Archeologists have discovered a lost ancient Greek temple dedicated to the goddess of war, after translating a newly found case of 2,500-year-old graffiti.
Among over 2,000 remnants of ancient Greek graffiti, one scholar has uncovered a diagram of this lost temple to Athena, ancient Greece‘s goddess of war and wisdom.
The graffiti, which experts said was made by a shepherd or herder, depicts a now bygone temple on the very same site as Athens’ historic, still-standing Parthenon.
‘The structure,’ according to the University of Tennessee classics professor who made the discovery, ‘is identified by its inscription as ‘the Hekatompedon’ and was produced by an individual named Mikon.’
Among over 2,000 remnants of ancient Greek graffiti, one scholar has uncovered a diagram (above) of a lost temple to Athena, ancient Greece’s goddess of war and wisdom
‘The structure,’ according to the University of Tennessee classics professor who made the discovery, ‘ is identified by its inscription as ‘the Hekatompedon’ and was produced by an individual named Mikon.’ Above, the professor’s sketch of Mikon’s 2,500-year-old graffiti
Hekatompedon was once the official ancient name for the temple to Athena, but it translates literally to ‘100-footer’ in ancient Greek, a reference to the temple’s size.
Crucially, however, the alphabet used in this graffiti dates it back to the 6th century BC — at least 50 years before the construction of the Parthenon structure, also dedicated to Athena, even began.
‘Mikon’s graffito supports the scenario that the Hekatompedon in the decree was an operational temple on the south side of the Acropolis,’ classics professor Merle Langdon wrote in his new study, published in the American Journal of Archaeology.
This earlier temple would have been dismantled, and many of its columns and other structures could have been reused, for the ancient Greek structures still standing atop the hill where the Parthenon rests today, within the Acropolis of Athens.
Translated from this ancient Greek alphabet, the engraved inscription simply reads ‘the Hekatompedon [—] of Mikon,’ according to Langdon who was the first to discover the graffiti.
The professor noted that there are two possible temple ‘candidates’ known to archeologists that could match the diagram that Mikon drew in his graffiti.
One nicknamed ‘the Bluebeard Temple’ by archeologists and another called ‘the Gigantomachy Temple,’ a neutral temporary term used while scholars still debate what the remnants of these historic structures might have once really been.
The Bluebeard Temple, which is theorized to have been built on the north side of the Acropolis around the second quarter of the 6th century, was named by archeologists for a prominent three-headed serpent with a blue beard, found among in its ruins.
The Gigantomachy Temple, also called the Old Temple of Athena by some scholars, dates back to roughly the same 6th century period.
It’s remnants were also found on the Acropolis in Athens, but its exact original location is still debated by scholars.
Langdon and his co-author, archeologist Jan van Rookhuijzen, said they would stop short of trying to definitively identify ‘the drawn temple’ any further, as ‘the debate on the architectural history of the Archaic Acropolis has not come to a resolution.’
Hekatompedon, ancient Greek for ‘100-footer,’ was the official ancient name for the temple to Athena. But the alphabet used in this graffiti dates it back to the 6th century BC, over 50 years before construction on the Parthenon even began. Above, on the hill, the Parthenon today
Above, a closer look at the Parthenon today – sitting atop the Acropolis in Athens, Greece
In other words, the complete history of the lost temple to Athena, that Mikon called ‘the Hekatompedon’ is still shrouded in mystery and remains yet to be written.
For years, the team has studied the 6th century BC sketches, scrawlings and graffiti made by the ancient Greek’s in this region — drawings that include ships, horses, and ‘erotic scenes.’
‘Why the shepherds produced so many graffiti is not known,’ van Rookhuijzen wrote in an article at The Conversation, discussing he and Langdon’s new study.
‘It may have simply been a form of escapism during the dull moments of their job.’
The hill where Mikon’s graffiti was located, along the north and east of Vari, Attica, is now a southern suburb of Athens.
The landscape has become a boon to scholars as it is literally covered in ancient shepherd graffiti.
Langdon and van Rookhuijzen employed high-resolution photographs and detailed reproductions to analyze the long-dead shepherd’s writing style, hunting for clues in his letter forms, handwriting, and spelling to better date and authenticate the find.
Above, the site where Langdon and his co-author found Mikon’s ancient graffiti (red arrow). the shepherd’s inscription – made on the exposed marble of Vari’s Barako Hill near Athens – has now suffered from two millennia’s worth of erosion
The team compared the Mikon drawing and its writing style to other previously discovered architectural drawings and inscriptions from the wider Athens area.
Mikon’s sketch of the temple, they concluded is ‘the earliest known testimony of admiration of the architecture of the Acropolis,’ based on its faithful and favorable depiction of the structure’s columns and roof-like entablature.
They also noted that Mikon’s graffiti is now the earliest recorded instance of a person using ‘Hekatompedon’ to mean a large temple or building.
‘Our occurrence is earlier than the 37 other known examples of this name in the Greek world,’ the team wrote in their new study, ‘including 12 from Attica.’
But the ancient graffiti still has some mysteries left to decode, as the shepherd’s inscription — made on the exposed marble of Vari’s Barako Hill — has now suffered from over two millennia’s worth of erosion
‘This impedes a full appraisal of both the drawing and the inscription,’ the researchers noted, ‘of which some letters are illegible.’