A woman visitor to Athens in 1687

Abstract

Dr. Jacob Spon and Sir George Wheler are commonly credited with being
the last travellers to Greece, whose accounts of their visits were published
(1678 and 1682 respectively), to see the Parthenon intact. However, Anna
Akerhjelm was there at the time of the Venetian siege of the Acropolis (1687)
in the service of the Countess of Königsmark, whose husband was in command
of Morosini’s land forces. We have among others Spon’s and Wheler’s record
of the monuments, and there are extensive accounts of the siege, but a letter
and journal of Anna Akerhjelm provide a perspective on the social history of
Athens of the seventeenth century that is unique. Moreover, Anna Akerhjelm
doubtless saw the same virtually intact Parthenon as had Spon and Wheler -
albeit from a distance.