Tarrha

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Tarrha ( Greek  Τάῤῥα ; at Ptolemaios Τάρβα Tarba ) was an ancient city ​​on the south coast of the Greek island of Crete . It was located at the southern exit of the Samaria Gorge , in the area of ​​today's Agia Roumeli . In an ancient coastal report ( Periplus ) Tarrha is mentioned as "a small town with a place to land". The god Apollon is said to have experienced special veneration as Apollon Tarrhaios . The grammarian Lukillos von Tarrha (Λουκίλλος; Latin Lucius ), who lived in the 1st century AD, came from the city .

It is possible that there was a port on the sea side of the Samaria Gorge as early as Minoan times. In Greek mythology , after killing the python in Delphi , Apollo fled with his twin sister Artemis to Tarrha, where he was cleansed of blood guilt in a ceremony performed by the priest Karmanor . In Tarrha, Apollon had a love affair with the nymph Akakallis . She is also described as the daughter of Minos and the Pasiphae . Depending on the legend, the connection resulted in Phylakis, Philander, Naxos or Miletos. The physician and classical scholar of antiquity Ernst Assmann concluded from name and mythology that the name Tarrha is of Semitic origin: "Taharah is the priestly expression for cleansing from sin (tahar = cleanse, declare to be pure in the religious, moral sense)."

Tarrha was a regional religious center of the Dorians . In Hellenistic times, like the neighboring cities of Anopolis and Araden , holy ambassadors ( theoroi ) were sent to Delphi. From the late 4th to the early 2nd century BC Tarrha was a member of the League of Oreioi (Ὄρειοι, miners'), which also included the cities of Elyros , Hyrtakina and Lisos , possibly also Kantanos , as well as the ports of Poikilasion and Syia . The alliance concluded in the first half of the 3rd century BC. With Magas , the king of Cyrene , a treaty that ran from 280 to 250 BC. Chr. Had existed. From the year 183 BC A treaty of alliance with Eumenes II of Pergamon is known to whose signatories, along with 28 other Cretan cities, also Anopolis, Araden and Tarrha belonged.

The city of Tarrha flourished especially in Roman times. Coins with motifs of goat heads and bees were minted here, as a hint of milk and honey, the food of young children of gods. A piece of imported raw glass was also found during excavations, which is now in the Museum of Chania . It is not certain whether there was a glassworks in Tarrha , as the archaeologist and excavator of the finds from burned glass Gladys Davidson Weinberg suspected, or whether the glass came from a shipwreck . In the early Byzantine 5th / 6th In the 18th century, a three-aisled Christian basilica was built on the foundations of a Hellenistic building, possibly a temple for the oracle of Apollon Tarrhaios . Walls up to three meters high and remains of a mosaic floor have been preserved from it. Later a small chapel , the Panagia Church , was built in its place . In addition to the remains of the early Byzantine basilica, excavations in 1959 discovered pit-shaped graves with decorative items, including from the archaic period (around 700–500 BC).

literature

  • William Smith (Ed.): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography . Walton and Maberly, London 1854, TARRHA (English, perseus.tufts.edu [accessed April 2, 2013]).
  • Wolf Aly : The Cretan Apollo cult . Preliminary study for an analysis of the Cretan gods cults. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1908, Apollon Tarrhaios ( archive.org [accessed on October 15, 2012]).
  • Gladys Davidson Weinberg: Excavations at Tarrha . Hesperia , Volume 29, Issue 1. American School of Classical Studies at Athens , Athens 1960 ( ascsa.edu.gr [PDF; 6.8 MB ; accessed on October 15, 2012]).
  • Elisabeth Mlinar: Fortified cities, settlements and other fortification structures in Crete from the Archaic to the end of the Hellenistic period . Dissertation. tape 1 . University of Vienna, Vienna 2014, Agia Roumeli / Tarrha, S. 42–44 ( digitized version [PDF; accessed on February 26, 2017]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaudios Ptolemaios : Geographia . Ed .: Karl Friedrich August Nobbe . tape 1 . Leipzig 1843, p. 219 ( books.google.de [accessed October 13, 2012]).
  2. ^ Samuel Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann: Greece and the Greeks in antiquity . With consideration for the fate and conditions in later times. 6th book. Dyk'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1841, islands: 1. Crete, p. 1335 ( books.google.de [accessed October 15, 2012]).
  3. ↑ Manuel Baumbach: Lukillos. In: The New Pauly. Brill Online Reference Works, accessed October 15, 2012 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Antonis Vasilakis: Crete . Mystis, Iraklio 2008, ISBN 978-960-6655-30-2 , Agia Roumeli (Ancient Tarrha), p. 295 .
  5. ↑ Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Ed.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . First volume: Aba – Hysiris (1884–1890). Teubner, Leipzig, p. 204 ( archive.org [accessed October 15, 2012]).
  6. ^ Carl Hoeck: Crete . An attempt to shed light on the mythology and history of the religion and constitution of this island. tape 3 . Carl Eduard Rosenbusch, Göttingen 1829, Religion and Cultus, p. 161 ( books.google.de [accessed October 15, 2012]).
  7. ^ Ernst Assmann : On the prehistory of Crete . In: Philologus 67 - Journal for Classical Antiquity . Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1908, p. 166 ( archive.org [accessed December 24, 2013]).
  8. ↑ a b c Archaeological Survey in Sphakia, Crete. Period Results: II. Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman Periods. University of Oxford , 2000, accessed October 16, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Angelos Chaniotis : The Treaties between Cretan Poleis in the Hellenistic Period . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06827-9 , Sympolitierechte und Außengemeinden, p. 421/422 ( books.google.de [accessed October 17, 2012]).
  10. ↑ Wolf Aly : The Cretan Apollo cult . Preliminary study for an analysis of the Cretan gods cults. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1908, Apollon Tarrhaios, p. 44 ( archive.org [accessed October 16, 2012]).
  11. ↑ a b Lambert Schneider : Crete . 5000 years of art and culture: Minoan palaces, Byzantine chapels and Venetian city complexes. 4th edition. Dumont, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7701-3801-2 , Through the Samaria Gorge to Agia Roumeli, p. 298 ( books.google.de [accessed October 15, 2012]).

Web links

Coordinates: 35 ° 14 '  N , 23 ° 58'  E