Ancient Messini (Part 1)

The hour or so drive to ancient Messini was through pleasant flat ground until the last 5 miles when we turned north from modern Messini and started to climb up into the hills. Ancient Messini was a site we probably should have visited when we were stopped in Kalamáta earlier on the month but, at the time, ancient Sparta and mediaeval Mystras were our priority visits. Coming back up north on the western side of Greece meant that we again had an opportunity to visit ancient Messini which would probably be our last big archaeological site in Greece.

First views of ancient Messini

The road brought us in above the ancient site and so our first glimpses of it was looking down from a few hundred feet above. It is a much larger and more impressive site than we had expected and we were immediately delighted that we had made the effort to visit.

The ticket office is just above the ancient theatre and on entering the site you got a fabulous panoramic view down onto the 100m wide theatre and across the archaeological site.

Arsinoe Fountain House (top left) and the long Northern Stoa   

The path then took us past the fountain house and on to the very long northern Stoa. The fountain house was named after Arsinoe, mother of Asklepios and the daughter of the mythical king of Messina, Leukippos. You can see the remains of the cisterns but the once grand collection of bronze statues has long since disappeared.

The impressive Northern Stoa (196m long and 19.8 m wide) was, in its heyday, 2 stories high and divided into 3 aisles by 2 rows of 40 Doric columns. This stoa did not have any shops in it but was used for entertainment and promenading. It too was originally decorated with many bronze statues of Hellenistic athletes and Roman emperors. Despite the lack of shops, at its eastern end (top RH photo) were stone tables with capacity standards which were used to check that merchants were selling dry fruits and grain in the correct quantities. There were also standard moulds for terracotta roof tiles.

Bathhouse   

At the mid-point of the stoa, we recognised the characteristic stilts which supported the caldarium (sauna room) floor of a bathhouse. It was quite a small public bath constructed in the 5^th century AD and was used until the 7^th century.

The Sanctuary of Asclepios and model from the museum   

Further down the hill is the sanctuary of Asclepios, one of the most important areas of the city which functioned both as a religious and a political centre of the city. Later, we saw a very good model in the museum showing how the sanctuary would have looked (bottom LH photo).

The Sanctuary of Asclepios courtyard   

The huge, almost rectangular, courtyard was surrounded by 4 double stoas supported on Corinthian columns and the area around the central temple was decorated with over 140 bronze statues of eminent citizens.

The Sanctuary of Asclepios   

Included in the sanctuary was a small theatre, or Odeon, used for entertainment and public addresses.

The Artemision and statues in the museum   

The most important room in the Asclepion, on its western wing, was the Artemision, or cult room of Artemis. Rectangular in shape (10.3 x 5.8 m), it was crammed with statues. The largest was of the goddess herself, which had been made by the famous sculpture Damophon. In front of that statue was a stone offering table and on either side were a further eleven bases for statues of the priestesses and novices (daughters of the nobility). At the site only the bases of the statues remained in place but later, in the museum, we saw some of the statues that had been recovered during the excavations.

Ancient Messini, Greece