HISTORY
DESCRIPTION
SITE MONUMENTS
INFORMATION
 
 
The most important monuments of Thebes are:

The mycenaean palace "of Kadmos" (14th-13th c. B.C.). One of the most important mycenaean administrative centres (palaces) of Mainland Greece lays in about the centre of the Kadmeia citadel. Its various wall painted annexes and "departments" covered a great part of the natural hill of Thebes. Parts of the palace were excavated by A. Keramopoullos (1906-1929) and later (1963-1995) by archaeologists of the 9th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. Particularly important are the archives in Linear script B, the inscribed stirrup-jars, the "Room of the Treasure" and the "Armoury".

The Temple of Apollo Ismenios, belongs to one most important cult of Thebes (the other was the cult of Demeter Thesmophoros). It is situated on the pine-covered hill between the cemetery (Aghios Loukas) and the Electran Gates. The temple was excavated by A. Keramopoullos. Its remains belongs in a temple with dimensions 21,60X9,30 m and columns respectively 12X6, built perhaps after the battle of Leuktra (371 B.C.). Before the 4th B.C. temple, there, in the same place a geometric and late an archaic one. From the latter parts of its terracotta superstructure were found.

The Gates of Kadmeia. From the seven mythological gates of Thebes, whose names (often more than seven) are known from the tradition, only the entrance between the two circular towers of the Electran Gates are preserved today. In the place of Proitides and Homoloides Gates were preserved sections of the Mycenaean wall (excavations 1915 and 1984). The other gates are hypothetically located with the help of the natural exits from the city. The towers of the Electran Gates were excavated by A. Keramopoullos (1908) and were dated in the time of the city's rebuilding by Kassander (315 B.C.).