- Heraion of Argos
The Heraion of Argos was the temple in the main sanctuary in the
Argolid dedicated toHera , whose epithet "Argive Hera" ("Here Argeie") is familiar to readers ofHomer . Hera herself claims to be the protector ofArgos ("Iliad " IV, 50–52), where the memory was preserved of an archaic, aniconic pillar representation of theGreat Goddess (Burkert, III.2.2, note 3). The site, which might mark the introduction of the cult of Hera in Mainland Greece, lies between Argos andMycenae , [It is closer toMycenae , 10 km fromArgos .] two important Mycenaean cities. The traveller Pausanias, visiting the site in the second century CE referred to the area as "Prosymna".The "
temenos " occupies three artificially terraced levels on a site above the plain with a commanding view. The Old Temple, destroyed by fire in 423 BCE, and an open-air altar stood on the uppermost terrace. The famous ivory and gold-plated bronze sculpture of Hera byPolykleitos stood in the New Temple on the middle terrace, built by Eupolemos of Argos following the fire. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=M6MMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA318&lpg=PA318&dq=Eupolemos+of+Argos&source=web&ots=I7MhUPtRQ4&sig=ty8wNQXLIu270jMuCfFArW0-JPw "The New International Encyclopædia"] , Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903] There were other structures, one of which was the earliest example of a building with an openperistyle court, surrounded by columnedstoa s. The lowest level supports the remains of a stoa. Ancient retaining walls support the flat terraces.Close to the Heraion a Mycenaean cemetery apparently a site of an ancestor cult in the Geometric period was excavated by
Carl Blegen . InRoman times a baths and apalaestra were added near the site.At the Heraion,
Agamemnon was chosen to lead theArgives againstTroy , according to a legend recorded byDictys of Crete . Walls and earliest finds at the site date to the Geometric period, during which the "Iliad " was composed. AHelladic settlement preceded the sanctuary's development.The British officer Thomas Gordon was the first to identify the site in 1831, and in 1836 he conducted some desultory excavations.
Heinrich Schliemann briefly investigated the site in 1874 before modern archaeology at the Heraion began, under the auspices of theArchaeological Institute of America , which chose the Argive Heraion in its first campaign of excavation in Greece, under the direction of Charles Waldstein, who discovered a bundle of iron roasting spits ("oboloi") in a bundle of 180, together with a solid bar of iron weighing the same as the bundle and having the same length (about 120 centimeters), votive objects that served as standards of weight and measure, introduced byPheidon ofArgos which were still to be seen in Classical times. "The obols of the Heraion are mentioned by the philosopher Heracleides of Pontus in his work on Etymologies in order to explain the origin of the name of the monetary unit "obol", which is 1/6 ofdrachma " (Stecchini).Notes
References
* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/siteindex?entry=Argive+Heraion Perseus site: Argive Heraion] Bibliography.
* [http://www.metrum.org/measures/heraion.htm Livio C. Stecchini, "The Standard of the Heraion"]
* [http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/Site/Script/TempleHeraArgos.html "The Temple of Hera at Argos"]
* [http://www.greekdarkage.com/heraion.htm Greek Dark Age site: "The Tombs at the Argive Heraion"]
*Pfaff, Christopher A., (1992) 2003. "The Argive Heraion: The architecture of the classical temple of Hera"
*Burkert, Walter, 1985. "Greek Religion" (Harvard University Press)
*Pausanias, "Description of Greece, 2.15.4
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