Hellenistic Temple on the Acropolis of Mycenae
About
Built on the crown of the Mycenae acropolis in the early 3rd century BCE by Argive settlers who briefly revived the hilltop as a village, this small temple to Athena or Hera outlasted the settlement itself. The village was abandoned not long after, and by the time Pausanias toured the site around 150 CE he found it already in ruins with no functioning cult. Only scant foundations survive today, and no evidence points to Roman-period restoration or worship here.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
In ancient writing
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.16
States plainly that Mycenae was already in ruins by the time of his visit, without describing an active temple on the acropolis.
Sources
Nearby
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