Listed 3 sub titles with search on: History for destination: "AMYKLES Ancient sanctuary SPARTI".
Archelaus had a son Teleclus. In his reign the Lacedaemonians conquered in war and reduced Amyclae, Pharis, and Geranthrae, cities of the Perioeci, which were still in the possession of the Achaeans. The inhabitants of Pharis and Geranthrae, panic-stricken at the onslaught of the Dorians, made an agreement to retire from the Peloponnesus under a truce, but those of Amyclae were not driven out at the first assault, but only after a long and stubborn resistance, in which they distinguished themselves by glorious achievements. To this heroism the Dorians bore witness by raising a trophy against the Amyclaeans, implying that their success was the most memorable exploit of that time.
This extract is from: Pausanias. Description of Greece (ed. W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., & H.A. Ormerod, 1918). Cited May 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
The Lacedaemonians were in a state of the utmost terror at this unexpected invasion and quite at a loss how to meet it. Philip on the first day pitched his camp at Amyclae. The district of Amcyclae, one of the most richly timbered and fertile in Laconia, lies about twenty stades from Sparta and includes a temple of Apollo, which is the most famous of all the Laconian shrines. It lies between Sparta and the sea (Polybius 5,18-19).
According to Pausanias, an Achaian or pre-Dorian stronghold, incorporated
by conquest as the fifth village of Sparta probably early in the 8th c. B.C. Excavation
has been almost entirely confined to the hill of Haghia Kyriaki about 5 km S of
Sparta. The prehistoric settlement, which spanned the entire Bronze Age, was concentrated
on the SE slopes; the historical site may have extended in an arc from N of the
hill to modern Amyklae.
A little way down the hill, immediately outside and below a terrace
wall, a small stratified deposit, composed of debris accumulated discontinuously
between the Byzantine and Early Mycenaean periods, has been identified.
The Sanctuary of Apollo was laid out in the 8th c. Its centerpiece
was the tomb (presumably an earthen tumulus) of Hyakinthus, a pre-Greek divinity
whose cult was conflated with that of Apollo in the annual festival of the Hyakinthia.
In the 7th or early 6th c. a 15 m-high statue of Apollo was fashioned in the form
of a cylinder with arms (holding spear and bow) and helmeted head. About 550 B.C.
the face of Apollo was plated with Lydian gold, a gift from King Croesus, and
shortly thereafter Bathykles of Magnesia designed the Doric-Ionic complex later
known as the throne of Apollo. The cult statue was set on an altar faced with
stone reliefs depicting mythological scenes; similar reliefs decorated the interior
and exterior friezes of the surrounding superstructure, whose main entrance was
formed by four half-columns crowned by console capitals. The rich archaic dedications
include bronze vessels and figurines, terracotta figurines (mainly female), and
a few lead and ivory pieces; pottery was comparatively scarce. A contemporary
deposit of over 10,000 dedications to Alexandra-Kassandra has been excavated at
Haghia Paraskevi nearby; these and sporadic finds from the neighborhood confirm
the evidence of Haghia Kyriaki that Amyklaean material culture, like that of Sparta,
reached its zenith in the 7th and 6th c. There is nothing noteworthy among the
later finds.
P. Cartledge, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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