Sacred House

The edifice was constructed during the Late Geometric period (end of  8^th cent. BC) on a terrace aligned north-south. It has been considered that it was dedicated to the cult of a hero-ancestor who lived there and for this reason it was characterized as «Sacred House». Most probably the grave that was found east of the house belonged to him.

It consists of rooms in a row that opened up into a long corridor with slab paved yard in the front. Ruins of a built bench are preserved in the northernmost room and remains of a lined with masonry pit in the middle one. The large ash containers, characteristic of the performance of sacrifices, which were found in the two smaller rooms, indicate that the building served cult purposes.

At the beginning of the 6^th cent. BC the Sacred House was replaced by a small square hall with an altar built in front of the yard wall and its floor covered in ashes. Fragments of black-figure vases and clay figurines in an extensive ash layer across the area of a later altar in front of the hall, demostrate the constinuation of religious rituals.

In the time of Peisistratus (end of 6^th cent. BC), the hall was destroyed and an enclosure, built in spectacular polygonal masonry, surrounded the ruins of the earlier buildings. During the same time over the ruins of the Sacred House, a small poros temple was erected, from which most probably comes the small marble statue of the «Fleeing Kore» that is on display in the Archaeological Museum of Eleusis.

Roman House Lykourgean Fortification and South Pylon (Gate)