Temple of Apollo at Kolona
About
This Doric temple stood on the fortified acropolis hill overlooking Aegina's main harbor, built around 520 BCE on a site inhabited since the Bronze Age. Eleven columns ran along its length in local limestone, with pediments carved in Parian marble. The sanctuary and its surrounding walls, altar, and enclosure survived through the Roman period, only being pulled down for building material centuries later when the hill became a small Christian settlement. A single column still standing today gave the site its modern name, Kolona.
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 2.29.6
Describes Apollo's temple in the city of Aegina and a naked wooden cult image of native workmanship.
Sources
Nearby
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