Eleusis

Eleusis had one of the most important sanctuaries during antiquity and I had the pleasure to visit the site today.

By the way, to quote Helena here: Word of the day - mystic piglet.
(A (mystic?) piglet from the area around Herculaneum, probably Villa dei Papyri. These animals were used in certain sacrifices.)


A Proto-Attica vessel from the 7th century BC, found at Eleusis (west cemetery).

"We drove the sharp end of the beam into the monster's [Polyphemus] eye, and bearing upon it with all my weight I kept turning it round and round as though I were boring a hole in a ship's plank with an auger, which two men with a wheel and strap can keep on turning as long as they choose. Even thus did we bore the red hot beam into his eye, till the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we worked it round and round, so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded his eyelids and eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in the fire."

The Odyssey IX translated by Samuel Butler


A flower growing in the Plutonic shrine at Eleusis - this was the flower that grew on the Elysian fields where heroes and exceptional humans ended up after death.


Asklepios, copy of an original from ca 320 Bc.


This is the dedication from the statue above:
ΕΠΙΚΡΑΤΗΣ
ΠΑΜΦΙΛΟΥ
ΛΕΥΚΟΝΟΙΕΥΣ
ΑΣΚΛΗΠΙΩΙ

[To?] Asklepios, dedicated by Epikrates, son of Pamphilos from [the deme of] Leukonoe [in Attica].