mean the Frankish Tower, which was built during the Frankish Occupation around the 13th-14th centuries. After the Crusades, most of the Byzantine Empire was dismantled and many regions became Frankish or Venetian protectorates. Athens was one of them and became the Duchy of Athens. The dukes converted the Propylaea (the ancient gates to Acropolis) into their personal palace and that tower was built as part of that palace. During the Ottoman rule that followed, the Ottomans used this tower as salt store rooms and as prison. In 1874, the Greeks demolished this tower from the ancient site, so the paintings you have seen must be from the 18-19th centuries and not the 20th.
Here is a picture taken in 1870.
Some buildings around the Acropolis in the center of Athens were indeed demolished. When King Otto chose to switch the capital from Nafplio to Athens, Athens was but a tiny muddy village. Otto envisioned bringing Athens back to its former glory and he formed a plan to rebuild it as a neoclassical European capital. Therefore, buildings that did not agree with the Classical aesthetics were removed, mostly peasant houses, some Ottoman buildings and even a few Byzantine Greek churches (not all, some ruins / monuments of both styles remain). On the other hand, Ancient Greek and Roman monuments were preserved.
The river thing is going to be painful. This was something about which I was keeping a post in my drafts but I was getting mad about it every time and never completed it. Prepare for a shitstorm of painful facts. Athens is built on the Attican basin where many streams flow from the hills of the area and from the big mountains of Boeotia and Phocis in the west. In fact, Athens “used to” have 3 main rivers (Kifissós, Ilissós and Irithanós) and 700 (!) streams and creeks (i.e. Elásson and Kyklovóros, mentioning them for no reason other than that I like their names 😅). The former village come metropolis has been the target of an excessive urbanisation in various times in its recent history, most notably in the 60s to 80s time period. As the industries and economy developed, huge numbers of people started abandoning the harsh conditions in remote islands and big mountains for a more comfortable lifestyle in Athens. This caused urgent need for quick mass constructions. Especially during the military junta (1967-1974) uncountable architectural crimes were committed. The urgent need for fast and mass constructions, as well as the lack of scientific research, led to the filling and blockage of most of these rivers. Today only parts of the main rivers and only a handful of the streams are left to flow freely (around 50). Ilissós, the former sacred river of Athens, has been entirely covered and is running underground. We are not talking about Danube or Amazon but we are still talking about an overall waterway blockage worth of 800 km (~500 miles). This is also the reason even a moderate rain can make Athens flood all the time. This waterway blockage has also ruined the flora and fauna of the region. Many Athenians ask that the rivers are uncovered to run free again but the damage done is so excessive that it is too hard to undo at this point. There were “official plans” announced in 2019 about intending to free Ilissós but, you know, I am laughing.
Edward Dodwell, The waterfalls of Ilissos, Athens 1801-1806.
Ilissos river in 1955.
However the war against the river had already started in the ‘30s.
Covering Ilissos, 1937.
Covering MORE Ilissos river, 1963.
Once upon a time in verdant Athens (1910).
See more photos here.
