Sanctuary of Yria

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Temple remains of the sanctuary of Yria

Sanctuary of Yria ( modern Greek Ιερό των Υρίων Iero ton Yrion ), also Sanctuary of Iria or Dionysus Temple of Iria , is the name of an ancient temple complex on the Greek Cycladic island of Naxos . The remains of the sanctuary's building were uncovered between 1986 and 1999. The excavation site is located in the Yria (Ύρια) area of ​​the Livadi plain (Λιβάδι) about three kilometers south of the center of the island's capital Chora and one kilometer east of the airport of Naxos. The temple was dedicated to the god Dionysus , according to Athenaios of Naukratis , Dionysus Meilichios and Dionysus Bakcheus were worshiped here.

description

The regional sanctuary developed after the archaeological excavation findings from an originally Mycenaean natural sanctuary via a geometric oikos to a monumental prostylus . The sanctuary's former excavation site is now open to visitors amid olive trees and vines. The remnants of the temple and the ancillary facilities consist mainly of foundations and fragments of finds, some of which have been prepared, but only give a poor visual impression of the former building. Many of the finds are in the small on-site museum, where background information on the architectural history of the sanctuary can be found, others in the archaeological museum of Naxos .

history

From the 14th century BC In the middle of the plain of Livadi at the fertile estuary of the Byblos (now Peritsa ), three kilometers from the walled Mycenaean city, an open-air fertility cult was established. According to the finds, it was dedicated to the god Dionysus, who later became the patron of Naxos. On a small hill in the marshland there was a marble basin for offerings, in the place of which the later temples were built. The basin found during the excavations contained vessels and bones from the time before the construction of the first temple, for the dark centuries following the Mycenaean period , the continuation of the cult through ceramics is documented.

Area of ​​the four temple buildings

Around 800 BC BC, the epoch of the emergence of the Greek city-states in the Geometric Age, a one-room temple was built in Yria, consisting of wood and adobe bricks on a field stone foundation of 5 × 10 meters. In the interior there were three central supports for the flat earth roof and a sacrificial table above the Mycenaean sacrificial site. Although the sanctuary was secured to the nearby, 15-meter-wide river in the south by a sea wall, the temple was probably destroyed by a flood and destroyed around 730 BC. Replaced by a granite building measuring around 11 × 15 meters, 160 m² in area and 75 cm thick walls. In contrast to the first temple building, the interior of the new building was divided into four naves by three rows of 5 round wooden columns each. Benches for about 80 to 100 visitors to the temple were set up. Common to both buildings was the eschara in the rear part of the room and, as with the subsequent buildings, the southern entrance.

Around 680 BC The temple was rebuilt. While partially retaining the walls (west and north wall), the three rows of columns in the interior were replaced by two rows of wooden columns on rounded marble bases . Marble gargoyles have been preserved from the flat roof of the third temple building . A prostasis with probably four Ionic wooden columns was built on the south side . This made the building one of the first prostyloi in the Greek world. The river in front of the temple entrance in the south was filled in and its course shifted to the north.

Adyton of the fourth temple
Hestiatorion (ballroom) and propylon

In the period from 580 to 570 BC The construction of the fourth temple began as an archaic Hekatompedon of the Ionic order with an inner surface of 280 m². The 13.5 meter wide and 28.3 meter long temple, with a 20 centimeter longer east wall than on the west side, was thus larger than its three predecessor buildings. The column height was 7.2 meters, the column diameter 80 centimeters and the column yoke 4 meters. The number of fluting on the temple columns was 24 at the front, but varied up to 28, 32 and 36 in the cella . The fourth temple building at Yria is considered to be the earliest Ionic prostylus, all of which were made of marble with the exception of the plastered granite walls; this affected the four front pillars as well as the eight inner pillars and the door wall including the reveal and the roof covering. Part of the tetrastyle temple was an adyton in the rear area. The temple roof with the translucent marble tiles, laid in a laconic order over a probably open roof structure, the work of the Naxian stonemason Byzes , inclined slightly to the east and west. A marble altar stood twelve meters from the four-meter-high southern temple entrance with its magnificent door.

Shortly after the construction of the temple began, a hestiatorion , a ceremonial ballroom , was added to the sanctuary , consisting of two rooms on either side of the propylon on the west side of the site. Possibly the one from the early 6th century BC. The unfinished Kouros of Apollonas originating in the 3rd century BC were intended for the sanctuary of Yria and should be placed next to the temple. After the Temple of Dionysus around 550/540 BC B.C. had received the marble roof and its cult image, work on the unfinished building was stopped. This could have happened with the rise of the tyrant Lygdamis around 538 BC. That prevented private foundations. Lygdamis used the freed up capacities for state contracts, such as the Temple of Apollo on the island of Palatia in front of Chora and the Temple of Demeter near Ano Sangri . Even after the fall of the Lygdamis around 524 BC. The fourth temple of the sanctuary of Yria remained unfinished, the columns were left in various unfinished stages of work.

Tank statue of Mark Antony

In Roman times, from the 1st century BC Until the 3rd century AD, extensive repairs were carried out due to the instability of the subsoil, as the builders of the temple had probably laid too weak a foundation out of inexperience when building large buildings. From 41 BC The Hestiatorion was restored and a peribolos was created around the 4500 m² Temenos , the temple area of ​​the sanctuary. At that time, in addition to the god Dionysus, the temple of Yria also worshiped the Roman general Mark Antony , who presented himself as the "new Dionysus". In the cella of the temple in front of the entrance to the Adyton there was a larger than life statue of Mark Antony. It represents him in armor with final down pteryges . On the breastplate, the "punishment is Dirke " worked out in relief in his left hand he holds a maenad . After Octavian's victory over Mark Antony in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The head and the names in the inscription on the statue base were exchanged. Parts of the statue were found during the excavations and are now exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Naxos.

Excavation finds of building parts

Presumably in the 5th or 6th century the temple was converted into a three-aisled Christian basilica . After frequent floods, the last major one in the 12th century, the basilica was abandoned and today's church of Agios Georgios was built in a safe place nearby , for which parts of the ancient temple were used. When the German archaeologist Gabriel Welter found two complete but slightly different column drums and a large archaic Ionic capital built in a fountain in the plain of Livadi in the 1920s , the location of the former Temple of Dionysus or the early Christian basilica was no longer known.

It was not until 1982 that employees of the University of Athens and the Technical University of Munich began to search for the temple. During the second campaign in 1986, about 200 meters northeast of the well, the foundation of the prostasis, the marble door sill and the wall of the adyton of the fourth Temple of Dionysus were found. By 1999, 14 excavation campaigns followed under the direction of Vassilis Lambrinoudakis and Gottfried Gruben , financed by the University of Athens and the Gerda Henkel Foundation in Düsseldorf . After the excavations were completed, the excavation site was first filled in. Today the site is open to visitors. A small museum has been set up next to the excavation areas. The final publication of the excavation is still pending.

literature

  • Vassilis Lambrinoudakis , Gottfried Gruben : The newly discovered sanctuary of Iria on Naxos . In: Archäologischer Anzeiger . 1987, p. 569-621 .
  • Vassilis Lambrinoudakis, Gottfried Gruben u. a .: Yria The campaigns of 1986–1987 . In: Archaiognosia . tape 5 (1987-1988) , 1990, pp. 133-191 .
  • Vassilis Lambrinoudakis: The sanctuary of Iria on Naxos and the birth of monumental Greek architecture . In: New perspectives in early Greek art. Proceedings of the symposium, Washington May 27-28, 1988 . Washington 1991, p. 173-188 .
  • Gottfried Gruben: The development of marble architecture on Naxos and the newly discovered Dionysus sanctuary in Iria . In: Nürnberger Blätter to archeology . No. 8 (1991-1992) , pp. 41-51 .
  • Gottfried Gruben: Naxos and Delos . In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute . tape 112 , 1998, ISSN  0070-4415 , pp. 261-416 .
  • Gottfried Gruben: Classical Building Research . Hirmer, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7774-3085-0 , pp. 79-81, 216-241 .
  • Chris Blencowe, Judith Levine: Yria. The guiding shadow . (Google eBook). Sidewalk Editions, 2013, ISBN 978-0-9926761-0-0 ( books.google.de (partial view)).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Athenaios 78c. In: The Fragments of the Greek Historians 499 F 4; Karen Schoch: The double Aphrodite - old and new in Greek cult images . Universitätsverlag, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-941875-19-7 , p. 281 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ↑ a b c d Gottfried Gruben: Classical building research . Hirmer, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7774-3085-0 , pp. 79 .
  3. ↑ Ύρια. Ιστορικό. odysseus.culture.gr, 2012, accessed March 2, 2014 (Greek).
  4. ↑ a b c d Aenne Ohnesorg: The Dionysus sanctuary of Yria on Naxos / Cyclades. Technical University of Munich, Faculty of Architecture, accessed on March 2, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b c Gottfried Gruben: Classical building research . Hirmer, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7774-3085-0 , pp. 231 .
  6. ↑ High Archaic Dionysus Temple of Yria (Temple IV) in the Arachne archaeological database
  7. ↑ Gottfried Gruben: Classical Building Research . Hirmer, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7774-3085-0 , pp. 216/217 .
  8. ↑ Gottfried Gruben: Classical Building Research . Hirmer, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7774-3085-0 , pp. 222 .
  9. ↑ Michael Striewe: Ionian-Cycladic columns and marble roofs. (PDF) Michael Striewe (Ruhr University Bochum), October 8, 2013, p. 9 , accessed on March 2, 2014 .
  10. ↑ Rainer Schmitt: Handbook to the temples of the Greeks . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-7739-1 , Naxos, p. 156 ( books.google.de ).
  11. ↑ a b Gottfried Gruben : Naxos and Delos . In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute . tape 112 , 1998, ISSN  0070-4415 , pp. 416 ( books.google.de ).
  12. ^ Vassilis Lambrinoudakis: The ancient sanctuary Dionysus at Yria. (No longer available online.) In: naxos.gr. 2013, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on March 2, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.naxos.gr
  13. ↑ Ursula Spindler-Niros: Forays through the crown of the Cyclades: Naxos (Part 2). Art export all over the world. In: Greece Newspaper . Retrieved March 2, 2014 .

Web links

Commons : Sanctuary of Yria  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 37 ° 4 ′ 39.7 ″  N , 25 ° 22 ′ 50.7 ″  E