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| My Favourite Planet > English > Europe > Greece > Attica > Athens > galleries > Acropolis |
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The Propylaea and the small Temple of Athena Nike (right) at the northwest corner of the Acropolis. |
Gateway to the Klepsydra spring
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See a plan of this corner of the Acropolis and the stairs to the Klepsydra below.
See more photos of this corner
of the Acropolis, including the top
of the stairway, on gallery page 10.
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See a plan of the entrance to the Acropolis, with the Beulé Gate, the Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Pedestal of Agrippa and the top of the stairway to the Klepsydra,
on gallery page 6.
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At the northwest corner of the Acropolis, just below the north hall of the Propylaea, a Roman stairway leads down from the terrace on which the Pedestal of Agrippa stands to a small gate (now walled up), used to access the sacred cave containing the spring known as the Klepsydra (or Clepsydra, Greek κλεψύδρα), one of Athens' ancient sources of water. Its name literally means "stolen water" (also translated as "water thief"), apparently because the water occasionally disappeared, particularly during the summer months. However, some scholars now believe that the name actually signified "secretly" or "stealthily flowing" water because of its underground course. [ 1 ]
The Klepsydra stood within the ancient defensive walls of the Acropolis (the Bronze Age "Pelasgicon") so that it could accessed during a siege. In ancient times it was reached by another stairway descending from the northeast side of the rock. Its water is brackish (salty), and it is likely that during times of peace it was used for cleaning and purification purposes rather than drinking.
It was one of three springs on the Acropolis created by rainwater seeping through the porous Cretaceous limestone which forms the top of the Acropolis hill, until it reaches the non-porous marls known as "Athens schist" beneath. Water pressure and erosion carved natural caves, clefts, reservoirs, channels and springs. [ 2 ] These springs, considered sacred by ancient Athenians, supplemented water supplied by wells and cisterns, as well as the Kiffisos and Ilissos streams which could only be relied on in winter.
The underground water was already being exploited in the Neolithic period (3500-3000 BC), during which 22 wells were dug in Athens. The Klepsydra cave is thought to have been discovered in the late 13th century BC when the area was cleared of rocks and rubble during the refortification of the Acropolis.
From at least Archaic times this spring was named Empedo (steadfast, continual) [ 3 ], after one of the Naiades (Ναϊάδες, from the Greek verb νάειν, naö, to flow) [ 4 ], divine fresh-water nymphs who were protectors of water supplies as well as of girls and maidens. The worship of nymphs was widespread in Greece, and through myth and legend they became associated with local places and people, often woven into the history and genealogies of tribes, villages and towns. The worship of nymphs involved nympholeptic possession and prophecy. [ 5 ] A poros boundary stone found in the Agora, dated to the first half of 5th century BC, is inscribed "boundary of the sacred Nymphaion". There were several caves and springs sacred to nymphs in Attica, one of the most famous of which was the Athenian Kallirrhóē (or Callirhoe, lovely flowing), to the south of the Acropolis, near the River Ilissos. |
Gateway to the Klepsydra spring, now walled up.
A thick cable or pipe in front of the gateway supplies restoration workers above.
"Cave A" above the Klepsydra.
Archaeologists have imaginatively named the group of cave sanctuaries along the the north face of the Acropolis "caves A-D" (from west to east) because of the uncertainty as to which gods each was sacred.
The shallow caves to the west, directly above the Klepsydra, housed the sanctuary of "Apollo under the Heights" (Apollon Hypakraios or Apollon ipo Makrais), and the cave of Pan, Apollo's companion. According to Herodotus, the worship of Pan was introduced to Athens from Arcadia in thanks for his aid at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC. [ 6 ]
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Relief of Pan, on the side of
the "Little Arch of Galerius", Thessalonika. Marble, Roman, early 4th century AD.
Thessalonika Archaeological Museum.
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The spring appears to have become known as Klepsydra sometime after the Persian wars, and a fountain house and paved court were built around it between 470 and 460 BC, during the rebuilding of the Acropolis following destruction by the Persians in 480-479 BC. From this time also this area of the Acropolis became more associated with the cults of Apollo and Pan, whose sacred grottoes were above the spring.
The Greek historian Plutarch tells us that Marc Antony spent the winter in Athens before travelling to Syria to fight the Parthian King Hyrodes (37 BC). "When the time came for him to set out for the war, he took a garland from the sacred olive [of the Erechtheion], and, in obedience to some oracle, he filled a vessel with the water of the Clepsydra to carry along with him." [ 7 ]
During Roman times water from the spring was channelled to the Roman Agora where it was used to supply the water clock, also known as the Klepsydra, devised by Andronicus Cyrrhestes, which was housed in the Tower of the Winds. The name Klepsydra later became a general name for water clocks. [ 8 ]
The second century AD travel writer Pausanias described the way from the Propylaea: "On descending [from the Acropolis], not to the lower city, but to just beneath the Gateway, you see a fountain and near it a sanctuary of Apollo in a cave. It is here that Apollo is believed to have met Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus..." [ 9 ]
Landslides in the 1st - 3rd centuries AD destroyed the fountain house and blocked the entrance, after which a well and vault were constructed.
The water from the spring was considered holy by early Christians, and the Chapel of Agioi Apostoloi (Holy Apostles) was built here during the Byzantine period. The Franks carried out repairs to the spring in the mid 13th century, but during the Turkish occupation in the 15-19th centuries it was abandoned. However, the water from the spring continued to flow down to the Roman Agora where it supplied water to the Fethiye Mosque, as Stuart and Revett reported when describing the nearby Tower of the Winds in the 18th century:
"For there is a spring which rises at the foot of the rock on which the Acropolis is built, somewhat before you arrive at the Propylaea, and supplies a current, of which indeed nobody drinks, for the water is brackish; but it is conveyed, partly underground, and partly in earthen pipes which are supported by walls, to the principle Moschéa; where the Turks use it for those ablutions which they constantly perform whenever they begin their devotions." [ 10 ]
In 1822, during the Greek War of Independence, Greek forces besieged the Acropolis. It appears that the Turkish defenders had sufficient supplies of food but, not knowing about the Klepsydra, suffered from a lack of water.
When they finally surrendered, the story goes that the Greek archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakis (Κυριάκος Πιττάκης, 1798-1863), who was born in Athens and had taken an early interest in its history, showed the Greek leaders the location of the spring. They had the rubble cleared away and secured the water supply, and in September 1822 the Greek commander in chief, Odysseas Androutsos (Οδυσσέας Ανδρούτσος, 1788–1825) had the area fortified with walls which became known as "the Bastion of Odysseus". The bastion was built with parts of ancient monuments, which were rediscovered by archaeologists when it was dismantled in 1888.
Article: © copyright David John, Athens and Berlin, 2007-2011. |
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Plan of the northwest corner of the Acropolis and the stairway down to the Klepsydra spring.
Around the spring itself is the outline of the medieval Chapel of the Twelve Apostles.
The faces of the icons in the chapel are said to have been defaced during the Turkish occupation.
The "Bastion of Odysseus" was built in 1822 by "Kapitani Odysseus" to protect the Klepsydra water supply.
After drawings by J. A. Kaupert, published in Die Akropolis von Athen: nach den Berichten der Alten
und den neusten Erforschungen by Adolf Boetticher. Verlag von Julius Springer, 1888.
View of the Acropolis during the 1840s showing the the Bastion of Odysseus around the Klepsydra, bottom left.
Watercolour sketch by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867).
Drawing by Ernest Breton (1812-1875), made 1859 or earlier, of the Klepsydra spring, over which had been
built the Chapel of the Holy Apostles. The wall frescoes were still visible, and at the far end stood a modern well. |
| Klepsydra spring |
Notes, references and links |
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1 and 3. Empedo. From empedos, meaning "firmly set", hence "in the ground"; and by extension, "steadfast", "continual".
See: Jennifer Lynn Larson, Greek nymphs: myth, cult, lore. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Preview at Google books.
Despite the connotations of unreliability associated with the later name Klepsydra, the American archaeologist Arthur Wellesley Parsons, who excavated the spring from 1937 to 1940, was of the opinion that it was indeed a steadfast and reliable source of water.
See: Arthur W. Parsons, Klepsydra and the Paved Court of the Pythion. Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens,
Vol. 12, No. 3, The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora: Twenty-Fourth Report (Jul. - Sep., 1943), pp. 191-267. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
At Jstor.
2. See: Michael and Reynold Higgins, A Geological Companion to Greece and the Aegean. Duckworth and Cornell University Press (out of print). Sample chapter: Chapter 3, Geology of Athens
4. Daniel Ogden, A Companion to Greek Religion. John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Preview at Google books.
5. The worship of nymphs. See:
W. R. Connor, Seized by the nymphs: nympholepsy and symbolic expression in Classical Greece.
Classical Antiquity, Volume 7, No. 2, October 1988.
Jennifer Lynn Larson, Greek nymphs: myth, cult, lore. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Nadine Pierce, The Placement of the Sacred Caves in Attica, Greece. MA thesis, 2006. Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5356. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
6. The Cave of Pan beneath the Acropolis. Herodotus tells us that the legendary runner Pheidippides was sent by the Athenians to ask the Spartans for their help against the invading Persians before the Battle of Marathon (490 BC). On his journey he met the ancient rustic god Pan who wanted to know why the Athenians had forgotten him. After their victory they dedicated the shrine in the shallow cave next to that of Apollo.
"First of all, while they were still in the city, the generals sent off to Sparta a herald, namely Pheidippides, an Athenian, and for the rest a runner of long day-courses and one who practised this as his profession. With this man, as Pheidippides himself said and as he made report to the Athenians, Pan chanced to meet by Mount Parthenion, which is above Tegea; and calling aloud the name of Pheidippides, Pan bade him report to the Athenians and ask for what reason they had no care of him, though he was well disposed to the Athenians and had been serviceable to them on many occasions before that time, and would be so also yet again. Believing that this tale was true, the Athenians, when their affairs had been now prosperously settled, established under the Acropolis a temple of Pan; and in consequence of this message they propitiate him with sacrifice offered every year and with a torch-race."
Herodotus, Histories, Book VI, 105, translated by G. C. Macaulay. MacMillan and Co., London and New York, 1890. At gutenberg.org.
7. Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Antony at MIT Internet Classics Archive.
8. Klepsydra as water clock. There were other springs called Klepsydra in Greece, for example at Messene in the Peloponnese. How and when the name was applied to water clocks seems to be another history mystery yet to be unravelled. Water clocks were known since at least the second millennium BC, and an Egyptian device has been dated to around 1500 BC. In Greece they were already in use during Classical times. A simple water-powered time-keeper, also known as a klepsydra, which worked on the same principle as an hour-glass, was used in Athenian law courts and political assemblies to limit the length of speeches. Two ceramic vessels were placed one above the other. The upper beaker had a hole near its base so that water trickled into the lower one; when all the water had run out, time was up.
9. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book I, chapter 28, section 4. At Perseus Digial Library.
Since Pausanias refers to a fountain, the fountain house may have been still standing when he visited Athens.
10. James Stuart, Nicholas Revett, The antiquities of Athens and other monuments of Greece, Chapter 2, Of the Octagon Tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes. Tilt, London, 1837. |
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