A temple sacred to "Athena Polias" (Protectress of the City) was erected by mid-6th century BC. This Doric limestone building, from which many relics survive, is referred to as the "Bluebeard" temple, named after the pedimental three-bodied man-serpent sculpture, whose beards were painted dark blue. Whether this temple replaced an older one, or a mere sacred precinct or altar, is not known. In the late 6th century BC yet another temple was built, usually referred to as the Archaios Naos (Old Temple). It is thought that the so-called Doerpfeld foundations might have belonged to this temple, which may have been sacred not to Polias but to Athena Parthenos (Virgin), at least for as long as the Polias "Bluebeard" temple stood. It is not known how long these temples coexisted.
To confuse matters, by the time the "Bluebeard" Temple had been dismantled, a newer and grander marble building, the "Older Parthenon" (often called the Ur-Parthenon), was started following the victory at Marathon in 490 BC. To accommodate it, the south part of the summit was cleared of older remnants, made level by adding some 8,000 two-ton blocks of Piraeus limestone, a foundation 11 m deep at some points, and the rest filled with earth kept in place by the retaining wall.
The Older Parthenon was still under construction when the Persians sacked the city in 480 BC. The building was burnt and looted along with the Archaios Neos and practically everything else on the rock. After the Persian crisis had subsided the Athenians incorporated many of the unfinished temple's architectural members (still unflutted column drums, triglyphs, metopes, etc.) to the newly built northern curtain wall of the Acropolis, where they can still be seen today. The devastated site was cleared from debris. Statuary, cult objects, religious offerings and unsalvable architectural members were burried ceremoniously in several deeply dug pits on the hill serving conveniently as a fill for the artificial plateau created around the classic Parthenon. This "Persian debris" is the richest archaeological deposit excavated on the Acropolis.
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