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Modern Description: The sanctuary of the Kabeiroi is situated in a stream valley west of Thebes, on a dirt road 1.5 km S of the main Thebes-Livadeia road. At 5 km from Thebes turn S on an asphalt road (brown sign, often invisible). At the first farmhouse, jog left across a stream, then right and left, then continue straight on an adequate dirt road (no large buses). The site in 2020 was fenced but unlocked, and so heavily overgrown as to be explored only with difficult.
The most important monuments of the Kabireion are:
The temple is a rectangular building the oldest remains of which date to the 6th c. B.C. The preserved foundations are from the end of the 4th c. B.C., with a later annex W. of the temple, in the 2nd and 1st c. B.C. The temple had a pronaos, cella and a courtyard with two rectangular sacrificial pits. It was enclosed by a circuit wall.
The Theatre was built during the Hellenistic period (3rd-1st c. B.C.) on the same axis as the temple. It had no scene building, but an altar in the middle of the orchestra.
The Stoa (length 40 m.) was SE of the theatre. It may possibly have been used in the cult. It was built in the 1st c. B.C.
Circular and elliptical buildings found everywhere in the sanctuary contained sacrificial pits and benches along the walls for the practices of initiation. The largest one, from the end of the 5th c. B.C., between the temple and the stoa, was probably a plain unroofed enclosure. It came out of use in the beginning of the 1st c. B.C.
The circuit wall : before 300 B.C. it enclosed the temple and an open-air area in front of it. In the 2nd c. B.C. it extended to the east in order to include the cavea of the theatre.
The sanctuary was devoted to deities of possibly Semitic origin, including Kabeiros and the Child (pais), connected by some sources with the Great Gods of Samothrace. By Pausanias' time, the cult involved Demeter and mysteries; finds include 1400 representations of bulls and unique black-figure pottery with caricature figures (one is reproduce on the wall of the collapsing dig house). The cult began in the archaic period (700-500 B.C.) and continued unil late antiquity (4th c. A.D.). Some neolithic (6000-3000 B.C.) sherds were found beneath the temple.
The Kabirion was discovered in 1887 due to a chance find of bronze statuettes. It was excavated in 1888-9 by the German Archaeological Institute (P. Wolters, W. Dorpfeld, W. Judeich, H. Winnefeld, F. Winter) and G. Bruns continued in 1956, 1959 ,1962 and 1964-6. A supplementary excavation took place in 1971. (G. Bruns and P. Wolters, Das Kabiren-Heiligtum bei Theben, Berlin 1940 - W. Heyder - A. Mallwitz, Die Bauten und Kabiren-Heiligtum bei Theben 1978).
In 1993-94 restoration works were undertaken in the enclosure wall of the cavea which was endangered due to rainwater. Or see http://www.ehw.gr/l.aspx?id=13067
Wikidata ID: Q15206356
Manto: 10214638

Info: Odysseus

(Odysseus, Greek Ministry of Culture)

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