It’s not about the flags. If it were Crete, New Democracy, Vergina or Israel. Even if the stranger who climbed the western pediment of the Parthenon on Sunday wanted to talk to the rulers of our country or any other. Similar goals were pursued by many of those who occupied the monument from time to time. The question is not why in our case, but how.

How did an unknown person get inside the Parthenon without being noticed by the guards and climb the stairs, on which the repairmen and workers worked at the top of the monument? From the information we collected, it follows that the man entered the archaeological site as a casual visitor on a day when there were no crowds of tourists on the Acropolis.

Around 10:30 a.m., the man crossed the rope and began to climb the scaffolding ladders. Eight hours later, when a special police negotiator arrived on the scene, the man walked out and was arrested. Now the Ministry of Culture and the competent Office of Antiquities of the city of Athens are studying footage from CCTV cameras to find out how an unknown man passed by the guards of the monument.

Was security adequate? Is there a blind spot around the monument? Do all cameras in archaeological sites work? Is it easy to get to the center of the most important Greek monument?

Incidents like this don’t happen often – some remember one incident in 2009 – but they show the security holes Sacred Rock still has. In 2020, a study on the vulnerability and security of the Acropolis and its monuments was handed over to the Ministry of Defense by the Center for Security Studies, and in June the CAS approved the upgrade of the monument’s security equipment with new cameras. In the meantime, we are waiting for the old ones to show.