{"id":4589,"date":"2017-02-13T13:14:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T13:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/?p=4589"},"modified":"2017-02-13T13:14:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T13:14:33","slug":"sanctuary-athena-pronaia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/cities\/delphi\/sanctuary-athena-pronaia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The area of the sanctuary is situated close to the <strong>Castalian Spring<\/strong>. The oldest archaeological finds, constituted mainly by <strong>terracotta figurines of female deities<\/strong> (displayed in the Museum) reveal that the area was used for the cult of the mother goddess from Mycenaean times.<\/p>\n<p>During the Archaic period it was consecrated to the goddess Athena Pronaia (\u201cin front of the temple\u201d), who was entrusted with protecting the territory of her brother Apollo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Herodotus<\/strong> recounts that it was <strong>Athena<\/strong> who caused the earthquake that stopped the <strong>Persians<\/strong> as they were about to sack <strong>Delphi in 480 BC<\/strong>. As in the sanctuary of Apollo, the sacred area \u2013 situated on a terrace \u2013 was surrounded by a peribolos with several entrances and comprised many structures.<\/p>\n<p>In the centre of the terrace, to the west of the treasuries, three columns of the <strong>Tholos<\/strong> have been re-erected on their original site. This building was <strong>one of the architectural masterpieces of the fourth century BC<\/strong>, constructed by <strong>Theodorus of Phocaea<\/strong> around <strong>370 BC<\/strong>, although its purpose is unknown.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/02\/5697544494_08ab965459_b.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Photo credits by <a class=\"linkHighlight\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/andrew_annemarie\/\" target=\"_new\">Andrew Annemarie Salt<\/a> under CC-BY-2.0<\/p>\n<p>The Tholos is a relatively rare temple type, for it is a circular building (with a diameter of 13.5 metres) built from <strong>white Pentelic marble<\/strong> on a dark <strong>Eleusis stone base<\/strong>, creating a strong colour contrast.<\/p>\n<p>The outer peribolos consisted of <strong>20 Doric columns<\/strong>, while the cella featured <strong>10 Corinthian half-columns<\/strong> on a high dark stone plinth. The ceiling of the portico was coffered, while the roof appeared conical from the outside, covered with stone tiles.<\/p>\n<p>There were two friezes on the wall of the cella, one inside and one outside, each comprising forty metopes, which depicted the <strong>Amazonomachy and the Centauromachy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blog-cta\">\n<div class=\"book-image\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/02\/LIB-GRECART-ING-1.png\" alt=\"Athens Guidebook\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Do you want to know more about <strong>Delphi<\/strong> and the history of\u00a0<strong>Greece?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Check out our <a href=\"\/en\/guidebooks\/ancient-greece\/\" target=\"_blank\">guidebook to Ancient Greece<\/a>, with detailed history and <strong>Past &amp; Present images of the Acropolis<\/strong>, the <strong>Parthenon<\/strong>, <strong>Delphi<\/strong> and all the greatest historical and archaeological sites of Ancient Greece.<\/p>\n<div class=\"vai-alla-guida\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"\/en\/guidebooks\/ancient-greece\/\">Check out our Guide Book to Ancient Greece<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"vai-alla-guida\"><\/div>\n<h2>How to get to The Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The area of the sanctuary is situated close to the Castalian Spring. The oldest archaeological finds, constituted mainly by terracotta figurines of female deities (displayed in the Museum) reveal that the area was used for the cult of the mother goddess from Mycenaean times. During the Archaic period it was consecrated to the goddess Athena [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[183,195],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4828,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions\/4828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpubl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}