eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Abundant finds of the eighth-seventh centuries BCE in the form of pottery and metal votives,
are centred on and around the ash altar mentioned above. This continued in use after the
temple had been built suggesting that the site had been home to similar, albeit open-air, cult
activity before the monumental structures were built. From the ash altar came Lakonian PG
or ‘Dark Age’ sherds, such as a skyphos rim, and large amounts of LG and Archaic votive
offerings in a wide range of material, including bronze, lead, iron, bone, glass, and terracotta,
gold and possibly ivory. There has also been a handful of unstratified Mycenaean and PG
artefacts, including what has been described as a beautiful LHIII conical conulus of steatite
and probable LHIIIC sherds of a large closed vessel, a jar or amphora (Forsen 1999, p.179).
Altars and bonfires are a feature at many ancient Greek sacred places, particularly at Minoan
peak sanctuaries (Peatfield 1983). These may have had links with animal sacrifices, but may
just as well have been the focus of dumping refuse after a sacral meal. It has been pointed out
that bonfires would not be particularly well suited to conducting animal sacrifices, as
participants would not be able to get closer than five metres to carry out such proceedings
(Peatfield 1983, p.30). The remains at Asea-Ayios Elias may be the remains of small
controlled fires, outdoor hearths where people could conceivably gather. The altar as we see
it today may be the result of hundreds of such episodes. There will be more information when
the excavation reports are published. However, it appears that many votives were thrown into
the fires; whether these were ‘new’ votives is unsure. Such objects may have been thrown in
as part of a purification rite, which entailed a cleaning out of the sanctuary. Votives that had
been given on previous occasions were perhaps ‘re-dedicated’ in a ‘festival of renewal’
(Bergquist 1988, pp.49-50).
The mountain on which the sanctuary stands is approximately 1090m above sea level. There
is evidence of habitation in the medieval period (see Fig.4.22) but none from before this date.
If the evidence of the LBA and PG periods is accepted as sacred in nature then this hill has
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