Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia

The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, an Archaic web site devoted in Classical instances to Artemis, turned into one of the maximum important non secular websites inside the Greek city-kingdom of Sparta, and endured for use into the fourth century CE. The sanctuary is placed in a herbal basin between Limnai and the west financial institution of the Eurotas River, outside ancient Sparta, above the attain of all but the severest flooding.

The oldest relics, pottery fragments from the past due Greek Dark Ages, indicate that the cult has probably existed because the tenth century BCE, but now not earlier than Rose in Dawkins 1929:399. Originally, the cult celebrated its rituals on a square earthen altar, constructed up by using the ashes of successive sacrifices. At the very beginning of the 8th century BCE, the temenos changed into paved with river stones and surrounded by using a trapezoidal wall. A wood and stone altar changed into then built in addition to a temple.

The works had been financed by means of the wars waged through Sparta. The cult addressed a xoanon archaic wood effigy of malevolent reputation, for it turned into seemingly from Tauride, whence it changed into stolen by using Orestes and Iphigenia, in keeping with Euripides. Orientalizing carved ivory photographs discovered on the website show the winged goddess grasping an animal or fowl in both hand in the manner of the Potnia Theron.