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49-808: Fluvial deposits of the valley of Eurotas , mild climate and low hills which protect the area, are forming the general geographical and geological context of the archaeological site which revealed few Middle Helladic findings on the Northern hill and major settlement of the Mycenaean period in the Menelaion. It is considered that Helen of Troy appeared initially in Homeric epic poetry , circa 8th century BC. Besides epos , she appears in lyric poetry , in history , in theatrical plays , even in rhetorical exercises. Helen, and her husband Menelaus , belong to

98-626: A structure dated to late 13th and 12th century BCE. Since some votive offerings have been associated with the remains of the Mycenaean construction, R. Catling expressed the view that they were votive offerings to the hero or heroine of the Bronze Age. As monument, Menelaion presents different stratigraphic and architectural phases: Fluvial In geography and geology , fluvial sediment processes or fluvial sediment transport are associated with rivers and streams and

147-515: A chronological sequence between the remnants of the Mycenaean period and the late heroic cult of Menelaos, based on structural changes of the building that Dawkins revealed which divided in three distinct phases: Excavations also revealed remains of the Bronze Age in the hills around the Menelaion. In North Hill, north of the ridge of Menelaion, prehistoric settlement has been found in disordered strata, associated with pottery of LH IIIB. On

196-439: A cluster of family figures, which included women who were wives of a hero-husband, mothers of a hero-son ( Alcmene and Semele ), and daughters of a hero-father. As Finley observed of the world of Odysseus , which he reads as a nostalgic eighth-century rendering of traditions from the culture of Dark Age Greece, Penelope became a moral heroine for later generations, the embodiment of goodness and chastity, to be contrasted with

245-478: A connection to Mycenaean heroes, according to Coldstream . "Coldstream believed the currency of epic would account for votives in Dorian areas, where an alien, immigrant population might otherwise be expected to show no particular reverence for Mycenaean predecessors". Large Mycenaean tholos tombs that betokened a grander past, were often the site of hero-cults. Not all heroes were even known by names. Aside from

294-480: A large group of heroes and heroines worshiped throughout Greece. These heroes, heroines and their cults have already been studied in classical archeology and philology and shape the ideology of a particular period of worshipping heroes in ancient Greece . The earliest literary sources do not use the term hero with the meaning used in subsequent periods, or refer to heroic cult directly. Archaeological evidence indicates that heroic cult existed in some form at

343-707: A large river is enormous. It has been estimated that the Mississippi River annually carries 406 million tons of sediment to the sea, the Yellow River 796 million tons, and the Po River in Italy 67 million tons. The names of many rivers derive from the color that the transported matter gives the water. For example, the Yellow River (Huang He) in China is named after the hue of the sediment it carries, and

392-454: A short distance then settling again). If the upwards velocity is higher than the settling velocity, the sediment will be transported high in the flow as wash load . As there are generally a range of different particle sizes in the flow, it is common for material of different sizes to move through all areas of the flow for given stream conditions. Sediment motion can create self-organized structures such as ripples , dunes , or antidunes on

441-507: A shrine at Mycenae dedicated to Agamemnon and Cassandra , another at Amyklai dedicated to Alexandra , and another in Ithaca 's Polis Bay dedicated to Odysseus . These all seem to date to the 8th century BC. The cult of Pelops at Olympia dates from the Archaic period. Hero cults were offered most prominently to men, though in practice the experience of the votary was of propitiating

490-588: Is consistent with the role that women played in not only Ancient Greece, but the ancient world as a whole — more in the shadows and service-oriented than focused on personal development and relaxation. Whitley distinguishes four or five essential types of hero cult: All across Greece and sometimes into Turkey lay burial mounds. Sometimes on ancient battlefields or just in a frequently visited common area lay giant mounds of earth. Scholars call these mounds " tumulus ". Many wondered why people built these mounds and what greater purpose they served. One notable example

539-580: Is following the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The Athenians, having defeated the Persians, needed to bury their dead. 192 dead in total, they were buried on the same field on which they had died and under a giant mound. This particular mound became what is known as the Marathon Tumuli . These mounds began popping up all over Greece as a gesture of respect to the dead, and as many scholars believe, it

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588-465: The Politics that plays a role in much of what we know about them today has all come from either written accounts or archeological findings. In fact, in many cases both types of evidence may contradict each other. Written evidence can be biased or incomplete, and archeological findings do not always tell us a definitive story. However, hero cults may be a case where they collide positively. First, despite

637-515: The Spartans attributed their conquest of Arcadia to their theft of the bones of Orestes from the Arcadian town of Tegea . Heroes in myth often had close but conflicted relationships with the gods. Thus, Heracles 's name means "the glory of Hera", even though he was tormented all his life by the queen of the gods. This was even truer in their cult appearances. Perhaps the most striking example

686-469: The White Nile is named for the clay it carries. The main kinds of fluvial processes are: The major fluvial (river and stream) depositional environments include: Rivers and streams carry sediment in their flows. This sediment can be in a variety of locations within the flow, depending on the balance between the upwards velocity on the particle (drag and lift forces), and the settling velocity of

735-418: The deposits and landforms created by sediments . It can result in the formation of ripples and dunes , in fractal -shaped patterns of erosion, in complex patterns of natural river systems, and in the development of floodplains and the occurrence of flash floods . Sediment moved by water can be larger than sediment moved by air because water has both a higher density and viscosity . In typical rivers

784-450: The river bed . The movement of water across the stream bed exerts a shear stress directly onto the bed. If the cohesive strength of the substrate is lower than the shear exerted, or the bed is composed of loose sediment which can be mobilized by such stresses, then the bed will be lowered purely by clearwater flow. In addition, if the river carries significant quantities of sediment , this material can act as tools to enhance wear of

833-521: The 10th and 9th centuries BC a sense of a once grand and now vanished age; they reflected this in the oral epic tradition , which would become famous by way of works such as the Iliad and the Odyssey . Copious renewed offerings begin to be represented, after a hiatus, at sites like Lefkandi , even though the names of the grandly buried dead were hardly remembered. "Stories began to be told to individuate

882-525: The 8th century. Only Laconia has evidence of assigning its shrines to specific heroes meaning that the rest of the shrines were not to any one specific hero but allowed for worship to a hero via one shrine. Unlike the Roman beliefs it was thought that the Heroes did not ascend to the skies and be with the gods of Olympus, but rather they would go down into and become one with the earth. This impacted not only how

931-574: The Greeks treated the Heroes, but thought about them in a political sense. They were respected and worshiped, but could even at times turn vicious if ignored and be the supposed cause of diseases or mishaps. Hero cults could also be of the utmost political importance beyond propaganda too. When Cleisthenes divided the Athenians into new demes for voting, he consulted Delphi on what heroes he should name each division after. According to Herodotus ,

980-459: The ashes piled in after that while the second step would hold any votives or items of sentimental value. Then the whole thing would be covered by a giant mound. In the case of the Athenian monument they also surrounded it with tall, skinny stone slabs that may read an honoring message or be dedicated to any one ' hero '. Much of the scholarship that has been done surrounding Heroes , Gods , and

1029-421: The bed ( abrasion ). At the same time the fragments themselves are ground down, becoming smaller and more rounded ( attrition ). Sediment in rivers is transported as either bedload (the coarser fragments which move close to the bed) or suspended load (finer fragments carried in the water). There is also a component carried as dissolved material. For each grain size there is a specific flow velocity at which

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1078-419: The building was heroon dedicated to Menelaus and Helen. A second dedication to Helen has been found in the same trench, a bronze harpax dated to 570 BCE, instrument of unknown use, with the inscription "ΕΛΕΝΙΙ". The next year Catling discovered the first dedication tο Menelaus, in the bottom of a cistern , a blue limestone stele dated from the early 5th century BCE, upon which there was a bronze statuette with

1127-441: The dark hours, sacrifices that were not shared by the living. Two exceptions to the above were Heracles and Asclepius , who might be honored as either heroes or gods, with chthonic libation or with burnt sacrifice. Heroes in cult behaved very differently from heroes in myth. They might appear indifferently as men or as snakes, and they seldom appeared unless angered. A Pythagorean saying advises not to eat food that has fallen on

1176-676: The end of the Early Iron Age . Since eighth century BC, there is a small and scattered group of sanctuaries, associated with epic or mythical heroes and identified by inscribed dedications, in most cases after the foundation of worship. Such heroes are Helen and Menelaus to Sparta, Odysseus in Cave of Loizos at beach Polis to Ithaca and Agamemnon at Mycenae. The heroes of myth and epic performed heroic acts, have founders of cities and sanctuaries, inventors and ancestors of large families. Most of these heroes are male warriors or kings , but

1225-438: The epic tradition, which featured the heroes alive and in action rather than as objects of cultus , the earliest written reference to hero-cult is attributed to Dracon , the Athenian lawgiver of the late seventh century BC, who prescribed that gods and local heroes should both be honoured according to ancestral custom. The custom, then, was already established, and there were multiple local heroes. The written sources emphasise

1274-595: The eponymous heroes , Menelaus and Helen of Troy , were worshiped, with a possible altar and enclosure . At the end of the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, a temple built with limestone was erected in place. The Menelaeion heroon has been recognized as such by Ludwig Ross . Ross excavated the area in 1834, revealing lead votive figurines of the Laconic type. In 1909 the British School at Athens conducted with John Percival Droop , M. S. Thompson, and Alan Wace

1323-399: The fact that their population reacted to them in such a way that would allow them to use the hero shrines as political propaganda. For example, Lewis Farnell believed that, because of the fact hero cults are often not found in a hero's home territory, there is a greater chance that the cults were widespread and common among most Greeks. Whereas other cults may be ancestral dating back to even

1372-597: The faithless, murdering Clytaemnestra, Agamemnon's wife; but 'hero' has no feminine gender in the age of heroes. Where local cult venerated figures such as the sacrificial virgin Iphigeneia , an archaic local nymphe has been reduced to a mortal figure of legend . Other isolated female figures represented priestess-initiators of a local cult. Iconographic and epigraphal evidence marshalled by Larson combine to depict heroines as similar in kind to heroes, but in androcentric Greek culture, typically of lesser stature. This

1421-552: The first systematic excavation of the archaeological site. The excavation revealed a Late Mycenaean structure built with raw brick coated with painted plaster on the eastern peak of the ridge of Menelaeion hill. Further excavations followed, led by Richard MacGillivray Dawkins , then director of the British School of Athens, in the year 1910. After 60 years the British School returned to the site and excavations were conducted by Hector Catling . Hector Catling tried to form

1470-425: The floor, because "it belongs to the heroes". Heroes if ignored or left unappeased could turn malicious: in a fragmentary play by Aristophanes , a chorus of anonymous heroes describe themselves as senders of lice, fever and boils. Some of the earliest hero and heroine cults well attested by archaeological evidence in mainland Greece include the Menelaion dedicated to Menelaus and Helen at Therapne near Sparta ,

1519-543: The grains start to move, called entrainment velocity . However the grains will continue to be transported even if the velocity falls below the entrainment velocity due to the reduced (or removed) friction between the grains and the river bed. Eventually the velocity will fall low enough for the grains to be deposited. This is shown by the Hjulström curve . A river is continually picking up and dropping solid particles of rock and soil from its bed throughout its length. Where

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1568-553: The hill Eagle, south of the ridge of Menelaion, pottery of LH IIB2 has been revealed in a surface stratum . The above-mentioned, in combination with the building design, led Hector Catling to the view that these palaces were administrative centers and ancestors of large megaroid palaces of Pylos , Mycenae and Tiryns . Catling's excavation revealed a bronze aryballos with incised boustrophedon inscription, «ΔΕΙΝΙΣ ΑΝΕΘΕΕ [ΕΛΕΝΗΙ, ΣΥΖΥΓΟΝ] ΜΕΝΕΛΑΪ» ( Deinis offered to Helen, wife of Menelaus ). This inscription confirms Ross's view that

1617-418: The importance of heroes' tombs and the temenos or sanctuary, where chthonic rites appeased their spirits and induced them to continue to favour the people who looked to them as founders, of whom founding myths were related. In the hero's restricted and local scope he "retained the limited and partisan interests of his mortal life. He would help those who lived in the vicinity of his tomb or who belonged to

1666-458: The inscription «ΕΥΘΥΚΡΕΝΕΣ ΑΝΕΘΕΚΕ ΤΟΪ ΜΕΝΕΛΑΪ», (Eythycrenes dedicated to Menelaus). Richard Catling (Hector Catling's son) continued excavations in Therapne during the 1980s, on a terrace of the south side of Menelaion hill. His site consisted of disturbed strata filled with sub- geometric and early archaic votive offerings. In the same place have been discovered the walls and the floor of

1715-420: The largest carried sediment is of sand and gravel size, but larger floods can carry cobbles and even boulders . When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers , ice sheets , or ice caps , the term glaciofluvial or fluvioglacial is used, as in periglacial flows and glacial lake outburst floods . Fluvial sediment processes include the motion of sediment and erosion or deposition on

1764-435: The legend and the epic is full of female figures, as is the case in Menelaion. The heroines often usually work in family context, as part of a heroic pair, or as virgins who give their lives to save their city , family, or spouse. Perhaps a curious group of heroes are those who are children or even babies, as in the case of Opheltes infant, who was killed by a snake near a spring at Nemea . The establishment of heroic cult

1813-416: The living. A hero was more than human but less than a god , and various kinds of minor supernatural figures came to be assimilated to the class of heroes; the distinction between a hero and a god was less than certain, especially in the case of Heracles , the most prominent, but atypical hero. The grand ruins and tumuli (large burial mounds) remaining from the Bronze Age gave the pre-literate Greeks of

1862-415: The most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion . In Homeric Greek , " hero " ( ἥρως , hḗrōs ) refers to the mortal offspring of a human and a god. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a dead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine , because his fame during life or his unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect

1911-453: The numerous written accounts of these heroes, hero shrines are few in number and peculiar in pattern. This is proof that the cults were widespread on Greece, with multiple cities having their own iterations of each Hero to fit their own needs. Another way in which the Cults were used was for political propaganda and manipulation. Sparta's propping up of many hero cults was out of recognition of

1960-572: The particle. These relationships are shown in the following table for the Rouse number , which is a ratio of sediment settling velocity (fall velocity) to upwards velocity. Rouse = Settling velocity Upwards velocity from lift and drag = w s κ u ∗ {\displaystyle {\textbf {Rouse}}={\frac {\text{Settling velocity}}{\text{Upwards velocity from lift and drag}}}={\frac {w_{s}}{\kappa u_{*}}}} where If

2009-553: The persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites", observes Robin Lane Fox . In other words, this is a clear cut example of an origin story for Heroes and what they meant to the Ancient Greeks. Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-based ancestor worship from which they developed, in that as the polis evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of

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2058-467: The river flow is fast, more particles are picked up than dropped. Where the river flow is slow, more particles are dropped than picked up. Areas where more particles are dropped are called alluvial or flood plains, and the dropped particles are called alluvium . Even small streams make alluvial deposits, but it is in floodplains and deltas of large rivers that large, geologically-significant alluvial deposits are found. The amount of matter carried by

2107-425: The river or stream bed . These bedforms are often preserved in sedimentary rocks and can be used to estimate the direction and magnitude of the flow that deposited the sediment. Overland flow can erode soil particles and transport them downslope. The erosion associated with overland flow may occur through different methods depending on meteorological and flow conditions. Heroic cult Hero cults were one of

2156-436: The tribe of which he himself was the founder," observes Robert Parker, with the reservation that Heracles, with his pan-Hellenic scope, was again the exception. Whitley interpreted the final stage, in which hero-cult was co-opted by the city-state as a political gesture, in the archaic aristocratic tumulus surrounded by stelae , erected by Athens to the cremated citizen-heroes of Marathon (490 BC), to whom chthonic cult

2205-404: The upwards velocity is approximately equal to the settling velocity, sediment will be transported downstream entirely as suspended load . If the upwards velocity is much less than the settling velocity, but still high enough for the sediment to move (see Initiation of motion ), it will move along the bed as bed load by rolling, sliding, and saltating (jumping up into the flow, being transported

2254-408: The worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean times. Whereas the ancestor was purely local, Lewis Farnell observed, the hero might be tended in more than one locality, and he deduced that hero-cult was more deeply influenced from the epic tradition , that "suggested many a name to forgotten graves", and provided even Dorians

2303-469: Was also a way to connect them with the earth. Most commonly in Ancient Greece , these mounds could have had any 1 of 3 main components, composed in a staircase-like format, within the mound. This staircase like structure may have 1 or 2 steps that would help carry out various ceremonial functions as well as serve as storing places for valuable items. The first step would be used for cremation and

2352-509: Was dedicated, as the offering trenches indicate. On the other hand, Greek heroes were distinct from the Roman cult of dead emperors , because the hero was not thought of as having ascended to Olympus or become a god: he was beneath the earth, and his power purely local. For this reason hero cults were chthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate and Persephone than those for Zeus and Apollo : libations in

2401-413: Was often the means to resolve a crisis, often related to someone who was killed violently or unjustly. On each occasion the hero becomes the epicenter of worship, weaving a social bond for the survival of the community. Being closer than gods to mankind hero or heroine is important for the support of community members in different aspects of everyday life. On the hill of Menelaion during the 8th century BCE

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