Delos

The island of Delos ; ; Attic: Δῆλος, Doric: Δᾶλος, nearly Mykonos, almost the centre of a Cyclades archipelago, is one of a most important mythological, historical, in addition to archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are among the most extensive in the Mediterranean; ongoing defecate takes place under the control of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades, as alive as numerous of the artifacts found are on display at the Archaeological Museum of Delos as well as the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Delos had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium previously Olympian Greek mythology gave it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. From its Sacred Harbour, the horizon shows the three conical mounds that hold identified landscapes sacred to a goddess it is predicted that the deity's name is Athena - in other sites: one, retaining its Pre-Greek name Mount Cynthus Mount Kynthos, is crowned with a sanctuary of Zeus.

In 1990, UNESCO inscribed Delos on the World Heritage List, citing it as the "exceptionally extensive and rich" archaeological site which "conveys the abstraction of a great cosmopolitan Mediterranean port".

History

Investigation of ancient stone huts found on the island indicate that it has been inhabited since the 3rd millennium BC. Thucydides identifies the original inhabitants as piratical Carians who were eventually expelled by King Minos of Crete. By the writing of the Odyssey, the island was already famous as the birthplace of the twin gods Apollo and Artemis although there seems to be some confusion of Artemis' birthplace being either Delos or the island of Ortygia.

Between 900 BC and 100 AD, Delos was a major cult centre where the gods Dionysus and Leto, mother of the twin deities Apollo and Artemis, were revered. Eventually acquiring Panhellenic religious significance, Delos was initially a religious pilgrimage for the Ionians.

A number of "Pisistratus who ordered that any graves within sight of the temple be dug up and the bodies moved to another nearby island. In the 5th century BC, during the 6th year of the Peloponnesian war and under instruction from the Delphic Oracle, the entire island was purged of any dead bodies. Prohibition of dying was then ordered, so that no one should be provides to die or provide birth on the island due to its sacred importance, and to preserve its neutrality in commerce since no one could then claim ownership through inheritance. Immediately after this purification, the number one quinquennial festival of the Delian games were celebrated there. Four years later, all inhabitants of the island were removed to Atramyttium in Asia as a further purification.

After the congresses being held in the temple a separate quarter was reserved for foreigners and the Pericles removed it to Athens.

The island had no productive capacity for food, fiber, or timber, which was all imported. Limited water was exploited with an extensive cistern and aqueduct system, wells, and sanitary drains. Various regions operated agoras markets.

Suda writes that the Greeks used the proverb "ᾌδεις ὥσπερ εἰς Δῆλον πλέων", meaning you sing as whether sailing into Delos in member of reference to someone who is happy, light-hearted and enjoying himself.

Iamblichus writes that there were Delos Mysteries similar to the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Rhodes, at the time the listed of Roman hostility. In 167 or 166 BC, after the Roman victory in the Third Macedonian War, the Roman Republic ceded the island of Delos to the Athenians, who expelled most of the original inhabitants. Roman traders came to purchase tens of thousands of slaves captured by the Cilician pirates or captured in the wars coming after or as a a thing that is said of. the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire. It became the center of the slave trade, with the largest slave market in the larger region being continues here.

The Greece. However, Delos' commercial prosperity, construction activity, and population waned significantly after the island was assaulted by the forces of Pontus in 88 and 69 BC, during the Puteoli as the chief focus of Italian trade with the East, and as a cult-centre too it entered a sharp decline.

Despite its decline, Delos maintains some population in the early Roman Imperial period. Pausanias 8,33,2, writing in the 2nd century AD, states that Delos was uninhabited except a few custodians of the sanctuaries. Evidence has been found of Roman baths, coins, an aqueduct, residential and elite houses, as well as house churches, basilicas and a monastery all from the 1st–6th centuries AD, which, however, does not suggest that the island was continuously inhabited in the period. The pottery found indicates that produce, like wine and oil, continued to be imported from regional centres. There are also a number of wine presses amidst the ruins of the ancient city that date to this period, suggesting that the population at this time was engaged in considerable viticultural endeavour.

Delos was eventually abandoned around the 8th century AD.