Temples of Hera, Paestum.pdfVIP

Temples of Hera, Paestum LIUXI HE JAN.22 EARLY DORIC Italy The Temples of Hera in Paestum, by Y. Gianni 1898 Approximately fifty-five miles (ninety kilometers) south of Naples, Italy, stands the ancient city of Paestum. Legends tell of the citys founding by Jason and the Argonauts, but archaeologists, uncomfortable with the stuff of legends, attribute Paestums birth to 7th century BC Greek colonists. H IS T O R Y Fig.2 Paestum In Google Map H IS T O R Y Fig.3 Poseidon Sculpture in Copenhagen Paestum was long known as Poseidonia, indicating that the site was once a ceremonial center of Poseidon (the Roman Neptune), the god of the sea. The two primary temples, the 550 BC Basilica and the 450 BC temple of Neptune, were originally dedicated to the fertility goddess Hera. Poseidonia was conquered and occupied in 400 BC by the Lucans, an Italian people who ruled until 273 BC when the city became a Roman colony. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of malaria from nearby marshes, and Muslim raids in the ninth century, Paestum fell into decline and was deserted for many centuries. Rediscovered only in 1752 by an Italian road-building crew working in the area, Paestum is the finest preserved Greek temple complex in the Mediterranean world. H IS T O R Y Fig.4 Fertility Goddess Hera Sculpture H IS T O R Y The Temple of Hera II (sometimes called the Temple of Neptune), is a Greek temple in Paestum, Campania, Italy. The name Temple of Neptune is a misnomer from the 18th century, even though, it was actually dedicated to the goddess Hera. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Fig. 5 Map of Paestum 1732 The first Temple of Hera, built around 550 BC by Greek colonists, is the oldest surviving temple in Paestum. Eighteenth-century archaeologists named it The Basilica because they mistakenly believed it to be a Roman building. A basilica in Roman times was a civil building, not a religious one. Inscriptions revealed that the