The Sacred Olive Tree of the AcropolisContinuously renewed
Acropolis
You need a ticket to see this treePaid entry, standard Acropolis of Athens ticket
The olive tree beside the Erechtheion has died and returned at least twice, and both times the same legend gets the credit. Herodotus wrote that when Xerxes' Persian army burned the Acropolis in 480 BC, the sacred olive Athena was said to have grown in her contest with Poseidon went up with it, only to sprout a new shoot a cubit high the very next day. The tree standing here now is a second resurrection: German occupying forces damaged the earlier specimen during the Second World War, and sources disagree on exactly when its replacement went in, some say 1917, before that war even started, others say 1952, after it. What both agree on is the point of the story rather than the paperwork: someone has kept an olive growing on this exact spot for as long as Athens has kept records, using cuttings from the previous tree rather than starting over with something unrelated. The Erechtheion behind it, an asymmetrical marble temple finished around 406 BC to house the Acropolis's holiest relics, has needed far more restoration than the tree ever has. Entry is included in the standard Acropolis ticket, and the olive stands walled into the Pandroseion, the small sanctuary against the temple's west side.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
The Pandroseion, west side of the Erechtheion, Acropolis of Athens, Athens 10555
You can recognise it by its trunk walled inside a small stone enclosure of its own. It stands against the west side of the Erechtheion, in the Pandroseion.
Acropoli metro station (Line 2), 5 min walk, or Acropolis entrance on Dionysiou Areopagitou
In fruit
the harvest, when the fruit turns from green to black
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
