A Roman-era bridge was recently discovered in the ancient city of Elefsina, west of Athens during works for a suburban railway line.
The bridge was discovered by archaeologist Katerina Daskalopoulou and her team at a depth of just one meter...
For more than a millennium, thousands of travelers from every corner of the ancient world journeyed down the Sacred Way with a singular purpose: to reach Eleusis and undergo initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Philosophers, emperors, and everyday citizens...
The hero Triptolemus is central to a myth that reaches deep into ancient Greek tradition. It presents agriculture as a sacred gift and situates the Greek peninsula as its place of origin.
From there, the myth tells of its spread...
Eleusis, the site of the eponymous Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece, was the center of worship for the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, who returned to the Underworld every year in the Autumn.
The mysteries celebrated in honour of...
The "Eleusis Amphora", dating to roughly 670–650 BC and containing the remains of a ten-year-old child, was no common storage jar. It was a monumental amphora standing 1.42 meters tall—the largest Protoattic vase ever found.
As archaeologist and researcher Dionysis...
The ancient drink kykeon holds the secrets of the ancient world at the bottom of its cup, and those secrets shaped some of the most profound religious experiences in Greek history. Far from being an ordinary beverage, the Ancient...
A new study is offering a fresh explanation for one of ancient Greece’s most enduring Eleusinian mysteries (Greek: Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια). Researchers say the secret drink used in the Mysteries may have contained a carefully prepared psychedelic derived from ergot...
Herodes Atticus' projects left a lasting mark on the 2nd century AD, shaping the cultural and architectural landscape of Greece. The ancient Greek sophist Philostratus dedicated a significant portion of his work, Lives of the Sophists, to Herodes' life...
Ancient Greek women had their own festival, Haloa, where they honored three deities with drinking, telling dirty jokes and carrying huge makeshift phalluses. Men were not allowed to attend.
The festival took place in Athens and Eleusis, and the deities...
Kykeon, the mysterious drink from the past linked to the Eleusinian Mysteries, is a drink few know of and of which even fewer speak or write about.
By Giorgio Pintzas Monzani
It was an essential part of a ritual that took...
