The sacrificial rituals of Greek hero cults in the Archaic to the early ...

Eschara and escharon 29
shwarma of the Middle East. None of the escharai listed in these temple
inventories can be interpreted as having functioned solely as altars.
The escharai found in the temple inventories, which form the bulk of
the occurrences of the term in the epigraphical evidence, seem to have
been used as hearths or grills and were in most cases movable. Some
of these may have been employed for sacrifices, but it seems most likely
that they were used for the preparation of food. Before moving on to the
escharai with a stronger sacrificial connection, it should be mentioned that
a completely di�ferent meaning of the term is also found in the inscriptions.
Eschara could mean simply a grating, with no connection with fire. This
seems to be the meaning of the term in an inscription from Epidauros
dating to c. 370 BC. 34 These escharai appear to have been connected
with the subterranean waterworks and were located in the drains of the
water-tanks for cleaning purposes. Another non-religious use of eschara is
found in an early 3rd-century inscription recording the monthly pay-outs
by the temple of Apollon on Delos. 35 Here it is mentioned that a certain
Theodemos is paid one drachma and three obols for having made an eschara
of wood, an amount equivalent to one day’s work. A hearth or altar of
wood seems unlikely, since the fire would have consumed the eschara. 36
Tréheux suggested that the wood referred to was a base or the feet of an
eschara of terracotta or of metal, while Hellmann interpreted the eschara
as not connected with fire at all, but as some kind of chariot used for the
transportation of stone. 37
Few escharai mentioned in the inscriptions can be interpreted as being
altars and even fewer show any connection with hero-cults. The first and
clearest case of an eschara being connected with hero-cults, as well as
referring to an altar or a sacrificial installation, is an inscription from Porto
Raphti, Attica (Fig. 1). It consists of a stone-slab inscribed