Acropolis Paliokastro
Coordinates: 37 ° 35 ′ 12 ″ N , 23 ° 20 ′ 58 ″ E
Acropolis Paliokastro ( Greek Ακρόπολη Παλιόκαστρο ) is called the acropolis of ancient Methana. It is located about one kilometer below the village of Megalochori in the southwest of the Methana volcanic peninsula . The castle fortress was built in Mycenaean times and then enlarged in ancient times.
description
The isodomic walls that you see today date mainly from the 4th century BC. Extensions and repairs were added to the upper edges of the walls in Roman and Byzantine times. The walls of volcanic andesite - / dacite -Gestein located on the remains of a small lava dome . At the top of the hill are the ruins of an early Christian chapel. A stele from the middle of the 2nd century BC was found here. With an inscription for the gods Isis and Serapis . For this reason, it is assumed that the temple for these gods previously stood in the same place.
The lower city of ancient Methana stretched to the west below the Acropolis. The port and parts of the city are now under water. From the fact that Byzantine churches were also flooded, one can conclude that the city only sank in the Middle Ages. The size of the ancient city is estimated at around 700 houses.
history
The Acropolis was inhabited as early as the Neolithic . The further use of the hill is evidence of potsherds from the late Mycenaean period. In historical times the city of Methana was under the rule of Troizen . 424 BC The Athenian Nikias landed in Methana and built a 200 m long barrier wall and a castle , which is now called Kastel Favieros , on the isthmus located 3 km to the south . He left some armed forces here for defense. In the 4th century BC The city seems to have been independent since it minted its own coins. During the Diadoch Wars , Methana was from the 3rd to the middle of the 2nd century BC. Under Ptolemaic control and was called Arsinoe of the Peloponnese . At this time the Isis and Serapis cults established themselves here. After the place regained its independence, it minted its own coins until Roman times. Pausanias , who visited the city in the 2nd century, reported that there was a shrine to Isis and statues of Hermes and Heracles in the market square .
Chapel of Agios Nikolaos
About 70 m south of the Acropolis you can visit the Byzantine chapel of Agios Nikolaos. It is a small cross-domed church with no narthex from the 11th century. It is about 5 m wide. The western wing is extended by about 2 m. Since the floor level is about one meter higher today than when the chapel was built, a staircase leads down to the entrance on the south side. The frescoes that adorned the interior walls are now completely lost.
literature
- Siegfried Lauffer : Greece. Lexicon of historical sites from the beginning to the present. CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-33302-8 .
Web links
- Acropolis Paliokastro (gr)
- Hike with a visit to Paliokastro (gr)
- Methana (gr)
Individual evidence
- ↑ IG IV 855 ( online )
- ↑ Edward Boucher James: Methana in William Smith : Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities , Volume 2, London 1857, pp. 349-350 ( online )
- ↑ Diodor , Bibliothéke historiké , 12, 65; Thucydides , The Peloponnesian War , 4, 45
- ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 2, 34, 1
- ^ Alison Frantz: The Church of the Holy Apostles in The Athenian Agora , Volume 20, pp. 18-19 ( online )