Archaeologists have discovered a lost ancient Greek temple dedicated to the goddess of war, after translating a recently found case of 2,500-year-old graffiti.
Among more than 2,000 remains of ancient Greek graffiti, a scholar has discovered a diagram of this lost temple dedicated to Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of war and wisdom.
The graffiti, which experts say was done by a shepherd or shepherd, depicts a now-defunct temple on the same site as Athens’ historic Parthenon, still standing.
“The structure,” according to the University of Tennessee classics professor who made the discovery, “It is identified by its inscription as “the Hekatompedon” and was produced by an individual named Mikon.
Among more than 2,000 remains of ancient Greek graffiti, a scholar has discovered a diagram (above) of a lost temple dedicated to Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of war and wisdom.
“The structure,” according to the University of Tennessee classics professor who made the discovery, “is identified by its inscription as ‘the Hekatompedon’ and was made by an individual named Mikon.” Above, the professor’s sketch of the 2,500-year-old Mikon graffiti.
Hekatompedon was once the official ancient name of the temple of Athens, but it literally translates as “100 feet” in ancient Greek, a reference to the size of the temple.
Most importantly, however, the alphabet used in this graffiti dates back to the 6th century BC. C., at least 50 years before the construction of the Parthenon structure, also dedicated to Athena, began.
“Mikon’s graphite supports the hypothesis that the Hekatompedon of the decree was an operational temple on the south side of the Acropolis,” said the professor of classical literature. Merle Langdon wrote in his new study, published in the american journal of archeology.
This earlier temple would have been dismantled, and many of its columns and other structures could have been reused, as the ancient Greek structures still stand at the top of the hill where the Parthenon rests today, within the Acropolis of Athens.
Translated from this ancient Greek alphabet, the engraved inscription simply reads “the Hekatompedon (—) of Mikon,” according to Langdon, who first discovered the graffiti.
The professor noted that there are two possible temple “candidates” known to archaeologists that could match the diagram Mikon drew in his graffiti.
One nicknamed ‘the Temple of Bluebeard’ by archaeologists and another called ‘Temple of Gigantomachy’, a neutral temporal term used while scholars still debate what the remains of these historic structures might actually have been.
The Temple of Bluebeard, believed to have been built on the north side of the Acropolis around the second quarter of the 6th century, was named by archaeologists for a prominent three-headed snake with a blue beard, found among its ruins.
The Temple of Gigantomachy, also called the Old Temple of Athena by some scholars, dates back to approximately the same period in the 6th century.
His remains were also found on the Acropolis of Athens, but scholars still debate their exact original location.
Langdon and his co-author, archaeologist Jan van RookhuijzenHe said that they would not attempt to definitively identify “the drawn temple” since “the debate over the architectural history of the Archaic Acropolis has not reached a resolution.”
Hekatompedon, which in ancient Greek means “100 feet”, was the official ancient name of the temple of Athena. But the alphabet used in this graffiti dates back to the 6th century BC. C., more than 50 years before the construction of the Parthenon began. Up on the hill, the current Parthenon
Above, a closer look at the current Parthenon, located atop the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
In other words, the entire story of the lost temple of Athena, which Mikon called “the Hekatompedon” is still shrouded in mystery and has yet to be written.
For years, the team has studied 6th century BC sketches, doodles and graffiti made by ancient Greeks in this region, drawings that include ships, horses and ‘erotic scenes’.
“It is not known why the shepherds made so much graffiti,” van Rookhuijzen wrote in an article in The conversationtalking about him and Langdon’s new study.
“It may have simply been a form of escapism during boring times at work.”
The hill where the Mikon graffiti was located, north and east of Vari, Attica, is now a southern suburb of Athens.
The landscape has become a boon for scholars as it is literally covered in ancient shepherd graffiti.
Langdon and van Rookhuijzen used high-resolution photographs and detailed reproductions to analyze the long-dead shepherd’s writing style, looking for clues in the shape of his letters, his writing and his spelling to better date and authenticate the find.
Above, the site where Langdon and his co-author found the old Mikon graffiti (red arrow). The shepherd’s inscription, made in the exposed marble of the Barako hill of Vari, near Athens, has now suffered two millennia of erosion.
The team compared Mikon’s drawing and writing style to other architectural drawings and inscriptions previously discovered in the broader Athens area.
They concluded that Mikon’s sketch of the temple is “the oldest known testimony of admiration for the architecture of the Acropolis”, based on its faithful and favorable representation of the structure’s columns and the roof-like entablature. .
They also noted that Mikon’s graffiti is now the first recorded case of a person using ‘Hekatompedon’ to refer to a large temple or building.
“Our appearance predates the other 37 known examples of this name in the Greek world,” the team wrote in their new study, “including 12 from Attica.”
But the ancient graffiti still has some mysteries to unravel, as the shepherd’s inscription, made on the exposed marble of Vari’s Barako Hill, has suffered more than two millennia of erosion.
“This prevents a complete evaluation of both the drawing and the inscription,” the researchers noted, “of which some letters are illegible.”