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Modern Description: The ancient Sacred Harbour, where visitors and pilgrims arrived in antiquity, lies to the north of the disembarkation mole and the former Commercial Harbour to its south. Both have filled with sand and no longer possess their original outline. They were protected by a breakwater of granite blocks, 160m long, built in Archaic times, most of whose remains are now underwater. The modern mole, made of debris removed during the excavations, projects into the water between the two. The Commercial Harbour, extending to the south, was divided by moles into five basins. Some of the mooring stones are still visible.
Functioning like an entrance-vestibule for the sanctuary at the landward end of the modern mole, is an irregular open space called the Agora of the Competaliasts (sometimes also written ‘Competialists' – see below). Its wide space was articulated by a circular shrine in its centre and (to south) a larger, square-based Doric structure, both of which were offerings of another association – the ‘Hermaists' – to their patron god Hermes and his mother, Maia. The same association probably also built c. 150 B.C. the Ionic Naiskos, or shrine on the north side of the square, in front of which stands a marble offertory box adorned with a relief of two knotted snakes on its upper face. The metal fixture for the box is still visible.
Ignoring for the moment the wide avenue (to the left of the naiskos) which heads north, we follow the Sacred Way from the northeast corner of the paved area, whose course is still lined with exedrae and statue-bases between two colonnaded porticos. These porticos, which probably housed shops and stalls, provided shade and respite from heat, rain or wind. They furnished a grand approach to the sacred area, and above all glorified the power of the dynasties who built them. To the seaward side was the Portico of Philip V of Macedon, who was master of the Cyclades until his defeat at the hands of the Romans in 197 BC. His dedicatory inscription to Apollo in vast letters on the architrave (now resting on the ground) has survived: below is a frieze of triglyphs, while above is the cornice with rows of water spouts in the form of lion's mouths. The thickness of the building was doubled some thirty years later by the addition of another (slightly longer) stoa that faced the sea. On the outer face of the south end of the portico is a marble stele, inscribed with a 3rd century inscription regulating the sale of wood and carbon. To its right there is a curious, mediaeval graffito in Arabic.
- Detour to right. To the opposite (east) side of the Sacred Way is the South Stoa, built in the 3rd century BC by the kings of Pergamon. In front of its southern end once stood the equestrian statue of Epigenes of Teos, general of Attalos I of Pergamon (241-197 BC): its inscribed base survives. A narrow passage led through the middle of this portico into a wide court, known as the Agora of the Delians which lies immediately to its east. It is another irregular, paved space, once bounded to north and east by porticos; originally there was a second storey with Ionic pilasters – accommodating the offices of the market. The south side is formed by an earlier portico of the 3rd century BC standing at a slightly oblique angle. The pattern of irregular stone foundations are from Imperial times when Roman baths were installed here. Stretching to the south and east are the ruins of houses; while beyond the southeast corner of the agora, at a higher level, are the ruins of the 5th century, apsidal Basilica of Aghios Kirykos. This is one of the few Christian survivals on Delos: others were lost in the earliest excavations. Two steps of the synthronon and fragments of the ambo and templon remain. In the open triangular area between the agora and the basilica are the remains of the circular Shrine of Tritopator, mythical ancestor of the Attic family of Pyrrhakides.
The two parallel porticos framing the Sacred Way, formed a grand passage leading into the sacred area. A monumental Propylaion was constructed by the Athenians in the mid 2nd century BC at its north end to mark the entrance proper; its base is clearly visible today from the three-stepped platform in blue-gray Tenos marble on which the Doric structure in white marble stood. It had four columns defining three gateways. It appears to have replaced at least two successive, earlier propylaia. In front, immediately to the right, stands the eroded figure of Hermes Propylaios, guardian of the entrance, dedicated in 341 BC.
In its ruined state, it is hard at first to pick out the overall form of the *Sacred Precinct which lies ahead of you at this point. It is a large area of temples, altars, votive offerings, and remains from a thousand years of worship. It has grown up in piecemeal fashion, without overall design, around the earliest focus of cult: its development tells something of the story of the political vicissitudes of the sanctuary. The two oldest buildings are immediately to your right on entering: the Oikos of the Naxians, a 6th century BC building with a central axis of columns; and, about 6m to its east, the smaller and even older structure, known as Building ‘Γ' (now little more than a small rectangular depression in the ground), dating from the 8th century BC. (Some scholars have suggested an earlier, Mycenaean date for the building). Together these represent the earliest, constructed places of the cult of Apollo on Delos.
The Oikos (‘House') of the Naxians which we see today, oriented on an east/west axis, replaced, in the early 6th century BC, a building on the same spot completed some fifty years before, which had been constructed from granite blocks with a flat, tiled roof supported on two rows of wooden columns. This first building appears to have been a temple – perhaps the earliest on Delos – to Apollo. Around 575 BC this first temple was modified: a single, axial row of very slender marble columns almost 4.50 m high now supported long, marble cross-beams, which were in turn the base for a pitched roof also tiled in marble. This was groundbreaking in as much as a roof of marble had not been attempted before, and was a bold piece of engineering – especially in an area of the world so prone to seismic movement. At the same time a tetrastyle porch was added to the east. This structure was eventually superseded by other temples to the god on the site and was latterly ‘redefined', or downgraded, as an oikos or ‘house', implying a functional use for storing sacred offerings and gifts, or as a ritual meeting place for the Naxians who had originally dedicated it, rather than specifically a place of cult. It may take its orientation from the angle of the axis of the geometric age structure, Building ‘Γ' – possibly also a temple – whose position and importance was respected throughout antiquity.
Against the north wall of the Oikos, stood the colossal Statue of Apollo, approximately four times life-size, carved from Naxian marble around the turn of the 7th century BC. The massive base though broken is still in situ, measuring 515 x 347 x 82 cm. In its upper surface was lodged the plinth of the monolithic statue, whose principal remaining parts are now scattered a short distance to the northwest – abandoned during a failed attempt by the Venetians in the 17th century to carry them down to the port for loading onto boats. The statue must have been the largest piece of monumental sculpture in Greece at the time: it was half as big again as the giant kouros of Samos, which in turn was already more than twice the size of the majority of the other known marble kouroi from this period. The upper surface of the plinth is covered in 18th and 19th century graffiti; the Archaic dedicatory inscription is on the east face.
- Detour to see the remains of the Colossal Statue of Apollo: At a distance of c. 50m NW, in the precinct of the Artemision, you come first upon the trunk and the top of the thighs, with the row of fixture points visible for the metal belt which the (otherwise nude) figure wore; some 3m beyond, visible standing up above the mass of foundations, is the torso, with the pectorals barely defined on the front and the tips of locks of hair on the back. (One hand possibly belonging to the statue is in the Delos Museum; and part of a foot in the British Museum, London.) The giant figure, whose details would have been picked out in brilliant colour, probably carried a metal bow and arrow: the holes in the left pectoral would have been attachment points for this. Several graffiti of Venetian and 17th century travellers cover the surfaces. The two original, ancient inscriptions, however, are on the base which sits beside the Oikos of the Naxians, and are as follows:
1) the eastern side of the base bears the inscribed epigram, written in archaic (6th century BC) letters: “ I am of the same stone, both figure and base” – a statement at first appearance untrue, if the inscription is understood to mean “of the same block of stone”, since the two pieces always were clearly not a single block. If, on the other hand, it means, “of the same type of stone” (i.e. Naxian) the words could seem a statement of the obvious. Since the stone's provenance would have been clear to the ancients, however, this may simply have been a way of indicating the origin of the impressive work, without actually signing it with the words “made by Naxians”.
2) this latter interpretation may in turn explain why the western face bears a much later, 4th century BC inscription in classical lettering (only partially visible) stating what was not written earlier: “The Naxians, to Apollo”. These words were probably added when the statue had to be repaired and re-erected after a gust of wind had blown the massive bronze palm-tree, dedicated by Nikias on behalf of the Athenians in 417 BC, onto the statue of Apollo and felled it. This incident is related by Plutarch (Nikias, 3). The base of Nikias's bronze palm has been found at a distance of 27 m to the west of here. Perhaps it was later moved further away for safety's sake.
To the right of the Sacred Way are the remains of three important temples, close together in a line, facing west. First (south) the ‘Great' Temple of Apollo; in the middle, the ‘Temple of the Athenians' (sometimes called the ‘House of the Seven Statues'); to the north, the ‘Poros Temple'. None, however, is particularly large in relation to the importance of the place: and none curiously appears to have an altar in front.
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Wikidata ID: Q106802906
Manto: 10785401

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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