Amyklai

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Amyklai (Greek Ἀμύκλαι; Latin form Amyclae ; in German earlier also Amyklä ) was an ancient Greek city ​​on the Peloponnese peninsula , about five kilometers south of Sparta , on the east bank of the Eurotas River . The current city of Amikles is located nearby .

History and mythology

According to legend, the Spartan king Amyklas , the son of Lacedaemon , built the city. In fact, the place was already settled in the Early Helladic (3rd millennium BC). It is one of the oldest ancient cities on the Greek mainland. The settlement reached its peak around 1200 BC. BC, in the last phase of the Mycenaean culture . Already in Mycenaean times the beautiful Hyakinthos , lover of Apollo , was venerated in Amyklai .

“Furiously I pursued Zephyrn up to the mountain, and shot all my arrows at him in vain: but I set up a high burial mound for the boy at Amycla, at the place where the unfortunate discus struck him down; and from its blood, Mercury, the earth had to drive out the most beautiful and loveliest of all flowers for me, and I marked them with the letters of the lamentation for death. "

- Lukian of Samosata : Lies and dialogues; XIV. Dialogue between Mercury and Apollo, the unfortunate death of the beautiful Hyacinthus

According to legend, Amyklai was the residence of King Tyndareos , Leda's husband , father of the Dioscuri Castor and Polydeukes (lat. Castor and Pollux) as well as of Klytaimnestra , Helena and Phoibe. Deiphobus, a priest-king at Amyclai, atoned Heracles for the maddening murder of Iphitus after Neleus of Pylos and Hippocoon of Sparta had previously refused.

After the Spartans around 800 BC After conquering the city, Amyklai developed into an important place of worship. The Spartans established in the 6th century BC BC on the mythical burial mound of Hyakinthos the "throne of Apollo", a formerly roofed platform, once richly decorated with colonnades, ornate relief fields and numerous statues of Horen and Charites , which the sculptor Bathykles from Magnesia in Asia Minor is said to have made. On top of it stood a colossal 13 m (30 cubits) high statue of the god Apollo from ancient times. The Roman writer Pausanias describes it as a relatively artless work of art with a helmet, a spear in one hand and a bow in the other, "like a brazen column". The exact appearance of the statue - probably a Xoanon - can no longer be reconstructed on the basis of archaeological finds. Roman coins from the time of Commodus from the 2nd century AD and from Gallienus from the 3rd century AD give only an approximate picture.

Amyklai remained an important religious center until Roman times , as is shown by the finds of consecration gifts and coins . In late Byzantine times, the remains of the ancient monuments were removed and the hill was turned into a cemetery. A place of pilgrimage developed around the Agia Kyriakí chapel from the 19th century.

Excavation history

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Briton William Martin Leake , honorary member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences , identified the location of the cult site Amyklai on a hill on which the ruins of the original Hagia Kyriakí chapel (rebuilt in the 1930s) were.

The first professional excavations were carried out by the Greek archaeologist Christos Tsountas of the Archaeological Society of Athens , who examined traces of the Mycenaean culture in Laconia between 1880 and 1891 . He identified the most significant elements of the sanctuary:

  1. the throne of Apollo
  2. the tomb of Hyakinthos
  3. the round altar with a staircase
  4. the peribolus.

The most extensive excavation work began in 1904 under the direction of the German archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler and the Swiss Ernst Robert Fiechter . Fiechter identified the throne of Apollo and excavated a remnant of the wall from under the chapel, which he dated to the end of the 6th century BC. Dated.

In 1925, another German research project was carried out at the Amyklaion under the direction of Ernst Buschor .

Greek archaeologists and architects have carried out newer excavations with German support from 2005 onwards, which are still ongoing today. From the throne of Apollo, some further remains of the wall were excavated in 2005/2006 or identified as stones built into the chapel. Parts of the peribolus , which also served as a retaining wall for the terraced hill, have come to light after the latest excavations.

Others

According to legend, the inhabitants of Amyclai were forbidden to speak of the permanent threat from neighboring Sparta on the penalty of death. This is why the winged word still in use today comes from "amyclean silence" when an impending danger is collectively suppressed.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ This Deiphobos is often confused, but is not identical with the son of Priam of the same name and third husband of Helen.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Cartledge: Sparta and Lakonia. A Regional History 1300 to 362 BC. 2nd revised edition, Routledge London - New York 2002, p. 33.
  2. ↑ Pausanias: Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις (Helládos Periēgēsis) . German translation by Carl Gottfried Siebelis, Johann Heinrich Christian Schubart, H. Reichardt: Description of Greece, Periegeta Pausanias. Metzler, Stuttgart 1828, Volume 3, Chapter 19, pp. 352-353.
  3. ^ William Martin Leake: Peloponnesiaca. Gilbert and Rivington, London 1846, p. 162
  4. ↑ Chrestos Tsountas, Irving J. Manatt: The Mycenean Age: a study of the monuments and culture of pre-Homeric Greece. Macmillan, London 1897
  5. ↑ Ernst Fiechter: Amyklae - The throne of Apollon . Reimer, Berlin 1918
  6. ^ Ernst Buschor, Wilhelm von Massow : Vom Amyklaion. Athenische Mitteilungen No. 52, German Archaeological Institute Athens 1927, pp. 1–85

Coordinates: 37 ° 2 '  N , 22 ° 27'  E