2008-10-08eg Cross-piece by [Ananabanana]

The cross-piece of the remaining ruins of the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Agora&amp;w=45358973@N04">Temple</a> of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Olympic&amp;w=45358973@N04">Olympian</a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Zeus&amp;w=45358973@N04">Zeus</a>, which sits in south-central <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Athens&amp;w=45358973@N04">Athens</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=greek&amp;w=45358973@N04">Greece</a>, to the East of the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Acropolis&amp;w=45358973@N04">Acropolis</a>. The <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=classical&amp;w=45358973@N04">oldest</a> parts of the temple date back to the 6th century BC, when work commenced under the rule of Hippias, in the time before Athenian <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q= democracy &amp;w=45358973@N04">democracy</a>. It lay unfinished after Hippias was overthrown (he would later attempt to regain his throne as a pawn of the Persian Emperor Darius I, but their force was defeated at Marathon), and building was not commenced again until the time of the Seleucid Empire. In the first century, when the temple was half-complete, Athens was sacked by the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Rome&amp;w=45358973@N04">Romans</a> and part of it carried back to Rome (to be used in the Temple of Jupiter). Building finally finished in the 2nd century in the reign of Emperor <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Hadrian&amp;w=45358973@N04">Hadrian</a>. However the glory of the temple was short lived, a second sack of Athens, this time by the Heruli, left it ruined once again (along with much of the city). In the centuries that followed, much of the stone was repurposed for building works in the city, in 1436 only 21 of the original 104 columns still stood, today that number is 15, with a sixteenth lying prostrate. Taken with my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ananabanana/sets/72157623114199156/">Nikon D40</a>, fitted with a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ananabanana/sets/72157622989855081/">Tamron 70-300mm F4/5.6 DI LD (Nikon AFS) lens</a>, and processed in <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=GIMP&amp;w=45358973@N04">GIMP</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Photoscape&amp;w=45358973@N04">Photoscape</a>. More of my photos can be found <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ananabanana/">here.</a>