Bassae

Lore & Background

Bassae lies at an elevation of 1,131 m above sea level on the slopes of Cotylion Mountain, near the village of Skliros. The temple in its present form was built between 450 and 400 BC during the Peloponnesian War by the Phigaleians, who credited Apollo for relief from a plague that had afflicted their own community. It was supposedly designed by Iktinos, architect of the Parthenon, though modern scholars doubt this because the Doric order, while extremely similar to that of the Parthenon, is in some respects old-fashioned despite being probably built later.

The temple is aligned north–south, unlike most Greek temples, due to limited space on the steep mountain.

Reader's Guide

Bassae is significant primarily for the Temple of Apollo Epicurius, which is among the best-preserved ancient Greek temples and the first Greek site inscribed on the World Heritage List (1986). Its remote location on Mount Cotylion contributed to its exceptional preservation, as the temple remained largely intact while many other ancient structures were dismantled for reuse. The temple's architecture is strikingly unusual for its period, departing from standard Doric and Ionic practices. It features what may be the first use of the Corinthian order and the first continuous frieze around the interior of the naos. The temple also contains examples of all three classical orders—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—making it a unique architectural document. The Bassae Frieze, now in the British Museum, depicts battles between Athenians and Amazons and between Lapiths and Centaurs. The temple's alignment north–south, necessitated by the steep terrain, and its single Corinthian capital (the earliest known) are notable features. The ancient writer Pausanias praised the temple as eclipsing all others in the Peloponnesos except the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea for the beauty of its stone and harmony of its construction. The temple remained in use until the 4th- or 5th-century AD, when pagan temples were forcibly closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.

Did You Know?

• Bassae was the first Greek site to be inscribed on the World Heritage List, in 1986.
• The temple contains the earliest known example of a Corinthian capital.
• The Bassae Frieze, depicting battles with Amazons and Centaurs, was removed in 1812 and is now in the British Museum.

The First Name on Greece's World Heritage Roll

The Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae holds a singular place in the history of international heritage recognition. When UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 1986, it became the very first Greek property to receive that distinction, setting the tone for everything that followed. Its selection preceded the inscriptions of two other iconic sites—the Archaeological Site of Delphi and the Acropolis of Athens—both of which joined the list the following year, in 1987. In a portfolio that would eventually encompass twenty-one properties across the country, Bassae's 1986 entry was the opening stroke. That early designation signaled to the international community that Greece's ancient architectural and archaeological treasures met the threshold of outstanding universal value that UNESCO requires. It established a precedent: that a single monument, standing as a cultural heritage site, could anchor an entire nation's place on the global heritage register.

A Framework of Outstanding Universal Value

Bassae's inscription did not occur in a vacuum; it was the product of a carefully constructed international framework. The UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972, created the mechanism through which signatory nations could nominate sites they believed possessed outstanding universal value to either cultural or natural heritage. For a site to qualify as cultural heritage, it had to fall into categories such as architectural works, monumental sculptures, inscriptions, groups of buildings, or archaeological sites. Greece ratified the convention on 17 July 1981, formally opening the door for its ancient monuments to be considered. The convention further stipulates that each inscribed entry must satisfy at least one of ten criteria, with criteria one through six addressing cultural significance and seven through ten addressing natural significance. Bassae, as a monument and archaeological site, would have been evaluated against the cultural criteria, affirming its architectural and historical importance on a global stage.

Bassae in the Context of Greece's Heritage Portfolio

Viewed within the broader sweep of Greece's World Heritage portfolio, Bassae's 1986 inscription marks the beginning of a steady, multi-decade accumulation of recognized sites. Today, Greece holds twenty-one properties on the list, eighteen of which are classified as cultural heritage and three—Meteora, Mount Athos, and Mount Olympus—as mixed sites recognized for both their natural and cultural significance. The pace of additions varied considerably over the years: after Bassae, Delphi, and the Acropolis in the late 1980s, five more sites were inscribed in 1988, followed by two each in 1989 and 1990, single additions in 1992 and 1996, two in 1999, and one in 2007. The most recent addition, the wider area of Mount Olympus, arrived in 2026. Across this entire span, Bassae remains the foundational entry, the site that first proved Greece's ancient heritage could command the world's attention.

The Road to Inscription: Nominations and the Tentative List

The path from a site's existence to its formal recognition on the World Heritage List is not automatic; it follows a structured procedural pathway that Bassae, as the first Greek entry, helped to establish in practice. Under the UNESCO framework, member states maintain a tentative list of sites they may wish to nominate in the future, and nominations for the full World Heritage List are accepted only if the site has previously appeared on that tentative register. Greece currently holds eleven sites on its tentative list, all of which were nominated in 2014, representing a concentrated effort to identify additional properties worthy of potential future inscription. While the specific procedural history of Bassae's 1986 nomination is not detailed in the available records, its successful inscription demonstrates that the site satisfied both the preliminary listing requirement and the substantive criteria for outstanding universal value. In that sense, Bassae stands as both a beneficiary and a proof-of-concept for the nomination process that continues to shape Greece's heritage strategy.