Chryse (Troas)
Coordinates: 39 ° 32 ′ 11 " N , 26 ° 7 ′ 3" E
Chryse (also Chrysa , Greek Χρύση , Χρύσα "the golden one") is an ancient Mysian city in the Troas . It is located near Gülpınar in the Ayvacık district in the Turkish province of Çanakkale . There is no information about the founding and history of the city, it is mainly known as the location of a temple of Apollon Smintheus .
Ancient mentions
Already in Homer's Iliad the place is mentioned as the location of a shrine of Apollon Smintheus. Chryseis , the daughter of the local priest Chryses , was kidnapped as spoils of war by Agamemnon during the Trojan War , whereupon the father pleaded with him for the return of the daughter. When Agamemnon refused, Apollo punished the Greek army with plague and death. The place is also mentioned by Strabo , among other things in connection with the journey of the Teukrers from Crete to the Troas. Strabo tells the legend according to which they were prophesied that they should settle where the earth-born would attack them. When they went ashore at Hamaxitos , about ten kilometers from Chryse, field mice destroyed all leather parts of their equipment overnight. They took this as a sign to settle here. The explanation for the mouse at the foot of the Apollo statue was also seen in this narrative. There are, however, other opinions that attribute the Scopa's mouse to a whim of the sculptor and see this as the reason for the mouse worship in Troas.
temple
The temple known under the name Smintheion was a pseudodipteros with 8 × 14 columns of Ionic order , the stylobate on the eleven-step platform measures about 22 × 40 m. The temple was built by Hermogenes of Alabanda or one of his pupils; the building was the location of the cult statue of Apollo by the sculptor Skopas , which showed a mouse at the god's feet. The building dates from the second century BC. After the first excavations in 1866, the temple fell into oblivion again, and was finally uncovered and partially restored in 1980 by Coşkun Özgünel from the University of Ankara . In the local museum you can see parts of the frieze with representations from the Trojan War. Other finds are exhibited in the Çanakkale Archaeological Museum .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Homer: Iliad in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ↑ Strabon, Geographie 13, 1, 48, Strabons Geographika , German translation at GoogleBooks
literature
- Josef Virgil Grohmann: Apollo Smintheus and the meaning of the mice in the mythology of the Indo-Europeans . Calve, Prague 1862 ( on Google Books ).
- Cosķun Özgünel: Smintheion. Troas'da kutsal bir alan, Gülpınar'daki Apollon Smintheus tapınağı. TC Kültür Bakanlığı, Anıtlar ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü, Ankara 2001. ISBN 975-17-2789-8 .
- Coşkun Özgünel, Smintheion. In Search of Apollo Smintheus , Istanbul 2015, ISBN 978-605-4701-80-3