Amykles

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Amykles

Amykles or Amikles (older form, polytonic: , monotonic: ?µ???a?; older forms: Amyklai, Amykle, Amiklai and Amikle; Latin: Amyclae) is a village and an archaeological site located southwest of Sparta

Sparta

Amyclas

In Greek mythology, Amyclas refers to two individuals:*Amyclas was the son of Lacedaemon and Sparta , and he was the brother of Eurydice of Argos ....
, the son of Lacedaemon.

Amyclae is in the Eurotas plain, by the Eurotas

Eurotas

In Greek mythology, Eurotas was a son of Myles and grandson of Lelex. He was the father of Sparta by Clete. He was the brother of Lacedaemon, who was also the husband of his daughter Sparta, according to Pausanias ....
river; it lies east of the Taygetus

Taygetus

Mount Taygetus, Taugetus, or Taigetus is a mountain range of the Peloponnesus, Southern Greece, extending about 65 mi north from the southern end of Cape Matapan in the Mani Peninsula....
mountains, south of Tripoli

Tripoli, Greece

Tripoli is a city in the central part of the Peloponnese, Greece, and the capital of the prefecture of Arcadia. The municipality is the largest city in the prefecture as well and presently one of the few growing places in Arcadia....
, southwest of Sparta, north of Gytheio

Gytheio

Gytheio is a town in the prefecture of Laconia in Greece, long known as the seaport of Sparta some 40 km away. Gytheio used to be an important port for many centuries until it was destroyed by an earthquake....
, and east of Kalamata

Kalamata

Kalamata is the second-largest city of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. The capital and chief port of the Messenia prefecture, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf....
.

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Sparta

Amyclas

Eurotas

Taygetus

Tripoli, Greece

Gytheio

Kalamata

Ancient Amyklai

In the second century AD, the traveller Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
was informed that the archaic site of Amyklai had its ancient origin as an Achaian stronghold that predated the "Dorian invasion

Dorian invasion

The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece....
", and modern archaeology has supported that view. The Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
settlement lay on the slopes above the modern village of Amykles. It was conquered by the Sparta

Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
ns as the fifth of the surrounding settlements whose subjection initiated the history of Sparta, in the eighth century BC; the inhabitants of Amykai took their places among the perioikoi
Perioikoi

The perioeci, or perioikoi, were the members of an self-governance group of free but non-citizen inhabitants of Sparta. Concentrated in the beach and highland areas of Laconia, the name derives from pe?? / per?, "around," and / oikos, "dwelling, house." They were the only people allowed to travel to other cities, which...
, members of autonomous groups of free but non-citizen inhabitants of Sparta.

About the same time, there was erected at Amyklai the Sanctuary of Apollo, enclosing within its temenos
Temenos

Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to basileus and anax, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian Games race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ?e????? p??? t??e??? ?????da, the...
the tumulus

Tumulus

A tumulus is a mound of Soil and Rock s raised over a Grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, H?gelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world....
of Hyakinthos

Hyacinth (mythology)

Hyacinth is a divine hero from Ancient Greek mythology. His cult at Amyclae, where his tomb was located, at the feet of Apollo's statue, dates from the Mycenean era....
, a pre-Hellene divinity whose cult was conflated with that of Apollo, in the annual festival of the Hyakinthia. There have been finds of sub-Mycenaean

Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece....
votive figures and of votive figures from the Geometric period, but with a gap in continuity between them: "it is clear that a radical reinterpretation has taken place" Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert , a scholar of Greek mythology and Cult , is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States....
has observed, instancing many examples of this break in cult during the "Greek Dark Ages

Greek Dark Ages

The Greek Dark Ages refers to Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean civilization in the 12th century BC, to the first Ancient Greece poleiss in the 9th century BC....
", including Amyklai (1985, p 49).

After the Spartan conquest, Amyklai continued to hold the Gymnopaideia and the Hyakinthia, now celebrated in honor of Apollo Amyklaios, given an even later political interpretation, as celebrating "the political reconciliation of Doric Sparta (Apollo) with the Achaian population of Amyklai (Hyakinthos)" (Hellenic Ministry of Culture). Nothing is heard yet of Apollo's sister Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
at Amykai, Burkert has pointed out . In the seventh or early sixth century, a colossal archaic helmeted effigy was made of bronze, taking the semi-aniconic form of a stout column with arms, holding a spear as well as the more familiar bow: "ancient and made without artistry," Pausanias thought. "Except for the face and the tips of its feet and hands it looks like a bronze pillar. It has a helmet on its head, and a spear and a bow in its hands. The base of the statue is shaped like an altar, and Hyakinthos is said to be buried in it." (Description, III.6). In the mid-sixth century the face of Apollo had been veneered with gold from Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkey provinces of Manisa Province and inland Izmir Province....
, the gift of Croesus

Croesus

Croesus was the Monarch of Lydia from 560/561 BC until his defeat by the Persian Empire in about 547 BC. The fall of Croesus made a profound impact on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar....
. Later in the sixth century, Bathycles of Magnesia

Bathycles of Magnesia

Bathycles of Magnesia was an Ionian sculptor of Magnesia on the Maeander. He was commissioned by the Spartans to make a marble throne for the statue of Apollo at Amyclae, about 550 BC....
designed the Doric-Ionic temple complex later known as the "throne of Apollo". The archaic cult statue, set on the podium that was constructed to enclose the chthonic

Chthonic

Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Ancient Greek religion.Greek khthon is one of several words for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the Landscape or the land as territory ....
altar dedicated to Hyakinthos, was surrounded by a virtual encyclopedia of Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, to judge from Pausanias' enumeration of the subjects of the reliefs. The podium contained the altar to Hyakinthos and was faced with bas-reliefs and there were more bas-reliefs on the stoa-like building that surrounded on three sides the colossal column-shaped statue of the god. The analemma
Analemma

In astronomy, an analemma is a curve representing the angular offset of a celestial body from its mean position on the celestial sphere as viewed from another celestial body ....
and peribolos
Peribolos

In ancient Greek and Roman architecture, a peribolos was a court enclosed by a wall, especially one surrounding a sacred area such as a temple, shrine, or altar....
of the sanctuary have been excavated. Architectural fragments show that the architecture combined Doric and Ionic architectural orders: some are exhibited in the Sparta Museum.

Beside the cult of Apollo, the people of Amyklai also worshipped Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
, as Dionysos Psilax. Pausanias noted that psila was Doric for wings— "wine uplifts men and lightens their spirit no less than wings do birds" he added by way of gloss: apparently it was hard for him to imagine an archaic winged Dionysus.

Traditionally Amyklai was associated the residence of Tyndarus and his sons, the Dioscures..

Modern Amykles

Today, Amykles is a village located near the archaeological site, home to the orange crops located around the area and the Lakonia orange juices made from Laconian oranges. The village has a school, a lyceum, a church and a small square (plateia
Plateia

Plateia or platia is the Greek language word for town square. Most Greek and Cypriot cities have several town squares which are a point of reference in travelling and guiding....
).

Between 1981 and the 1991 census, the population of Amykles decreased from 1034 to 589.

External links

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Amykles

Ancient Amyklai

Modern Amykles

Further reading

External links

See also