Page 141 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Greek Islands

THE SAMIAN CULT OF HERA
Hera was worshipped as the main cult of a number of Greek
cities, and always at out-of-town sanctuaries. Before the
1st millennium BC, she was venerated in the form of a
simple wooden board (xoana), later augmented with a
copper statue. The annual Heraia festival, which saw
the copper statue dressed in wedding finery, celebrated
Hera’s union with Zeus, and was accompanied by
concerts and athletic contests. Housed in a special shrine
after the 8th century, the statue of Hera was flanked
by a number of live peacocks and sprigs from an osier
tree. Both are shown on Samian coins of the Roman era,
stamped with the image of the richly dressed goddess.

Boats on the pebbly bottomless chasms is an Mycenaean colonists, who
beach of the lovely anomaly. Kerketéfs acquired brought their worship of the
port town of Kokkári prominence during Byzantine Olympian deities with them.
times, when religious hermits A 30-m- (98-ft-) long temple
occupied some of its caves. built in the 8th century BC was
9 Today, two uninhabited con- replaced in the 6th century BC
vents remain: 16th-century
by an Ionic stone one, planned
Votsalákia and Evangelistrías, perched on the by local architect Rhoikos. This
Mount Kerketéfs south slope, and Theotókou collapsed during the reign of
(1887), tucked into a north- Polykrates, who ordered a
⌂ 50 km (31 miles)
W of Vathý @ to westerly valley. grand replacement designed
Marathókampos by Rhoikos’s son, Theodoros.
He began the new temple in
Sandy Votsalákia (Kámbos 525 BC, but the vast structure
Marathokámbou) has the 0 " was never completed.
longest, calmest-water beach Heraion Most of the finds on display
on Sámos. Overhead, domi- ⌂ 21 km (13 miles) SW of at the Archaeological Museum
nating the western tip of Vathý § 22730 95277 in Vathý (p138) date from the
Sámos, 1,437 m (4,715 ft) @ Iréo # 8am–3pm Tues– 8th to the 6th centuries BC,
Mt Kerketéfs is the second- Sun ¢ Main public hols when the sanctuary was at
highest peak in the Aegean the height of its prestige.
after Fengári on Samothráki. A fertility goddess was Byzantine and medi eval
On an island composed of worshipped here from masons removed ready-cut
smooth sedimentary rock, Neolithic times, though the stone for reuse, leaving only
this partly igneous mountain cult only became identified one column untouched, still
with its jagged formations and with Hera after the arrival of standing on the site today.

The lone remaining
column amid the ruins at
the sanctuary of Heraion
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