Archaic Temple of Athena

Certain traces of a very early shrine have been detected by topographers at the same location now occupied by the Erechtheum. G.P. Stevens found rock cuttings in the line of the south wall of the terrace that was later occupied by the great Doric Temple, right on the axis of the south porch of the Erechtheum (the so called "Porch of Maidens"). Here he placed a formal entrance way leading north towards the Erechtheum site in the days before the great Doric Temple.

The most ancient remains that survived to us of a building specially consecrated to the cult of the Goddess Athena in the Acropolis of Athens are from c.a. 700 BCE They are two stone bases that are between the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, but it is not understood fully what these bases were for.

We do know that in the late Archaic period, by the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 6th century BCE, there were on the Acropolis, not only this Archaic Temple, but also other Temples and sacred places.

But during all the Archaic period, the Temple of the Goddess Athena was about the most famous shrine in Athens. It is signaled twice by Homer, more admiringly than any other shrine in any part of Greece. At Homer we can read that Erechtheus is established by Athena in his own rich Temple (Iliad 2.549); and that Athena Herself, on leaving the Phaeacians, flew over the sea to Athens and entered the strong house of Erechtheus (Odyssey 7.81).

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