“During a tour of the Acropolis in 2023, I was talking to tourists and they were staring intently at the Parthenon as if observing something very specific. Suddenly they interrupted me to tell me that a woman had taken a stone and wrapped it in her pashmina. I started running to catch up with her. When I asked her if she had taken any stones, she immediately denied it. I opened her pashmina and there was indeed a fairly large piece of marble. Then I informed the guards,” tour guide Eleni Diapola tells Kathimerini.
Similar incidents occur from time to time at archaeological sites, both guarded and unguarded. The debate about the behavior of tourists at archaeological sites was reignited by the incident that occurred a few days ago on Naxos.
A visitor at the Temple of Apollo (colloquially known as Portara) on Naxos picked up an ancient stone slab of marble and held it above his head to have his photo taken, possibly as a modern-day Hercules. In addition to the damage he could have caused to the monument, his action was described as dangerous for other visitors and for himself.
The photo went viral on the internet and led to the appointment of a guard and the installation of wire fencing to prevent unwanted actions, at the initiative of the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades.
Fencing and cameras
“Every incident similar to that at Portara forces us to take measures, but the issue here is some people’s lack of education and desire to impress. It is not a matter of mass tourism but of behavior and lack of respect toward monuments,” Culture Minister Lina Mendoni tells Kathimerini, emphasizing that in the case of Naxos, new fencing and security cameras will be installed later. “I think it goes against common sense to take preventive measures at other monuments, open to the public. Monuments must be accessible to the public so that people love and protect them.”
Incidents like the one on Naxos do not occur often, but in recent years there have been many cases of extreme behavior by tourists who are unaware of the nature of the place they are visiting.
“We had such an incident recently. Someone entered an archaeological site in a state of intoxication. He crossed into a demarcated area and fell. We brought the fire department to get him out and then sent him to the hospital,” says Alkistis Papadimitriou, curator of antiquities for Argolida, Mycenae and Epidaurus. She also tells us that in the past, a student behaved indecently in front of the Lion Gate at the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, posing for a photo. “These are the cases when we notify the police. So various incidents take place, but they don’t take stones, because these areas have security. But for me, the important thing is not what has happened, but what could be happening that we don’t know about,” she adds.
‘Someone entered an archaeological site in a state of intoxication. He crossed into a demarcated area and fell. We brought the fire department to get him out’
The vast majority of visitors to archaeological sites and museums obviously behave differently, says Papadimitriou, without this meaning that incidents do not often occur, especially during the summer months.
Maria Arabatzoglou, a tour guide in Ancient Olympia, agrees. “Many people do things, not because of bad intentions.
There is a relaxed attitude. It has happened that girls want to enter wearing the top of their swimsuits instead of a blouse. It has also happened that they push and shout inside the site to get a better look.
But because there are guards, these incidents are isolated,” she tells Kathimerini. She also tells us about tourists who take pebbles from the floor that archaeologists have brought to make the paths of the archaeological sites smoother. “It is not ancient material, but that still does not mean that you should take it. It’s mainly children and young people that do this, as, among other things, they try to climb on ancient stones to take a photo, impersonating the statues.”
Another tourist trend has more to do with eccentric, rather than dangerous choices. Some tourists want to “stage” themselves while visiting the Parthenon. “Since 2022, when we opened after the lockdown imposed by the pandemic, we have seen things that were reminiscent of a circus. In previous years, you were not allowed to walk barefoot on the Acropolis. Some people do it supposedly to feel the energy of the site. I have seen people walking barefoot and the guards not making any comments,” says Diapola, adding that it is not uncommon to see visitors “dressed as Caryatids.”
The president of the Panhellenic Union of Antiquities Custodians, Georgia Kondyli, recalls that a few years ago at the Archaeological Museum of Pella, in northern Greece, some youngsters wrote with markers on the statues, while other visitors, mainly out of ignorance, left objects such as bags and glasses on the sculptures. “Photographing themselves with lifted blouses inside the archaeological site, for example, indicates a lack of respect. Such phenomena have multiplied in recent years, due to the need for titillating snapshots that will collect likes on social media. This also happened at Portara. Many people were photographing the visitor who lifted the stone,” she says.
Oil and spells
There have also been cases where museum visitors spread oil on icons at the Byzantine and Christian Museum, supposedly following some custom of their own, while last year, at the National Archaeological Museum, hairs were found along with a photograph between the pedestal of a statue and its base. “It was some kind of spell. We do not know when it was made or by whom,” Kostas Paschalidis, curator of the museum’s Collection of Prehistoric, Egyptian, Cypriot and Oriental Antiquities, told Kathimerini at the time.
Many tour guides also noted that some tourists take a lot of time photographing themselves in front of emblematic points in archaeological sites, which is also disrespectful toward the monuments, but also to the other visitors.
Tour guide Rania Pehlivanidou recalls another incident at the Acropolis Hill, about a month ago. “A student from a foreign university took a small fragment and when I told her it was forbidden, she was surprised, saying, ‘But it doesn’t say anything like that anywhere.’” Fortunately, such tourists are the exception, she says.
