Τhe Sanctuary of Apollo - The excavation: Building C

General view of building Γ (temple) from the East. Early Hellenistic period

Temple of the Early Hellenistic Period (Building C), at the very foot of the Tholos hill.  Surviving, almost in its entirety, is the three-stepped base (crepidoma) of the long and narrow temple, as well as part of a row of large slabs (orthostatai) of travertine stone that constituted the lower part of the walls.  The entire temple, which measured 16, 49 x 9, 30 metres and ran along an east-to-west axis, as did all the ancient temples, was built of this same material, which came from a quarry in the vicinity of Antimacheia.  The stone used for the two columns, however, which stood on the eastern – entrance – side, as well as for the huge threshold, was grey Koan marble.  Marble – in this case white marble – must also have been used for the paving of the floor, while the underlayer was of reddish limestone (poros), taken from a coastal quarry near Kephalos, from which it must have been transported to the sanctuary by boat.

 

Reconstruction of the east (entrance ) side of building Γ (temple): Drawing by G. Antoniou

Building C  was a temple of the type archaeologists describe as ‘distyle in antis’, meaning that it had two columns – Doric in this case – between the walls on either side of the doorway. The frieze above the columns was decorated with triglyphs and metopes. The walls were built of alternate courses of larger and smaller ashlar blocks. The temple itself consisted of two parts, one narrow compartment, the pronaos, an open porch in which stood the two Doric columns mentioned above, and the cella (sekos). The priests entered the cella through an entrance with a large monolithic marble threshold, which survives in situ, but is broken in two.

A large ashlar block from the left anta of the pronaos has also been found, decorated with four relief wreaths, within each of which a name has been carved. Τhe four persons to whom the names refer – three men and one woman – were probably members of a single family (father, mother and two sons) who were honoured as gereaphoroi, meaning that they were entitled, as an indication of honour, to receive special parts of the meat of the animals that were sacrificed to the gods.  As the names of the honoured persons show, these inscriptions must be dated to the 3rd c. AD, that is to the Roman period.  The temple was obviously still in use at that time; perhaps after the damage it had suffered during some catastrophe it had been repaired with the assistance of the honoured family.
Κτήριο Γ και τμήμα της παραστάδας με τα στεφάνια και τις επιγραφές από νοτιοανατολικά Ashlar block of the left anta of building Γ decorated with relief wreaths and the names of the honoured persons. 3rd c. AD.

 
Inscription mentioning the main cults of ancient Halasarna. 3rd c. BC.

We do not know to which god the temple we have described was dedicated, because within the precinct of the sanctuary of Apollo there seem to have been several other temples. Inscriptions testify to the worship of many divinities here: Artemis, Leto, Aphrodite, Hestia, Hekate, Zeus and Athena, the Dioscuri, and Heracles. In any case, the time at which building C was built – most probably the first half of the 3rd BC – tallies with that of the construction of the temple of Apollo Pythaios/Pythaeus, whose date is known to us from inscriptions.

In front of the eastern entrance to building C  excavations uncovered a carefully carved marble seat, which had originally - that is in Hellenistic times – been part of an exedra (seating bench).  This was later removed to the place it occupies today. Further to the east a very ancient type of altar was brought to light, a bothros (pit), which must be dated to later times, to the period of Late Antiquity – between the 3rd and the 5th c. AD – since it contained, among other objects, pottery sherds from this period.  In the bothros many bones of sheep, goats and pigs were also found, some of which had been burned and others not. In a number of these signs of the knife that had slaughtered them are actually visible. This bothros, flanked by the marble bench on the west side and a marble base of some votive offering on the right, appears to have constituted the central part of a provisional installation intended for worship, most probably established after the temple (building C) had been destroyed and abandoned.  This makeshift construction is dated to after the middle of the 3rd c. AD and would have been in use until the early 5th c. AD, when the houses of the Early Christian settlement were built on the ruins of the sanctuary and the cult of the Christian God replaced that of the ancient deities. 

East side of building C with the bench, bothros and base