Location information

Brauron

  Lies beside a small bay on the E coast, about 38 km from Athens.
   A fortified prehistoric settlement occupied the small hill about 400 m W of the bay, flourishing from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, but particularly during the period ca. 2000-1600 B.C. A few houses have been cleared, and on the NW slopes of the hill E of the acropolis, several Late Helladic chamber tombs were dug. This settlement was abandoned before the end of the Bronze Age, and in the Classical period only a sanctuary remained. It lay just to the NW of the acropolis and was active from the late 8th to the 3d c. B.C., when it was destroyed by a flood of the nearby river Erasinos. The area was deserted in Roman times, but in the 6th c. A.D. an Early Christian basilica was built about 500 m W of the sanctuary on the other side of the valley, and reused some material from the sanctuary itself.
   The goddess of the sanctuary, identified with Artemis, was particularly connected with childbirth and was worshiped mainly by women. Her cult statue, presumably a primitive one, was said to have been brought from the Crimea by Iphigeneia and Orestes (Eur. IT 1462-67) but Pausanias (1.23.7; 1.33.1; 3.16.8) discounts the story. Iphigeneia herself was supposed to be buried there. The special servants of Artemis Brauronia were called arktoi (bears), young girls aged between five and ten, who wore saffron robes, perhaps to recall the actual bearskins of an earlier period (Suda, s.v. arktos e Brauroniois).
   Greek excavations between 1948 and 1962 revealed the main buildings of the sanctuary. Of the temple, dating from ca. 500 B.C., only the foundations remain. It was a small Doric building (ca. 20 x 11 m), but little is known of its plan. Immediately to the NW of the temple terrace is a copious spring into whose waters offerings were thrown. From the partly artificial basin of the spring, and from the bed of the stream flowing N from it, many dedications were recovered, mostly of a feminine character--mirrors rings, gems, etc.; particularly valuable are the objects of bone and wood which luckily have been preserved in the mud. The spring seems to have been the most sacred part of the sanctuary until the late 6th c. B.C., but both it and the temple were probably destroyed by the Persians in 480.
   About 10 m SE of the temple, in a cleft in the rock which was probably once a cave, stood a small temple-like building which perhaps represents the supposed Tomb of Iphigeneia. It seems to have replaced the earlier buildings to the SE, which were destroyed by the collapse of the cave roof in the mid 5th c. B.C.
   The most impressive building at the sanctuary is the large Doric stoa dating from ca. 430-420 B.C., which was perhaps used by the arktoi. It was to have had three colonnaded wings facing onto a court from the W, N, and E, the temple terrace forming the fourth side. The E wing was longer than the W, and did not have rooms behind its portico as did the N and W wings. In the end, the N wing alone was completed; except for the column nearest the corner with the N colonnade, the E and W colonnades never rose above their foundations. Behind the N wing was a narrow courtyard with a small propylon at each end, and a shallow portico forming its N side.
   The N colonnade of the stoa has been partially restored, using the original elements found lying in front of it. Its 11 Doric columns, with shafts of local sandstone and capitals of Pentelic marble, stood on a marble stylobate, which, although it has settled badly at the E end, seems to have been laid in a rising curve like that of the Parthenon. The columns were more widely spaced than in contemporary temples, so that above each span there are three metopes instead of two; the spans nearest the corners were extended a further 12 cm to allow a half-triglyph to appear in the frieze at the reentrant angle. The stoa is one of the earliest buildings where this wider column spacing is found, and where the problem of the reentrant angle had to be met; not surprisingly, therefore, the adjustment of the column spacing is not really adequate.
   Behind the N and (intended) W porticos of the stoa were various rooms, the majority of them of a standard size (ca. 6 x 6 m) and equipped with 11 couches and 7 small tables. The arrangement of these rooms is best seen at the E end of the N wing, where the base blocks for several tables, as well as the holes where couch legs were fixed with lead, still survive. The rooms were entered from the porticos in front of them, and in the marble threshold of the first room from the E can be seen one of the bronze pivots for the double doors and the prism-shaped bronze projections that held the doors shut.
   Besides the standard rooms, there were also in the N wing a narrow passage to the N court, and a small room at the extreme W end, which probably served as a lodge for the porter of the W gate into the N court. In the W wing, the third room from the S formed the main entrance to the stoa and its court from the W. The many wheel-marks visible here, however, belong with a rough road made of reused reliefs and architectural members and laid over the remains of the stoa, probably by people coming to remove building material from the site.
   Along the central wall of the N wing, behind the rear wall of the W wing, and at the foot of the N retaining wall of the temple, there were rows of bases. On most of these bases were reliefs or inscriptions in honor of Artemis, but there were also several statues of children, mostly girls (arktoi ?), dating from the 5th and 4th c. B.C. Several fragments of the catalogue of dedications to Artemis list separately the garments dedicated to the goddess, either in thanks for successful childbirth or in memory of those who died as a result of it. The garments were perhaps displayed on the racks which appear to have occupied the narrow portico of the N court.
   About 7 m W of the stoa, a bridge of the 5th c. B.C. crosses the stream which flows N from the sacred spring to the Erasinos. It is ca. 9 m long x 9 m wide, very simple in structure, and consists of horizontal slabs about 1 m long which rest on five rows of upright slabs. Not all the buildings at the sanctuary have been uncovered; an inscription mentions several others, including a palaistra and a gymnasium.
   The finds from the excavations at the artemision are mostly housed in a new museum on the site.

J. J. Coulton, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites, Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Oct 2002 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains 8 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per... (8 img.)

Brauron

Brauron. In a marshy valley on the eastern coast of Attica lies the archaeological site of Brauron. Named after an ancient hero, Brauron was one of the twelve cities of ancient Attica as well as the home territory of the Athenian tyrant, Peisistratos. The river Erasinos flows nearby, making this location suitable for the residential population it hosted for 2200 years from the Neolithic through the Mycenaean periods. After abandonment in 1300 BC, Brauron saw no use until the 8th century BC, when it became the site of the principal sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia. Legend has it that the priestess Iphigeneia, on orders from Athena, established this cult at Brauron. The architectural remains at the site include a small shrine, generally accepted as the Tomb of Iphigeneia, a three-winged stoa, the temple of Artemis, and a stone bridge of a style unique to Attica in its time.

History
A settlement on the low acropolis hill of Brauron was occupied from the later Neolithic period, around 3500 BC, until late in the Mycenaean period, ca. 1300 BC. It flourished especially between 2000 and 1600 BC during the Middle Bronze Age. A few houses dating from this period, as well as a number of late Mycenaean chamber tombs dug into the slope east of the acropolis, have been excavated. John Papadimitriou, a Greek archaeologist who excavated much of Brauron, attributed the abandonment of the prehistoric village ca. 1300 B.C. to the legendary unification of Attica by Theseus, the mythical king of Athens. When Theseus unified the independent towns of Attica, he reputedly forced their aristocracies to move to Athens. So the aristocratic families left Brauron, while the remainder of the population was presumably settled in other villages nearby.
Occupation of Brauron began again in the eighth century B.C., but this time it was a religious site, not a town. The site was sacred to Artemis Brauronia and her priestess Iphigeneia. Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris explains the origin of the cult. Iphigeneia was the daughter of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks during the Trojan War. The Greeks offended Artemis by not offering her proper sacrifice, so she would not send an appropriate wind to let them leave Greece and sail for Troy. In order to appease Artemis, they sacrificed Iphigeneia to the goddess. However, Artemis saved Iphigeneia by whisking her away to Scythian Tauris, where Iphigeneia became a priestess of Artemis.
  Many years later, Iphigeneia's brother, Orestes, came to Tauris to steal the cult statue of Artemis, as he had been ordered to do by an oracle. The Scythians caught Orestes and planned on sacrificing him to the goddess. Iphigeneia recognized her brother, however, and the two of them proceeded to steal the cult statue together. Athena told them to take the cult statue back to Greece and set up two cult sites to Artemis in eastern Attica, one at Halae Araphenides and the other at Brauron. Orestes set the Taurian cult statue up at Halae in a temple dedicated to Artemis Tauropolos, while Iphigeneia instituted a cult dedicated to Artemis Brauronia at Brauron.
  Worship of Artemis Brauronia increased in importance in Athens during the rule of the tyrant Peisistratos from ca. 546 until his death in 527. Peisistratos originally came from the Brauronian hills, and incorporated many of the Brauronian rites into Athenian public life, such as the celebration of the Brauronia festival. During his rule, a sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia was built for the first time on the Athenian Acropolis.
  At Brauron, Artemis was worshipped primarily by women in connection with childbirth. After giving birth successfully, women would often dedicate their prized possessions to the goddess. The clothes of women who died in childbirth were also offered. Iphigeneia was also worshipped, in her own shrine close to the temple of Artemis. Every four years a festival, the Brauronia, was held. The festival was celebrated mainly by women, and a goat was sacrificed to the goddess. While our knowledge about this festival and the events that took place during its course is far from complete, we do know a little from literary and artistic sources about the activities that took place. Two of the most valuable passages are by the comic playwright, Aristophanes, in Peace 872-6 and Lysistrata 638f. In addition, a number of vases found at Brauron and at other locations in Attica illustrate some of the cult's activities.
  During the Brauronia, the Arkteia was celebrated. This was a coming of age ceremony performed by young girls, called arktoi, or "bears". The name arktoi was derived from a local Attic myth, according to which Iphigeneia had been slated for sacrifice at Brauron instead of in her Argive homeland but was rescued when Artemis substituted a bear for her. There was another local story in which a bear that was sacred to Artemis scratched a young girl. The girl's brothers killed the bear, thereby enraging Artemis, who sent a plague down on the population. In order to appease the goddess, the rites of the Arkteia were initiated.
  While the age of the girls who participated in the Arkteia is still a matter of scholarly debate, they were probably somewhere between five and thirteen. During the course of the festival, the arktoi would dress up in saffron colored robes, called krokotoi, and perform a dance in which they imitated bears. In addition, the girls would run races.
  While worship of Artemis Brauronia probably began as early as the eighth century, the Temple of Artemis wasn't built until shortly before 500 BC. Before this, the cult was probably centered around the sacred spring in the hillside just to the northwest of the temple. Both the temple and the sanctuary were destroyed in the Persian invasion of Attica in 480 B.C., but were rebuilt later in the fifth century.
Brauron was abandoned in the third century BC after it was flooded by the river Erasinos. The sanctuary of Artemis was never rebuilt, and the site remained deserted throughout the Roman period. The site was reoccupied in the sixth century, however, when a Christian basilica dedicated to St. George was built immediately south of the temple.
  Excavation of the site began in 1948, under John Papademetriou. Today, the site is dedicated mainly to archaeology. The ruins of the sanctuary of Artemis have been excavated, and a museum housing the artifacts found on the site has been constructed.
Archeology
The sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia was cleared between 1948 and 1962 under the direction of John Papadimitriou. Prior to this, the only excavation carried out was the clearance of three Mycenaean chamber tombs in 1894 under B. Stais. The sanctuary is located at the foot of the Ayios Georgios hill, on top of which a prehistoric settlement existed from 3500 to 1300 BC. Several houses from this settlement have been found, along with the chamber tombs that Stais excavated. Many vases and figurines were also found on the surface of the hill (also referred to as the akropolis). Expensive grave offerings were recovered from within the tombs, as well as a skeleton that apparently had a fishing net thrown over it, which suggests that the livelihood of the town may have centered on the sea. The settlement was abandoned before the end of the Bronze Age, and as a result the sanctuary was the only human development on the site during the Classical period. The sanctuary first came into use during the eighth century BC then was abandoned in the third century BC when it was destroyed by a flood of the River Erasinos. The only building activity on the site since then (aside from the modern reconstruction of part of the stoa and the construction of a museum for the site) was the construction of a Christian basilica in the sixth century AD.
Epigraphic Evidence
An Athenian decree from the third century BC that orders the site to be inspected lists the buildings at the site, and thus gives archaeologists an idea of what to be looking for. Among those buildings named are a temple, a parthenon, an amphipoleion, a gymnasium (athletic field), a palaestra (wrestling school), and stables. The temple has been uncovered, as has a stoa that dominates the site and therefore is very likely to be one of the structures mentioned epigraphically. Other structures uncovered are a bridge, a sacred spring, a shrine, and several rooms that were probably once inside a cave. The parthenon and an "Old Temple" are repeatedly referred to in fourth century BC inscriptions on the Athenian Akropolis. There is considerable debate over where these are located on the site, but it is agreed that they are to be found among the temple, the stoa, the shrine, and the rooms within these buildings. Inventories of garments dedicated at Brauron mention three statues that the garments were draped over. These statues have not been discovered but may explain the division of the cella of the temple into three sections.
The Stoa
By far the largest building uncovered at Brauron is the ninety-six-foot-long, three-winged Doric stoa constructed in the fifth century BC. Most of the stoa was constructed out of sandstone quarried only a few hundred yards away, as was most of the sanctuary. This sandstone is easy to work but is not particularly attractive. The stoa's stylobate, capitals, and metopes were made of marble. The surviving foundations on the north, east, and west sides define the outlines colonnaded wings, while a retaining wall for the Temple of Artemis bounded the stoa at the southwest. It seems that only the north wing was actually completed, while the east and west colonnades never rose above the foundations. Based on its architecture and an inscription, the stoa appears to have been built in 420 BC. An inscription found inside the stoa states that it is the parthenon of the arktoi, the girls who participated in the cult activities at the site. The stoa has been preserved well enough in mud that much of the north colonnade has been reconstructed from the original materials.
The north wing serves as a model for what the rest of the temple would have looked like had it been built. The north colonnade consisted of eleven Doric columns, each twelve feet high. This is the only fifth century stoa for which the column height is precisely known. The column proportions are similar to those of the Hephaisteion in Athens. Many inscribed bases have been found inside the portico. Although the stylobate has been disturbed due to settling on the eastern side, it appears to have had refinements similar to those of the Parthenon, in that it curved upward very slightly toward the center rather than being perfectly horizontal. Such a refinement was relatively rare in the fifth century BC. The frieze and possibly also the architrave are higher in relation to the lower column diameter than they are on most stoas. The columns are thicker at the corners. While most colonnades had columns sitting in the center of every other stylobate block, the columns of the stoa at Brauron rest on every other joint between blocks.
  The intercolumniations are longer than those in most temples of the period. For the first time we know of in an extensive colonnade, each intercolumniation accommodated three metopes at the frieze level instead of the usual two. This, in combination with the intended length of the stoa, affected the treatment of the reentrant angle in the frieze. The intercolumniations at the ends are twelve centimeters longer than the rest so that a half-triglyph could be placed at the corner. Because this was an early attempt at wider column spacing, the lengthening of these intercolumniations was only a quarter of what it needed to be, and the metopes at the corners were significantly shortened in order to compensate. Because of these irregularities, mutules and viae were left out, and the cornice is Ionic.
  The stoa at Brauron and the south stoa of the Athenian Agora are the earliest known stoas to have rooms in the back. There are six identical rooms along the north wing of the stoa at Brauron and, less well preserved, four along the west wing, each about eighteen feet by eighteen feet. Indications of the furnishings of these rooms are most abundant at the eastern end of the north wing. Holes in their floors indicate that they held eleven beds or couches along their walls. These would have been about five feet long, and therefore could have accommodated sleeping children or served as their dining couches. They had wooden feet that were secured in cuttings with lead. In front of the beds were seven sandstone tables covered with marble plaques. A few base blocks of these tables still survive. The doors to these rooms faced the inside of the stoa and were displaced off-axis to the east to accommodate the couch configuration. The marble threshold to the easternmost doorway still has a bronze pivot for double doors as well as several bronze projections for keeping these doors shut. Al,ong the northern margin of the portico just to the south of these rooms are rows of bases. These held inscriptions and relief sculptures dedicated to Artemis as well as a few statues of children, most of which were portraits of young girls holding symbolic objects such as birds or fruit. These were put up in the fourth and fifth centuries BC. Because of the groups of beds as well as the nearby statues of children, it has been suggested that the arktoi slept in the rooms of the stoa's north wing. The counter-argument is that they were used as dining rooms, as they resemble the dining rooms in other Classical sanctuaries.
  A hallway between two of the rooms on the north side led into an open air corridor. This corridor was bounded by a shallow portico along its north side and by small propyla at the east and west ends. A small room at the western end of the north wing may have been for a porter stationed at the west propylon. In the portico to the north of the corridor were racks which may have held clothing that was dedicated to Artemis. About twelve meters to the west of the corridor is a collection of inscriptions, apparently relocated there by Christians.
  The third room from the south in the west wing constituted a gate leading into the center of the stoa. A road made from remains of the stoa passes over the foundations of this room and was probably used to remove building material once the site had been abandoned.
  On top of the frieze and some of the walls of the stoa sat wall plates. These supported the rafters of a pitched roof. In the north and west wings, the front wall of the rooms supported the peak of the roof, while in the east a ridge beam served this purpose. There were probably battens or planking to hold up the roof tiles.
The Bridge
To the west of the stoa is a thirty-by-thirty-foot bridge crossing the stream that flows from the sacred spring in the southwest corner of the site. This bridge is unique in that it is the only one found on the Greek mainland that was built in the fifth century BC, and in that it was the first to be built by constructing walls parallel to the stream and laying horizontal stone slabs on top of them. The bridge consists of five such walls, on top of which lay slabs that are about three feet long.
The Temple of Artemis
Off the southwest corner of the stoa, on a terrace supported by a retaining wall, sat the Temple of Artemis Brauronia. The temple stood on what Euripides may have meant by the "holy stairs of Brauron" in his play, Iphigenia in Tauris. This retaining wall is well preserved and has steps that lead up past the temple to the church of St. George, which was built in the 6th century AD, reusing some of the original material of the sanctuary. There was probably a pagan altar where the church now stands, especially since one can now detect the foundation of an earlier structure from within the church. The temple was probably built around 500 BC, on top of the remains of an older shrine, as indicated by pottery fragments and the pavement inside the temple. The temple was Doric and measured sixty-six feet by thirty-three and a half feet.
  Because the north side of the hill has been cut away to make a roadway, all that remains of the temple are a section of polygonal toichobate and bits of the foundation in the southeast, as well as cuts made into the bedrock for the western side of the foundations. Scattered fragments of poros column drums, geisa, and triglyphs also appear to have belonged to the temple.
  Two broken column drums indicate that the eastern side of the temple was distyle or tetrastyle in antis. A cella (closed interior) lay at the center of the temple, with an adyton (inner sanctum) to the west and a prodomos (an open portico, serving as the entrance to the temple) to the east. Two rows of columns divided the cella into three sections. The cella is nearly square, but would have had almost standard proportions if it were combined with the adyton behind it.
  Inside the temple, colored reliefs in terracotta, bronze mirrors, and votive jewelry have been excavated. Near the retaining wall several marble steles were found along with the slots in the bedrock that held them. Inscribed on these slabs are lists of offerings to Artemis and Iphigenia as well as the names of the women who made these offerings. During the Peloponnesian War, the offerings were moved to the Athenian Akropolis, where copies of the lists have also been recovered.
The Sacred Spring
Out of the northwest side of the hill that the temple sits on, a spring flows first into a manmade pool, then north toward the Erasinos as a stream. In the basin of the pool and bed of the stream, thousands of objects have been found dating between 700 BC and 480 BC. It appears that all of these were offerings made by women; they include bronze mirrors, rings, gems, scarabs, statuettes, vases, and even objects of bone and wood that were preserved in the mud. The mirrors are considered particularly beautiful, and one has an inscription describing its dedication. The spring was probably the most sacred part of the site until late in the 6th century BC. It was destroyed, along with the temple, in the Persian sack of 480 BC. It is possible that the objects found in the spring were buried there in order to protect them from the Persians.
The Shrine and Adjacent Structures
Uphill from the temple are the foundations of a shrine, or mikron hieron, that was 24.5 feet long and 14.5 feet wide, and further to the southeast lie the remains of several stone and mortar rooms buried by boulders. It appears likely from the positions of the boulders that these rooms were once situated inside a cave. After the cave crashed down on them in the mid-5th century BC, the shrine may have been built in their place. Valuable offerings as well as inscriptions were found amidst the rubble. The shrine or the rooms to the southeast are considered by Papadimitriou to have been the supposed Tomb of Iphigenia, as the tombs of Greek heroes and heroines were often placed inside caves. Barber mentions that the rooms adjacent to the shrine may have been the tombs of priestesses of the temple. Hollinshead argues that the shrine was instead the Old Temple that is alluded to in Athenian inscriptions. Her evidence is the shrine's proximity to the newer temple and the quantity of inscriptions found outside of the shrine, as well as the limited access to the shrine, which would make it well suited for storage.
Other Finds
High-quality Greek sculpture has been preserved in the mud, including a number of votive reliefs and numerous statues and statuettes of children. One relief in particular, known as the "Relief of the Gods," portrays Zeus, Leto, Apollo, and Artemis, and may have been sculpted by Phidias.
  Two sections of an aulos, a type of flute, have been found in the bed of the spring. They are made out of bone, fit together, and have a total of six finger holes. The aulos is probably one of a pair of flutes that were played at the same time. The sections have been replicated in brass and experiments have been done that involve adding different lengths of pipe to try to produce a tuned musical scale. These experiments give clues about what the original instrument looked like.
  A special series of cult vessels called krateriskoi have been excavated at Brauron. These were used for dedications to Artemis. They depict naked girls running, as well as part of a bear, all perhaps pictorial rendeerings of the Brauronian rituals. A pit containing small votive offerings and Geometric potsherds has also been unearthed.
This text is cited Aug 2005 from The Dartmouth College URL below

Dartmouth College WebPages
• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cpano/brauron

Bauron

Region: Attica
Periods: Geometric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic
Type: Sanctuary
Summary: Sanctuary of Artemis, worshipped in her function as protectress of childbirth.

Physical Description:
    On the coast ca. 38 km E of Athens, the sanctuary consists of a cave and sacred spring and a court enclosed by a temple and a three-winged stoa. The stoa housed the votive dedications and numerous dinning rooms. Inscriptions mention other buildings including a palaestra and gymnasium which have not been excavated. Ritual included dancing by "Arktoi," girls aged 5 to 10 dressed as bears. Iphigeneia is said to have brought the cult statue of Artemis here and to be buried here.
Description:
    Earlier habitation and cemetery remains of Neolithic to Late Bronze Age date have been found SE of the sanctuary, but the cult site appears to date no earlier than the 8th century B.C. According to myth, the rites and cult statue of Artemis (who was particularly connected with childbirth and was worshipped chiefly by women) were brought to Attica from Scythia (Crimea) by Iphigeneia and Orestes. The sacred spring at Brauron seems to have been originally the most sacred part of the sanctuary, and the first temple was erected as late as ca. 500 B.C. Both were probably destroyed by the Persians in 480 B.C. when a wooden image (perhaps the original cult statue) was reportedly carried off to Susa. About 10 m SE of the temple was a small building, perhaps representing the supposed tomb of Iphigeneia. This seems to have replaced an earlier building to the SE which was destroyed with the collapse of the sacred cave at mid 5th century. The later stoa at the sanctuary had a number of dinning rooms perhaps used by the Arktoi servant girls of Artemis Brauronia. Offerings (of feminine character) recovered from the sanctuary, especially from the sacred spring, have helped to clarify aspects of the cult. The site was finally abandoned after the nearby river Erasinos flooded the sanctuary in the 3rd century B.C. There was no activity at the sanctuary in the Roman period, but building material from it was reused in a 6th century A.D. Christian basilica ca 500 m W of the sanctuary site.
Exploration:
    Excavations: 1946-52 and 1956-63, J. Papadimitriou, Greek Archaeological Society.

Donald R. Keller, ed.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains 8 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Pages with photos by Kevin T. Glowacki, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at Indiana University.

• http://www.stoa.org/athens/sites/brauron.html (46 img.)

Brauron, Temple of Artemis

Site: Brauron
Type: Temple
Summary: Temple; on the northwest side of the acropolis, directly south of the west wing of the stoa.
Date: ca. 500 B.C. - 450 B.C.
Period: Archaic/Classical

Plan:
On a stepped terrace. Cella opening east onto pronaos distyle in antis. An adyton behind the cella. Two rows of 4 columns each in the cella.

History: Constructed to replace an earlier Archaic temple. A church now stands on the probable location of the Artemis altar. On the slope below the northwest corner of the Temple of Artemis was a Sacred Spring and pool, from which thousands of dedications were excavated, most dating pre-480 B.C.

This text is cited Aug 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains 3 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Brauron, Heroon of Iphigeneia

Site: Brauron
Type: Temple
Summary: Small building; located in a cleft in a rock on the southern edge of the Sanctuary of Artemis.
Date: ca. 450 B.C.
Period: Classical

Plan:
Cella and pronaos opening northwest.

History:
The structure is associated with an earlier grave or cenotaph of Iphigeneia, probably located in a sacred grotto or the complex of rooms to the south. In mythology Iphigeneia was a daughter of Agamemnon, who became a priestess of Artemis.

This text is cited Aug 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Brauron, Parastas

Site: Brauron
Type: Stoa
Summary: Narrow hall; on the north side of the Stoa at Artemision in the Sanctuary of Artemis.
Date: ca. 410 B.C.
Period: Classical

Plan:
A long narrow hall with roofed stoa on north side and open paved court running its length. Communicating with the Stoa at Artemision by a narrow passage on the south and opening on the east and west through propyla each with one column in antis and a double door.

History:
This stoa is tentatively identified as the parastas referred to in inscriptions. Built as an addition to the Stoa at Artemision, its function is uncertain. Possibly animal stalls or shelter for dedications. The court in front had numerous pedestals to support statues and other dedications.

This text is cited Aug 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Brauron, Stoa at Artemision

Site: Brauron
Type: Stoa
Summary: Three-sided stoa; surrounding the northern end of the Sanctuary of Artemis.
Date: ca. 425 B.C. - 416 B.C.
Period: Classical

Plan:
U-shaped stoa with 3 colonnaded wings framing the west, north, and east sides of a central courtyard, opening onto the court. The east wing was longer than the north and west wings. The north wing had 11 Doric columns and a passage leading to a more northerly stoa or court (Parastas) with which it shared a wall. The center room on the west wing was a gate. The north and west wings had dining rooms behind their colonnades, 9 rooms in total, each containing 11 couches and 7 small tables.

History:
East and west wings were never completed. The girls who served Artemis may have been house in the west wing, and the stoa may have been referred to as the parthenon after the residents. Papidimitriou does not restore dining rooms in the west wing.

This text is cited Aug 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains 7 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Brauron, Stone Bridge

Site: Brauron
Type: Bridge
Summary: Bridge; ca. 7 m west of the Stoa at Artemision, crossing the stream flowing north to the Erasinos from the Sacred Spring.
Date: ca. 430 B.C.
Period: Classical

Plan:
Approximately square bridge of slabs placed horizontally across 5 rows of vertical slabs.

This text is cited Aug 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains 1 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Brauron

• http://davidgill.co.uk/attica/brauron/ (9 img.)
• http://home.uchicago.edu/~bdcline/AAM/html/Brauron... (13 img.)
• http://www.stoa.org/athens/sites/brauron.html (46 img.)