Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon: what is on the cape and how a visit works

The short answer

The Temple of Poseidon stands at the highest point of Cape Sounion, at the southern tip of Attica, inside a sanctuary walled off on the landward side. Hellenic Heritage dates the Doric temple to the mid-5th century BC and says it was built on the ruins of an earlier temple that was still unfinished when the Persians destroyed it. Sounion is not in Athens: Hellenic Heritage gives the address as the 68th kilometre of the Athens-Sounion highway, Sounion, Lavreotiki.[1] XTOUR lists Sounion with Athens as a base; the site is not part of the city. How to recognise a Doric temple is explained in Greek temple orders explained.

The temple is one part of a larger site. The Ministry of Culture's Odysseus pages describe a fortress, a settlement, a harbour with ship sheds cut into the rock and a second sanctuary, of Athena.[3] Tickets are sold on tickets.hh.gr with timed entry.[5]

Why the cape mattered

The Odysseus history page explains the site through its position. From Sounion, Athens controlled the sea passage to the Aegean and to Piraeus, and guarded the Lavrion peninsula, whose silver mines, the page says, helped make Athens a leading power in the 5th century BC. The fortress and sanctuaries belonged to the deme of Sounion, created by Kleisthenes' reorganisation of 510 BC, and graves of the Early Bronze Age are reported on the cape.[2] Hellenic Heritage adds the naval side: a base at the entrance to the north harbour, from which warships could put to sea.[1]

The names and stories come with the place. Homer, the Ministry's page says, was the first to mention Sounion, as "the sacred cape of the Athenians".[2] Hellenic Heritage tells of Menelaus burying his helmsman Phrontis here on the way back from Troy, of King Aegeus throwing himself from the cliffs and giving his name to the Aegean, and of sailors in Byzantine and later times calling the cape Kavokolones, the Cape of Columns.[1]

What is on the site

The Odysseus description sets out the parts of the site.[3]

• The fortress. Walls about 400 metres long on the north and east sides cut the cape off from the land and enclose about 4 hectares. The page notes that the ancient gate was on the north-west, while today's visitors enter by crossing the east part of the wall.[3]
• The sanctuary of Poseidon. The walled precinct on the summit, about 5,000 square metres, with the temple in its southern part and two porticoes to the north-west.[3]
• The settlement. Streets and house blocks inside the fortress; the page dates the visible phase to the Hellenistic period and says the settlement housed the garrison and was probably the centre of the deme.[3]
• The harbour and ship sheds. The harbour lay in the sandy cove north of the fortress, and a shed for two warships was cut into the rock at its entrance, with another for one ship further east.[3]
• The sanctuary of Athena. On a low hill about 400 metres north-east of Poseidon's sanctuary, in the page's own measure; its temples were dismantled in the Roman period and taken to adorn the Athenian agora, so what remains are foundations.[3] Hellenic Heritage places this temple "on the opposite hill".[1]

The temple and its sculpture

According to the Odysseus description, the present temple was built around 444-440 BC on the foundations of the unfinished archaic one, of local marble from the Agrileza quarries, and is attributed to the same architect as the temple of Hephaistos in the Athenian agora, the temple of Ares at Acharnes and the temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous.[3]

The two official pages describe the frieze differently. Hellenic Heritage, on both its Sounion page and its Lavrion museum page, says it showed the Centauromachy and the Gigantomachy.[6][1] The Odysseus description says its Parian marble slabs show the battle of the Centaurs and the deeds of Theseus. Both read it as an allegory of the Athenian victory over the Persians.[1][3] XTOUR does not choose between them.

The sculpture is not all on the cape:

• Hellenic Heritage says relief slabs from the frieze are displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Lavrion, in the town of Lavrio.[6][1]
• A caption on the National Archaeological Museum's history page, in Greek, records the hiding of "the kouros of Sounion", number 2720 of its Sculpture Collection, during the war in 1940-1941.[7] The museum's vase collection also shows finds from the sanctuary of Sounion.[8] See the National Archaeological Museum guide.

Who dug and who restored

The Odysseus history page dates the scholarly study of the temple from 1884, under W. Dörpfeld, director of the German Archaeological Institute, and its systematic excavation to Valerios Staes between 1897 and 1913. Restoration work has been going on since 1875, the page says, and the temple's present state is the result of work by the Greek Archaeological Service in the 1950s under Anastasios Orlandos; a Ministry project of 2011-2013 presented all the monuments of the site together. The same page records that romantic visitors, Lord Byron in 1810 among them, carved their names on the marble.[2]

Tickets and the closing time

The Sounion page on tickets.hh.gr calls itself the official ticket store and says timed entry is required. According to that page, a ticket is for a single entry on the selected date and time, can be changed up to two hours before the visit and at most twice, and is non-refundable; visitors with reduced or free tickets must show ID or documentation. It lists large luggage, food, and professional photo shoots or filming as not permitted.[5]

Hellenic Heritage's site page and the Ministry's Odysseus page both give the closing time as sunset rather than a clock time, in summer and winter alike, and both put last entry 20 minutes before closing. Odysseus also lists shortened hours on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, which Hellenic Heritage's panel does not mention.[4][1] Because the closing time follows sunset, it changes through the year; XTOUR does not publish it. The article on what Greek archaeological site opening depends on explains schedules and closure notices more generally.

Directions and the operator's cross-references

Hellenic Heritage's page gives directions by intercity bus (KTEL) from Athens, with its own journey times.[1] XTOUR does not repeat them, because it holds no routing data and does not state travel times.

Hellenic Heritage's page links four other places in the Lavreotiki and east Attica: the Archaeological Museum of Lavrion, the ancient mines at Souriza, Brauron and Marathon.[1] That is the operator's cross-reference, not an XTOUR suggestion that they make one outing.

For Athens as a base, see the Athens destination page.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish Sounion's prices, its clock opening hours, sunset times, travel times from Athens, parking or accessibility information. It does not say how long a visit takes or how busy the site is at any hour. It does not sell tickets.