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Modern Description: The Asklepieion at Epidaurus was the most famous sanctuary of Asklepios in antiquity with branch sanctuaries in Athens, Cos and Rome. The official sanctuary of Epidaurus and religious and ethnic centre of the Epidauria, its operation dates back to the 6th century BC. It was very closely connected with the original Mycenaean sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas, which was destroyed in the 1st century BC.
On the site of the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas, on the N slope of Mount Kynortion, parts of an Early Helladic settlement and some graves (3rd millennium BC) have been found. A Mycenaean peak sanctuary (1500-1200 BC), one of the very few in Mainland Greece, it is associated with cult activity in the open air.
In the sanctuary of Maleatas a monumental analemma of the 3rd century BC supports a stoa, probably an enkoimeterion (ἐãêïéìçôήñéïí), ruins of a Classical temple on the site of the earlier Archaic, an open-air altar, a terrace for sacrifices of Mycenaean and Roman times, a built altar (4th century BC) in the sanctuary square and an open-air temenos of the Muses. The propylon of the sanctuary and the extensive complex outside its bounds, with bath, fountain and cistern, are of Roman date.
In the sanctuary of Asklepios, an organized archaeological site which also includes the ancient theatre, ruined buildings of the 4th-3rd century BC and Roman imperial times can be visited.
The principal edifices are the Doric temple of Asklepios (its sculpted architectural decoration is in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens), the stoa-shaped abaton or enkoimeterion, the square complex of the 5th century BC which surrounded the earlier remains fo the cult of Apollo and Asklepios. Last, the tholos (thymele, èõìέëç), famed for its architecture and decoration, a circular edifice with underground annular passages and a combination of the Ionic and Corinthian orders. It was most probably dedicated to the chthonic worship of Asklepios and was perhaps a work of the architect of the sanctuary's theatre, the sculptor Polykleitos the Younger. Temples of Artemis, Aphrodite, Themis, an Anakeion (sanctuary of the Dioskouroi), Epidoteion (sanctuary of the Epidotan deities, such as Hypnos) and a sanctuary of Apollo and Asklepios, worshipped in accordance with the Egyptian rite. A stadium with arched-roofed diodos, a palaestra, baths, thermae and a library, porticoes and a hospice. A gymnasium or ritual banqueting hall with a monumental propylon, in the peristyle court of which the odeum was built in Roman times.
The theatre, on the NW side of Mount Kynortion, with the finest acoustics in antiquity (4th-3rd and 2nd centuries BC), is restored and used today. Characteristic are the monumental portals on the parodoi. There is a local museum in which are exhibited inscriptions, medical instruments, votive sculptures whose bases abound in the sanctuary, and reconstructed sections of the cornice of the propylaia and the temples of Asklepios and Artemis. Also on display is a Corinthian column that was used as a model for those of the Tholos.
E of the propylaia of the sanctuary of Asklepios are ruins of a five-aisled basilica with transept, baptistery and additional buildings (first half of 5th century). A mosaic floor with geometric motifs in the narthex. Inside the temple of Asklepios ruins of a house with mosaic floors (mid-5th century). In the vicinity of Epano Epidavros remains of an Early Christian three-aisled basilica (5th century).
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_of_Apollo_Maleatas
Wikidata ID: Q619242

Info: Archaeological Atlas of the Aegean

(Archaeological Atlas of the Aegean, Ministry of the Aegean)

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