ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK CULT III: CULTS AND ARCHITECTURE AT THE SOUTH SLOPE OF THE ATHENIAN AKROPOLIS

The Danish Institute at Athens (DIA), The Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens and the Directorate for the Restoration of Ancient Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Danish Institute for Mediterranean Studies (DIOMEDES) cordially invite all interested to participate in the first international conference dedicated to the architectural monuments and cults of the South Slope of the Athenian Akropolis.

The South Slope of the Athenian Akropolis

Today, the South Slope is one of the world’s most visited tourist destinations from the ancient Greek world. It was here that the world’s first permanent theatre building was built in the Sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus. It was one of the most important locations for visual culture with statues of important Athenian citizens and Greek deities, statues that were master works of the most famous sculptors of the time like Alkamenes and Praxiteles. These works of art were described and praised by ancient authors like the rhetor and sophist Kallistratos (living during the late 4th or early 5th century AD), who composed a unique series of descriptions (Ἐκφράσεις) of 14 works of art, mostly statues set up on the South Slope and especially in the Sanctuary of the Dionysos Eleuthereus.

It was also in this theatre plays by legendary dramatic playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophokles, Euripides and Aristophanes were performed during the annual festival in March to the wine god, the Great Dionysia. The winners of the dithyrambic and dramatic competitions were paying extreme amounts of money to famous sculptors and craftsmen to create victory monuments erected along the Street of Tripods, thereby forever being immortalized.

Just like in ancient times, the tourists today also visit the well-preserved and reconstructed Herodion on their way up to the Propylaia of the Akropolis. If walking from the Theatre of Dionysos Eleuthereus, tourists would visit the terrace above the Stoa of Eumenes II with the ancient sanctuary of the medicine god Asklepios with its two temples (ἀρχαῖοςναός and ναός) and the Doric Stoa with the monumental βόθρος. If they were going around west of the theatre towards the East and North Slopes of the Akropolis, the ancient tourist before and after the time of Pausanias would visit tombs of mythical heroes such as Halirrhothios, Talos or Kalos and Hippolytos showing the importance of the South Slope’s many ancient cults.

The South Slope was in ancient times the primary location for entertainment of the Athenian citizens with the theatre, the stadion (before the Stoa of Eumenes II), Perikles’ Odeion and later in the Roman period, yet another concert hall, the Herodion (AD 161). But the South Slope was just as important for the many ancient cults worshipped by the Athenian citizens with sanctuaries of Aphodite, Asklepios, the Nymphs and Pan, Dionysos and later foreign cults such as Kybele and Isis.

Therefore, it is now time for the first international colloquium to investigate the ancient architecture, sculpture, inscriptions and cults of the South Slope of the Akropolis. As the ancient city state of Athens used the South Slope as a place where it promoted Athenian architecture, literature, music, performance arts, plastic arts and philosophy to the whole Mediterranean world, we will now study aspects of ancient Greek cults and its architecture in Athens.

Keynote Speakers

Robin Osborne (Cambridge University)

Annarita Doronzio (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

Bronwen L. Wickkiser (Hunter College)

Elisavet P. Sioumpara (Service for the Restoration of the Acropolis Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture)

George Hinge (University of Aarhus)

Jessica Paga (College of William & Mary)

Speakers

Jessica Lamont (Yale University)

Constanze Graml (Universität Trier)

Jesper Tae Jensen (Danish Institute for Mediterranean Studies)

Konstantinos Boletis (Athens)

Aeneas Kapouranis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

Ariadne Klonizaki (Hellenic National Archaeological Museum)

Michaelis Lefantzis (Directorate for the Restoration of Ancient Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture)

Wanda Papaefthymiou (Hellenic National Archaeological Museum)

Christina Papastamati-von Moock (Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens, Hellenic Ministry of Culture)

Alessio Galli (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa & Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene (SAIA)

Kazuhiro Takeuchi (Danish Institute for Mediterranean Studies)

Scientific Committee

Denise A. Demetriou

Gerry and Jeannie Ranglas Chair in Ancient Greek History, Co-Director of Center for Hellenic Studies, Department of History, University of California, San Diego (2022-2025) & Elizabeth A. Whitehead Distinguished Scholar of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2025-2026)

Alexander Mazarakis Ainian

Director of the Excavation at the Ancient Capital of Kythnos & Professor of Classical Archaeology, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Volos

Vassilis Lambrinoudakis

Professor Emeritus, Department of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Andreas I. Darlas

Director, Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology-Speleology, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Athens

Mark Wilson Jones

Visiting Professor, Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge, UK

Conference Sponsors

Danish Institute at Athens (DIA)

Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens & Directorate for the Restoration of Ancient Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture

Acta Archaeologica, Brill, Leiden

Phasis: Greek and Roman Studies

Wilhelm Malling (an international law firm), Nuuk, Greenland

Kroer\Fink Advokater (an international law firm), Copenhagen

Danish Institute for Mediterranean Studies (DIOMEDES), Copenhagen