Arachnaio (2)

Mount Arachnaio in the Argolid stands at 1,199 meters above sea level. These days it can be recognised by the wind turbines that have been placed on its ridge. As the tallest mountain in the Argolid the site offers great views of the surrounding area, but very few people make their way up there today.

We have looked at the literary and mythological significance of the mountain already in another post. This post aims to fill out the picture by offering a glimpse of the mountain’s amazing archaeological heritage.

Mycenaean remains

The mountain stretches in an east-west direction, featuring an elongated plateau and two main peaks: Arna/Mavrovouni (1,139 m a.s.l.) to the east, and Hagios Elias/Prophitis Ilias (1,199 m a.s.l.) to the west. These peaks can be accessed relatively easily from all sides except the south.

Was it the height of the mountain and the good accessibility that drew people up to the summit in the ancient past? Archaeologists have found remains that indicate sacrifices and ritual activity at this site for centuries. There are also remains of an ancient road between the northern and southern sides of the mountain, running over the saddle between the two peaks.

Over 100 fragments of terracotta figurines from the Mycenaean period have been discovered here, many of them Hollow Psi types, likely left by visitors from the surrounding areas, where Mycenae, Tiryns, and Midea were major centres. These, along with other finds such as seal-stones, beads, and a bronze knife, would likely have been deposited here as offerings.

[See here for an image of Psi-type figurines from the Archaeological museum of Nafplio, and another image here, from the Canellopoulos Museum in Athens].

There are also indications of use in later periods, especially from the 8^th-6^th centuries BCE, but also sporadically into the Roman period.

This is not unusual in the Argolid, as the once dominating Mycenaean civilisation “collapsed” at the end of the Bronze Age (ca 1,200 BCE), but many of the sites continued to be used in later periods.

That later use might have been just a matter of convenience, as many of the structures were still standing.

There’s another possibility, however, which is that later ritual activity at religious sites such as that on Mt Arachnaio, could have emerged as a form of ancestor worship or hero cult, or at least in recognition that the civilization that inhabited the area before them worshipped the same or similar gods.

It’s hard to know for sure exactly what was going on on Arachnaio, but it is interesting to note that even though most of the Mycenaean pottery was found in the lowest (oldest) deposits, some were also found in other, newer, deposits, telling us that people in the later periods interacted with the Mycenaean remains, and that they likely had some level of significance to them. 

Worshipping Zeus and Hera

The gods that were worshipped on the site have been identified as Zeus and his wife Hera, Zeus was the god of the sky and king of the gods, and was often honoured on high summits, so the tallest mountain in the Argolid was a fitting place for his worship.

The largest of these deposits is indicated by a survey marker ca. 6 metres south of the highest point, and was an area of ca. 10.5m x 2.5m defined by natural outcroppings in the bedrock and low rubble walls.

In the 1970s, D. Rupp reported finding three deposits here, made up of brownish-black soil, ash, pottery, and burned animal bones, and he proposed that the two largest of these were ash altars, possibly to Zeus and Hera.

The second deposit was ca. 20m southeast of the aforementioned marker, with a size of ca 4.0m x 2.5m, and the third was located ca 10 m northeast of the marker, with a diameter measuring ca. 2.0m.

The bare, rocky surface of the mountain plateau, with its many crevices and recesses is typical of sacred sites, especially peak sanctuaries, and it would have been perceived as a space between the natural world and the profane, that of mankind and that of the sacred. 

Sacrificial feasting on the summit

Many of the terracotta fragments that have been found at Mt Arachnaion belong to drinking vessels and cookware, including oinochaoai, skyphoi, onehandled cups, kraters, and jugs, suggesting that ritual feasting took place here.

The eastern half of the summit is relatively flat and would allow for a larger group of people to gather there; this is also where most of the figurines and artefacts were found.

This ritual activity would allow for members of different communities to get together and build a communal identity, close to their gods, overlooking the land they inhabited. Looking at the Argolid from above, they would be able to see the bigger community that lived there, rather than the isolated centres, settlements, and farmland they might have been more familiar with in their day-to-day life. 

It’s an amazing experience to stand up on the summit and see those fragments scattered all over the mountain top at your feet. Everywhere you look you can reach down and pick the remains of feasting from thousands of years ago. 

Arachnaio after antiquity

The ancient site on Mount Arachnaio was discovered by 19^th-century travellers, but it was not excavated until the 1970s, and again in 2008-2010, the latter excavations were undertaken to prepare for the modern road and wind turbines, and the finds from these excavations are housed in the Archaeological Museum in Nafplio.

If you hike up Mount Arachnaio today, you will also come across a ruined chapel to the Prophet Elias (remember the name of the tallest summit is Profitis Elias, like so many other Greek mountains!), which shows us that the rocky summit of Mount Arachnaio has had religious significance in more recent periods as well. 

Today, the wind turbines on Mount Arachnaio stretch up just as high as the smoke from the sacrificial fires in antiquity, but perhaps this is fitting for a site that was once dedicated to the god of the sky.

Mount Arachnaio wind turbines

There are lots of reasons to be negative about the very large number of wind turbines on Greek mountains. Many people would prefer the landscape to look untouched by humans, like the Romantic images that were popularised in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

But perhaps there are other ways to look at this as well. The space that is taken up by wind turbines today would have been taken up by smoke from the fires in the same location in antiquity. And where ancient people worshiped the power of the sky, modern people are harnessing power from the same source.

The route

See here for maps, route details and photos of the best route up to the summit!