Heracles' cave near Bura
The Herakleshöhle bei Bura is the oracle cave of Herakles Vouraikos (Buraikos) near Egio in the area of Aigialeia in the north-eastern Peloponnese in Greece .
location
The cave is located directly on the Old National Road between the cities of Egio and Diakopto between the villages of Nikoleika and Zachloritika, south of the localities of Eleonas (formerly Trypia) and Metochi. The ascent to the cave has steps and is easy to reach (as of 2016).
If you drive on the adjacent Patras-Corinth motorway, the cave on the mountainside with its holes catches the eye. The place Trypia ("holes") is said to have been named after it.
Function in antiquity
The travel writer Pausanias (115 to approx. 180 AD) writes about the cave in his book No. 7 "Achaia":
“If one goes down from Bura to the sea; so you come to the river Buraikos and find in a grotto a not very large Hercules who is also called Buraikos. It is foretold with a blackboard and dice. For whoever seeks advice from the god, he says a prayer in front of the statue and then throws four of the dice on the table, which are in great numbers by the picture. Certain figures are painted on each cube, the meaning of which is precisely explained on the board. The straight way from Helike to the Grotto of Hercules is thirty stages. "
In ancient times, small bones, so-called astragaloi , were used as cubes , which are jump bones from the hind legs of cloven-hoofed animals .
It was not uncommon in ancient times to choose caves as sacred oracle sites. It is precisely in the area of Achaia , in which the cave is located, that a number of the work of the hero and demigod Heracles took place. A mythical story happened in the immediate vicinity of the oracle cave: Bura (Voura) was the daughter of Ion , the ancestor of the Ionians , and of Helike , the daughter of the last king of the Pelasgians, Selinountas, whose name a river still bears today. Heracles stalked the beautiful daughter Voura. In order to pave his way to her, he struck the landscape with his sword, creating the Vouraikos Gorge, in which the Buraikos flows.
Function in Christianity
In the lower cave, some fresco remains can be seen faintly at ceiling height. They are evidence of the time when the cave was used as a church in the early Byzantine and Byzantine times as well as during the Turkish occupation. The roof porch, the square inlets of which are still visible on the outer rock as an abutment for the beams, was probably removed during the time of Turkish rule so as not to attract the attention of Turkish passers-by on the street below.
Structure of the cave
The cave with its three floors is carved into a pyramid-like rock made of sandstone conglomerate. The lowest level in east-west direction, which is entered through the main entrance in the north, was once divided into three areas. Today there are two areas. In the 1850s, Ernst Curtius still found niches here to set up consecration gifts. Unfortunately, shepherds' fires blackened the cave very much. The eastern room - as an example - is 1.30 m wide and 2.25 m high.
A wooden staircase or ladder probably led to the second level through a still existing opening inside, because there are no traces of steps carved into the rock anywhere. Here on the second floor there is only one room with a large balcony-like opening to the north. The third level of the cave has an entrance from the outside in the east, to which several steps carved into the rock, still clearly visible, lead. The room there has two smaller window niches on the north side. The original vestibule or stoa in front of the entrance on the lowest level matches the shape of ancient rural sanctuaries. The area in front of the entrance was filled up.
Mention in travelogues
Apart from the ancient writers (Hdt. 1.145; Pol. 2.41; Strab. Pp. 386, 387, and 59; Diod. 15.48; Paus. 7.25.8) there are more recent descriptions from the 19th century. The French researcher Abel Blouet reported in 1838 that he found a head carved out of the rock. This head is said to have resembled a lion's head. This would fit as a sign of a sacred cave of Heracles, because its representation in ancient art is usually accompanied by a lion trophy - the price of the first of his twelve exploits. This sculpture on the rock has disappeared and appears to have been destroyed by the strong earthquake on December 26, 1861. The German traveler Ernst Curtius wrote in 1851: “A human head is carved into the rock above the middle grotto”. The German archaeologist Konrad Bursian no longer goes into this head in his description of the cave in 1872.
Importance of the cave for archeology
For archaeologists, the location of the cave is particularly important because it is a fixed point for localizing the city of Helike , which was destroyed by a tsunami (373 BC) . Pausanias gives two precise distances in his travel description: Egion is 40 stadia (approx. 7 km) away from Helike and the Herakleshöhle is 30 stadia (approx. 5.5 km) from Helike. If you rely on this information and identify the cave found today with the one described by Pausanias, the location of the ancient city you are looking for can be narrowed down. Excavations led by Dora Katsonopoulou seem to confirm these assumptions.
Individual evidence
- ^ "Des Pausanias detailed travel description of Greece": T. 6.-10. Book, translation by Johann Eustachius Goldhagen
- ↑ Samuel Wilhelm Hoffmann, "Greece and the Greeks in Antiquity", page 836 (1841)
- ↑ a b c d e Dora Katsonopoulou and Steven Soter, “The Oracular Cave of Herakles Vouraikos”, Arxaiologia, (1993), in Greek
- ↑ Ernst Curtius, "Peleponnesos", page 471, (1851)
- ↑ Bura Oracle Cave, Abel Blouet, "Expédition scientifique de Morée", III, plate 84, Fig. 1, (1838)
- ↑ Ernst Curtius, "Peleponnesos", page 471, (1851)
- ↑ Conrad Bursian, "Geography of Greece", page 337 (1872)
Coordinates: 38 ° 11 ′ 16.7 " N , 22 ° 10 ′ 28.3" E