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The Rhodes Acropolis dominated the western and highest part of the city It was not fortified like most ancient acropoleis It consisted of a monumental zone with Sanctuaries, large temples, public buildings and underground cult places The buildings were built on stepped terraces supported by strong retaining walls It was "full of fields and groves", in the words of the 2nd c AD orator Ailios Aristides The style of the Hellenistic architecture on the Acropolis of Rhodes was perfectly conveyed by the combination of natural beauty and artificial transformations The buildings on the Acropolis date to the Hellenistic and Late Hellenistic periods (3rd-2nd c

The excavations were carried out by the Italian Archaeological School during the Italian occupation of the island (1912-1945) From 1946 onwards the Greek Archaeological Service conducted excavations which added to our knowledge of the history and topography of the place The whole of the Acropolis has not yet been excavated An archaeological zone of 12,500 m² has been excluded from contemporary building with the intention of continuing excavation works to uncover the splendid ancient city of Rhodes 

Outside the boundary of the ancient city, on the southeast side of the town of Rhodes, stretch the ancient cemeteries One of the most  important is the group of burial complexes at Korakonero, dating to late Hellenistic and Roman times Over this period a great variety can be seen in the funerary architecture The tombs, which as a rule are cut into the soft poros rock, are either cist graves or, in the case of the more luxurious ones, consist of subterranean chambers with architectural fronts (arched colonnades or columns supporting architraves with metopes and triglyphs mimicking the temple facades) Within them the dead were placed in cists cut into the walls of the chambers