The Heraion of Argos was the temple in the main sanctuary in the Argolid dedicated to Hera, whose epithet "Argive Hera" (Here Argeie) is familiar to readers of Homer: Hera herself claims to be the protector of Argos (Iliad IV, 50–52), where the memory was preserved of an archaic, aniconic pillar representation of the Great Goddess (Burkert, III.2.2, note 3) The site, which might mark the introduction of the cult of Hera in Mainland Greece, lies between Argos and Mycenae^[1], two important Mycenaean cities. The traveller Pausanias, visiting the site in the second century CE referred to the area as Prosymna. Argos (Greek: Άργος, Árgos) is a city in Greece in the Peloponnesus near Nafplio, which was its historic harbor, named for Nauplius. ... In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera (IPA pronunciation: ; Greek or ) was the wife and older sister of Zeus. ... Homer (Greek HómÄ“ros) was a legendary early Greek poet and aoidos (singer) traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ... In traditional usage, the cult of a religion, quite apart from its sacred writings (scriptures), its theology or myths, or the personal faith of its believers, is the totality of external religious practice and observance, the neglect of which is the definition of impiety. ... Argos (Greek: Άργος, Árgos, IPA argos) is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplio, which was its historic harbor, named for Nauplius. ... A clay tablet with writing in Linear B from Mycenae. ... Mycenaean Greece, the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, is the historical setting of the epics of Homer and much other Greek mythology. ... Pausanias (Greek: ) was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ...

The temenos occupies three artificially terraced levels on a site above the plain with a commanding view. The Old Temple, destroyed by fire in 423 BCE, and an open-air altar stood on the uppermost terrace. The famous ivory and gold-plated bronze sculpture of Hera by Polykleitos stood in the New Temple on the middle terrace, built by Eupolemos of Argos following the fire. There were other structures, one of which was the earliest example of a building with an open peristyle court, surrounded by columned stoas. The lowest level supports the remains of a stoa. Ancient retaining walls support the flat terraces. Greek Temenos ([1], from the Greek verb to cut) (plural = temene) is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy... Polykleitos (or Polycletus, Polyklitos, Polycleitus, Polyclitus) the Elder was a Greek sculptor of the 5th century BC and the early 4th century BC. Next to famous Phidias, Myron and Kresilas he is the most important sculptor of the Classical antiquity. ... In Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building that surrounds a court that may contain an internal garden. ... The Painted Porch (Stoa poikile), during the 3rd century BC, was where Zeno of Citium taught Stoicism. ...

Close to the Heraion a Mycenaean cemetery apparently a site of an ancestor cult in the Geometric period was excavated by Carl Blegen. In Roman times a baths and a palaestra were added near the site. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Pompeii palaestra seen from the top of the stadium wall. ...

At the Heraion, Agamemnon was chosen to lead the Argives against Troy, according to a legend recorded by Dictys of Crete. Walls and earliest finds at the site date to the Geometric period, during which the Iliad was composed. A Helladic settlement preceded the sanctuary's development. The so-called Mask of Agamemnon. Discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 at Mycenae. ... Walls of the excavated city of Troy Troy (Ancient Greek Τροία Troia, also Ίλιον Ilion; Latin: Troia, Ilium) is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Trojan War cycle, especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. ... Dictys Cretensis, (Dictys of Crete), alleged to have been of Knossus in Crete, was the legendary companion of Idomeneus during the Trojan War, and the purported author of a diary of its events, that deployed some of the same materials worked up by Homer for the Iliad. ... The Iliad (Ancient Greek , Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, a supposedly blind Ionian poet. ... The Helladic is a period of ancient Greek Civilization. ...

The Englishman T. Gordon was the first to identify the site (1831) and he conducted some desultory excavations (1836). Heinrich Schliemann briefly investigated the site (1874) before modern archaeology at the Heraion began, under the auspices of the Archaeological Institute of America, which chose the Argive Heraion in its first campaign of excavation in Greece, under the direction of Charles Waldstein, who discovered a bundle of iron roasting spits (oboloi) in a bundle of 180, together with a solid bar of iron weighing the same as the bundle and having the same length (about 120 centimeters), votive objects that served as standards of weight and measure, introduced by Pheidon of Argos which were still to be seen in Classical times. "The obols of the Heraion are mentioned by the philosopher Heracleides of Pontus in his work on Etymologies in order to explain the origin of the name of the monetary unit obol, which is 1/6 of drachma" (Stecchini). Portrait of Heinrich Schliemann. ... The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is a North American is a nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of public interest in archaeology, and the preservation of archaeological sites. ... Charles Waldstein, later Sir Charles Walston KBE , was an Anglo-American archaeologist. ... The obolus (or obol) is a Greek silver coin worth a sixth of a drachma. ... Drachma, pl. ...

Notes

1. ^ It is closer to Mycenae, 10 km from Argos.

References

• Perseus site: Argive Heraion Bibliography.
• Livio C. Stecchini, "The Standard of the Heraion"
• "The Temple of Hera at Argos"
• Greek Dark Age site: "The Tombs at the Argive Heraion"
• Pfaff, Christopher A., (1992) 2003. The Argive Heraion: The architecture of the classical temple of Hera
• Burkert, Walter, 1985. Greek Religion (Harvard University Press)
• Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.15.4