| |
|
When an ancient sacred site was refurbished or abandoned, it was customary to remove the architectural decoration, the sacred fittings and the votive offerings and dump them in a nearby place, where they were deliberately broken up and covered with earth and stones, so that they could not be reused. These operations were accompanied by ceremonies designed to compensate the gods for the sacrilegious act of tampering with their property. Ritual purification fires would be lit on the piles of holy objects, which archaeologists conventionally define as votive deposits.
In the past, excavations in the area behind the minor temple discovered a votive deposit that yielded a huge amount of material relative to the life of the sanctuary.
In 2004, a second deposit was discovered, pre-dating the construction of the main temple. It lies in the strata underneath the holy building and has not yet been explored. |
|
 |
