Peloponnese Peninsula

              Amyclae is about 20 km south of Sparta, located along the eastern banks of the Eurotas River.  Different sources claim different founders, although it is most likely Amyclas, son the Spartan king Lacedaemon.  In one passage, Homer discussed how it “[maintained] its independence as an Achaean town long after the conquest of Peloponnesus by the Dorians” (Smith, “Dictionary,” www.perseus.tufts.edu).  However, due to false alarms of approaching enemy, it ultimately fell into the hands of Sparta in the 700s BC.

              In 1904, Professor Furtwängler discovered parts of the throne of Apollo, but other parts remain under the church, Hagia Kyriaki, while other parts were probably scattered into other building projects (Wright, “Amyclae,” books.google.com).  Bathycles of Magnesia built the temple and the throne of Apollo (Smith, “Dictionary,” www.perseus.tufts.edu).  While only parts of the temple remain intact, Pausanias, in his Volumes of Greece, wrote some accounts of the temple to give archeologists a few clues into the temple.  The artifacts found at the archeological site of the Apollo throne were unusual for the timer period.  “The ‘throne’ at Amyclae apparently combined a funerary precinct ([due to] cult of kinthos [in the area]), a peristle court containing an alter to Apollo, and a rectangular enclosure.  It is the first occurrence of a free-standing colonnaded altar in the history of Greek architecture”(Hoffmann, “Antecedents,” p.5).  Since the 1960s, the Amykles Research Project has continued archeological research in the areas around the temple to Apollo, with many small studies conducted.

               Other archeological sites in the area, such as tombs, have revealed objects like inlaid daggers, covered with swimming men, and javelins (Marinatos, “Σιγύνη,” p.187).