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Imagine standing in the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens, around 320 BCE. The stone seats climb the south slope of the Acropolis, packed with spectators. It is a festival of Dionysos, and on the stage below, one of the most famous moments in all of drama is about to unfold. This is our newest TimeSpot, now in production, and it takes you to the very place where theatre as we know it was born. Image: TimeLens reconstruction of the Theater of Dionysos in Athens during Hellenistic times. A festival...

Bringing the Hunebed Builders Back to Life Across the province of Drenthe stand dozens of hunebeds, giant stone tombs older than the pyramids of Egypt. They are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. But the people who raised them, the hunebed builders, and the world they lived in, vanished more than five thousand years ago. Today we are proud to announce a project that brings that world back. Together with the Hunebedcentrum in Borger, and with the support of the Cultuurfonds, TimeLens is...

Imagine standing on the Acropolis in Ottoman times, in the year 1805 to be specific. It is the very spot where, in our Classical reconstruction, the Panathenaic procession once reached the Parthenon in its painted glory. Two thousand years later, that same ground tells a very different story. This is our newest TimeSpot, and it is now in the TimeLens app. Image: TimeLens reconstructions of the Parthenon in Classical and Ottoman times next to each other. A ruined Parthenon and an Ottoman town...

It is one of the most repeated stories about the Acropolis. After the Ottomans took Athens, so the tale goes, they turned the Erechtheion, the elegant temple guarded by the six Caryatids, into a harem for the garrison commander's wives. You will find it in guidebooks, in tour scripts and all over the web. There is just one problem. The evidence for it is remarkably thin. Image: TimeLens reconstruction of the Acropolis in Ottoman times as a Caryatid of the Erechtheion is being wheeled away....

For more than two thousand years the Parthenon stood almost intact. It had survived as a temple, a church and a mosque, keeping its roof, its walls and nearly all its columns through war, fire and one empire after another. But today we see only a ruin, so how was the Parthenon destroyed? A city caught in a long war The Ottomans and the Venetian Republic spent much of the seventeenth century at war. In 1687, as part of the conflict known as the Morean War, a Venetian army under Francesco...

Image: TimeLens reconstruction of the Ottoman mosque inside the Parthenon. Imagine standing on the Acropolis three hundred years ago. The Parthenon rises ahead of you much as it always has, but a slender minaret climbs from its southwest corner, and the call to prayer drifts out across the rooftops of a small Ottoman town. For roughly two centuries this was the everyday Parthenon. Not a ruin, not a museum, but a working mosque at the heart of a living city. The idea that there was a mosque...

We've just completed our next panorama in TimeLens: the Acropolis as it appeared during the Roman period, with the Temple of Rome and Augustus standing proudly alongside the Parthenon. Image: Impression of the TimeLens reconstruction of the Temple of Roman and Augustus on the Acropolis This is a fascinating moment in history to reconstruct. Rome has taken political control of Athens, yet something remarkable has happened. Greek religion and culture remain vibrant, alive, and deeply woven into...

See 17th century New Amsterdam restored in TimeLens. Our partnership with the New Amsterdam History Center brings Dutch Manhattan back to life this July.

Imagine the whole of Athens in motion: horsemen and chariots, musicians, elders and young women, all making their way up to the Acropolis to honour the goddess Athena. This was the Panathenaic procession, the high point of the city's greatest festival, and it was carved in marble around the Parthenon itself. The festival that united a city Every four years, from 566 BC onward, Athens held the Great Panathenaia, a grand celebration of Athena's birthday and of the city she protected. At its...

As we are working on the fourth TimeSpot in Athens, we want to share more about our full plans for Athens. It is one of the most important historic cities in the world, yet so much of it has become difficult to imagine. Temples stand as fragments, entire neighbourhoods have disappeared, and many of the stories that once filled these places are invisible to the modern visitor. That is exactly what we want to change and that is why it is the starting point of TimeLens. Image: A part of the...

Image: TimeLens reconstruction of the Acropolis in Classical times. We just completed the TimeSpot for the Classical Acropolis, showing the Parthenon and Erechtheion completely restored as the Panathenaic procession reaches its apex. We have not only included the detailed Parthenon Frieze itself, but have also modelled some of the scene around us on the Panathenaic procession as it is represented on the Parthenon frieze. Three TimeSpots are already complete. We have now fully finished the...

Most historic places we visit today are fragments. A few standing columns, an empty square, foundations hidden in the grass. Turning that back into a place you can stand inside takes far more than imagination. Here is how a TimeLens historical reconstruction comes together, from the first archaeological plan to the finished scene. It begins with the evidence Every historical reconstruction starts with research, not artistry. We work from archaeological plans, excavation reports and surviving...

Imagine standing in a vast marble courtyard in the centre of Athens. A hundred columns surround you, a long ornamental pool stretches away down the middle, and beyond it lie halls lined with thousands of papyrus scrolls. This was Hadrian's Library, the grandest building of Roman Athens, and today almost nothing of it remains in view. Image: TimeLens reconstruction of Hadrian's Library in Roman Athens A gift from an emperor who loved Greece The library was built in AD 132 by the Roman emperor...

Picture the Parthenon not as the pale marble shell on the Athens skyline, but as a building alive with colour: deep blue backgrounds, borders of red and gold, figures painted in bright pigment high along its walls. For the ancient Athenians, this was the everyday Parthenon. The white temple we imagine never really existed. Where the myth of the white temple came from For centuries the Parthenon has been admired for its white brilliance, and that whiteness became tied to ideas of purity and...

Imagine standing on the rock of the Acropolis in the 5th century BC. Around you rise temples of gleaming marble, their sculptures picked out in deep reds and blues, bronze fittings catching the Athenian sun. This is the Acropolis at the height of its glory, and it looks almost nothing like the ruin that visitors see today. The Acropolis is one of the most recognisable places on earth. Yet what survives is only a fragment of what once stood there. To picture its original appearance, we have to...

Image: TimeLens reconstruction of Hadrian's library After a stretch of research, rebuilding, and refining, Hadrian’s Library is now fully finished and live. This TimeSpot has come a long way from the previous version. We moved the entire viewpoint deeper into the complex so you can now actually look into the heart of the library, instead of just standing in front of it. That change alone made a huge difference in how the space feels. From there, we rebuilt everything in detail. The structure...

Image: Initial phase of rebuilding Hadrian's Library based on historical data. Today, Hadrian's Library is mostly foundations and scattered architectural elements. You can recognise the layout, but it is difficult to grasp what the space actually was. In the 2nd century AD, this was a large, enclosed complex built by Emperor Hadrian, combining a courtyard, colonnades, and spaces for study and gathering. We are rebuilding Hadrian's Library in the way Hadrian himself would have seen it. ​ Our...

We cannot give away too much... but something new is brewing in TimeLens! ​ We are expanding to a new location outside of Athens and outside of Greece. The image gives a little sneak peek into where our next TimeSpots will pop up! ​ More info soon, so stay tuned for updates and behind the scenes images :) Want to help us with our project? You can already support us with a small amount per month on Patreon.

Another look behind the scenes ... We are proud to announce that the first upgraded panorama is live in TimeLens. All buildings are historically accurate and lifelike. The scene is filled with people, animals and objects true to the event taking place: The Panathenaic procession. In our panorama you can see the High Priestess of Athena leading the procession, the girls with traditional hair styles following her closely, and afterwards the rest of the citizens, some of them leading cattle to...

We are proud to announce ... that the first upgraded panorama is live in TimeLens. All buildings are historically accurate and lifelike. The scene is filled with people, animals and objects true to the event taking place: The Panathenaic procession. ​ In our panorama you can see the High Priestess of Athena leading the procession, the girls with traditional hair styles following her closely, and afterwards the rest of the citizens, some of them leading cattle to be sacrificed or carrying the...