Hiera Hodos
Hiera Hodos ( ancient Greek Ἱερὰ Ὁδός , modern Greek Ιερά Οδός Iera Odos , German 'Holy Road' ) was the ancient road from Athens to Eleusis . The Holy Road was so named because it was the route of the annual procession to the Mysteries of Eleusis .
Hermes steles stood at regular intervals along the 20.5 km long Holy Road . The street began at the Twelve Gods Altar on the northwest corner of the agora and passed the ancient city walls through the Holy Gate (( ερὰ Πυλή ), which is lined with two square towers . She then crossed the Kerameikos and the local cemetery. At the place Gephyra (Gephyreis), where the "Holy Road" crossed the Kephisos on a bridge , the travelers are said to have been vulgarly insulted and mocked.
At what is now Daphni Monastery , the road crossed the Aigaleos Mountains at a low pass . It led to the entrance of the Demeter shrine in Eleusis.
Even today, the main road from the center of Athens through Egaleo and Chaidari Iera Odos , which essentially follows the course of the ancient holy road .
Already in 1891/92 Dimitrios Kampouroglou examined a large part of the road from the Prophitis Ilias hill in Chaidari to the sanctuary of Aphrodite. From 1932 to 1939 excavations were carried out under Konstantinos Kourouniotis and Ioannis Travlos . Excavations on the Holy Street in the area of the Holy Gate were carried out by the German Archaeological Institute Athens from 2002 to 2005 . The parts of the Holy Street exposed on the occasion of the expansion of the Athens underground network before the Olympic Games 2004 are open to the public at the Egaleo metro station.
swell
- Pausanias , Description of Greece 1, 36, 3-38, 6; 1, 37, 5.
literature
- Martin Zichner: On the holy road from Athens to Eleusis. An "antique" travel companion. DRP-Rosenkreuz-Verlag, Birnbach 2006, ISBN 3-938540-09-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Object database and cultural archives of the Archaeological Institute of the University of Cologne and the German Archaeological Institute
- ↑ Strabon 9, 404.
- ↑ Website of the German Archaeological Institute Athens ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Website "Odysseus" of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Coordinates: 37 ° 59 ′ 30.5 " N , 23 ° 40 ′ 54.5" E