IDENTIFYING MYTH

Leonore L.M.E. Poldervaart
In fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Utrecht University
thesis under the supervision of
prof. dr. J.H. Blok | dr. F. van den Eijnde
COVER IMAGE
Julien-David Le Roy, Les ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grece, considérées du côté de ‘histoire et du côté de l’architecture. Paris (1770) pl. 30 (detail) (recoloured).
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Leonore L.M.E. Poldervaart
1.1 DETAILED DESCRIPTION 17
Korê A 19
Korê B 20
Korê C 21
Korê D 22
Korê E 24
Korê F 25
Age 27
Body 29
Hairstyle 31
CHAPTER TWO – “AN EXCEPTIONALLY RICH JEWEL-BOX OF A TEMPLE” 33
2.1 DATING THE ERECHTHEION 33
2.2 THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD 35
Exterior 36
Interior 41
The altar of Poseidon-Erechtheus 52
The altar of Boutes and the paintings of the clan members on the wall 52
The altar of Hephaistos and the matter of autochthony 53
The man-made well 55
The agalma 56
The naos of Athena Polias and the issue of the opisthodomos 57
The alternative theories on the location of the Erechtheion 59
2.4 CONCLUSION 62
CHAPTER THREE – THE KORAI AS PART OF THE PATRIOTIC ATHENIAN
MYTHOLOGICAL NARRATIVE 63
3.2 MYTHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS 67
3.3 THE KORAI REVISITED 71
4 CONCLUSION 76
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My quest for answers concerning the identity of the korai started some four years ago.
Throughout these years, a lot of people have helped me, either by simply cheerleading me
throughout the project or by providing helplines for information. In other words, I could
not have done this on my own.
First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors, Prof. Dr. Josine Blok and Dr.
Floris van den Eijnde, for both keeping me steady on my course and for encouraging me
to persevere. Their own work and ideas have inspired me to make something more of this
thesis than what I had originally planned. I have learned so much from the meetings with
Prof. Dr. Blok and I will never forget the look she gave me after I unfolded my original
plan for this thesis. She, rightfully, explained to me why that was not a good idea and how
I might better go about it. Special thanks to Floris as well, for it is because of him that my
enthusiasm for the Erechtheion sparked off, and I hold him responsible for the fact that
this subject will never let me go wherever the future will take me.
I would like to thank the Dutch Institute at Athens (NIA) for granting the
scholarship gave me the opportunity to dig through the several libraries in Athens and find
all the literature that the Dutch universities’ libraries could not provide me with.
And lastly, my friends and family have contributed so much in many different ways.
I would like to thank Lotte, Anna, Florien, and Alma for dragging me to the library each
and every single day. Studying and discussing all our theses together gave me the energy I
needed to make a good start. Florien and Alma also deserve special thanks for the endless
cups of tea that helped us to overcome in our struggles. Harry, thank you for your help
with the prodigious difficulties I encountered in the English language. Dr. Michel Buijs I
would like to thank for his help with all matters Greek. Mom and Stephanie, thank you for
your love and believing in me, even when I did not.
But most of all, I would like to thank one person in particular. Arjan, thank you for
reading everything over and over again, for the endless hours discussing the minor details
of my thesis, for knowing exactly what I wanted to write and filling in these gaps when I
could not find the words, for the comforting hugs when everything fell apart, for the way
you cheered me up and gave me enough courage to still see the bright side. I am sorry that
you now know so many details about things you did not even want to know about. It is
fair to say that without you, your patience, and your love, I would not have been able to
finish this work.
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INTRODUCTION
The Ionic temple on the Akropolis of Athens, generally known as the Erechtheion, is the
last of a series of temples devoted to the goddess Athena Polias. Besides the shrine for
Athena Polias, the Erechtheion also incorporated the altars of Poseidon-Erechtheus,
Hephaistos, and Boutes, and the mythical tokens of the competition between Athena and
Poseidon for the city, namely the olive tree and the salt sea well. However, the precise
location of these various elements within the temple is still a subject of heated debate. Also,
there is still no general agreement on the dating of the building, and on the more
fundamental question of whether the Ionic temple is in fact “the building called
Erechtheion” mentioned by Pausanias. The ancient evidence from literary, epigraphical,
and archaeological sources is extremely ambiguous. A re-examination of the temple, its
precursors, and the religious, social, and political context in which it was built are essential
for laying the foundations for a comprehensive analysis of the primary focus of my thesis,
namely the six maiden statues of the South Porch, the korai. Instead of referring to the
statues of the Erechtheion’s South Porch as karyatides, the term by which they are generally
known, I will refer to them as korai, for this is the term used for them in the building
inscriptions of 409/8 BC.1
For more than two millennia the korai of the Erechtheion have been one of the
primary eye-catchers of the Athenian Akropolis. However, their beauty and the
gracefulness with which they carry the roof of the South Porch on their heads are not the
only aspects that strike the modern viewer. Mystery continues to surround them as it is still
unclear why they are there at all – beyond being mere architectural supports, why exactly
there are six of them, and most of all what meaning are they supposed to convey. What did
fifth-century Athenian eyes ‘read’ into them? In this thesis, I will attempt a ‘reading’ of
these six maiden figures to provide an answer to this question.
In Archaic and Classical Greece, the most common form of monumental architecture was
the temple complex. Temples were not just sites for worship, but were also believed to be
the actual dwelling-places of the gods, and by and of themselves represented dedications.
As such their construction demanded special care and consideration, not to mention
considerable resources.2 Greek temples share an aesthetic that is most often not merely
1 In Chapter Three, I will elaborate more on the Vitruvian term karyatides. For the building inscriptions, see Appendix II, page PAGENUMBERS, IG I³ 474. 2 WILSON JONES (2014).
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decorative but is meant to convey a narrative, one that is intrinsically mythological. Whereas
we now regard the myths represented on temple decoration as fictitious proto-history, the
ancient Greeks believed that these narratives of the mythical beginnings of their cities, of
(semi-divine) kings, heroes, and heroines, represented truth, whether in a historical or
allegorical sense. These, often local, stories created, through continuous remembrance, the
context of a great past, their so-called mythistory. Athens had a rich mythistory that tells
us much about the makings of Athenian identity from the level of the individual citizen to
that of the polis in its entirety. These narratives bound the community together and
provided a foundation for its political traditions and claims to greatness. This is actually
not that different from the way modern national myths, often as fictitious as the gods of
the ancients, offer people something to identify with, help bridge internal divisions, and
give legitimacy to our political structures.
It is generally acknowledged that temple decorations at all the major sanctuaries
derive from mythological narratives, and though such narratives may hold all kinds of
cultural or political connotations they are first and foremost mythological.3 The Athenian
Akropolis, however, holds several works of sculpture, that have been perceived as
exceptions to this rule by modern scholars. Especially the Parthenon frieze and the six
maiden statues of the Ionic temple have instead been placed in a purely historical and ritual
context. It is worth noting at this point that Arnold Lawrence suggests that the
Erechtheion, with its unconventional shape and lay-out, might be an exceptional deviation
from the norms of Greek temples altogether.4 Nonetheless, the preposition that the
decorations of the Erechtheion or of any temple created in the cultural context of Classical
Greece, should be interpreted as holding purely historical and ritual meaning and that myth
and mythistory can be discounted is up for debate.
In the case of the Parthenon frieze, the prevalent historical interpretation was
challenged by Joan Connelly, who persuasively argued that the Parthenon frieze is a place
of remembrance of which the myth of Erechtheus, as told by Euripides, formed the basis.5
According to her, the Parthenon frieze does not show the Panathenaic procession but
rather shows king Erechtheus preparing to sacrifice one of his three daughters, as the oracle
had named it the price of victory in the war with Eumolpos. The royal family is represented
on the centre piece, with queen Praxithea in the middle, while king Erechtheus stands to
her right offering the sacrificial shroud to their youngest.6 To the left of the queen stand
3 CONNELLY (1996) 54. 4 LAWRENCE (1972) 144. 5 For a broader discussion on the topic of mythological places of remembrance, see HÖLSCHER
(2010) and VAN ROOKHUIJZEN (forthc.). 6 CONNELLY (1996) esp. 53; CONNELLY (2014).
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their two other daughters who would later jump off the Akropolis to their deaths out of
solidarity with their youngest sister. Connelly’s re-examination of the Parthenon frieze has
thus created a new understanding of the sculptures that put them in line with the norm of
temple decoration and the mythistory of Athens.7
Surprisingly, however, Connelly proposes a traditional, purely historical
interpretation in the case of the maidens of the Erechtheion, who she describes as
representing generic kanêphoroi, like the ones portrayed on the Parthenon frieze.8 The
meaning behind their number and relative configuration are not addressed in Connelly’s
interpretation. I would, however, argue that a purely historical interpretation does not give
the six maiden statues and their location on the Akropolis their due and that what is
required is a comprehensive ‘reading’ based on myth as well as history. A historical
interpretation starts with the assumption that figures that are not clearly identifiable, either
by explicit naming or associated attributes, do not represent known or recognisable
individuals. Rather, ‘unidentifiable’ figures are interpreted as means to represent historical
events, rituals or customs: what matters for such interpretations is what they are portrayed
to be doing as an individual or as a group. So far, the korai have usually been considered in
a historical light, including by Connelly. As such, the question has always been what the
korai represent, whereas the question for the fifth-century Athenian would have been: ‘Who
do the korai represent?’, followed by ‘What message do they convey?’ To ascertain their
meaning, we need to take these same steps.
To be clear, it is not my contention that previous scholars have one and all failed to
properly ‘read’ the korai. It is, however, my view that in neglecting the enormous
importance of mythistory has resulted in reductionist readings. This is further compounded
by the fact that such interpretations have the benefit of being more easily substantiated by
the archaeological record, whereas a complete ‘reading’ goes beyond the physical evidence
and can therefore mistakenly be considered as a mere subjective interpretation. Yet for a
complete understanding of any symbol only describing its function and restricting
ourselves to the obvious will not suffice. If we are to ascertain its full meaning we have to
talk about the subjective experience of the contemporary audience. And though the general
lack of sources must mean that different interpretations can made equally plausible, this is
not a reason not to strive towards reconstructing the original meaning of a symbol to the
best of our ability and to the full extent allowed by the knowledge we have about the place
and the times to which it belongs.
7 SHINOZUKA (2016) 91.
8 CONNELLY (1996) 54; CONNELLY (2014) 270. The kanêphoroi on the Parthenon frieze will be discussed in detail below, see page 30.
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Above, I have written ‘read’ between quotation marks to underline the specific
methodology I will apply. I take my cue from Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, who uses the
term ‘read’ as meaning ‘the attempt to make sense of a whole society and its artefacts’.9 In
other words, she includes in each ‘reading’ of an artefact the entire context, political,
cultural, and artistic, to achieve a more complete understanding. This method of ‘reading’
ancient artefacts is an example of the lasting influence of the post-structuralist approach.
In Sourvinou-Inwood’s view, there are two ways of ‘reading’ an artefact; the first one
involves ‘reading’ an artefact ‘directly’ by attempting to make sense of it by means of our
own assumptions and expectations. The second way involves anchoring the artefact in its
historical context and seeking to recover the original meaning of the artefact and ascertain
what contemporaries would have read into it.10 Or as Sourvinou-Inwood argues, speaking
specifically about analysing ancient texts, ‘if we want to reconstruct the ancient readings of
a text, we must first of all place that text in its full context, social, cultural, economic,
political, religious, and generally conceptual, since it was in this context that it acquired its
meanings in the eyes of contemporaries.’11 But how can we achieve this goal and not let
our modern culture influence the research?
If we are to embark on a such a ‘reading’ of the korai of the Erechtheion, we must
use fifth-century Athenian filters and recover the assumptions and concepts
contemporaries would have employed in their understanding of the maidens; but we need
to determine, firstly, what these assumptions and concepts are and secondly, which
meaning they convey.12 Before we start with examining this course, there is one major
difference between fifth century Athenian perception and our own that I need to point
out. We, in our modern world, are no longer used to a conventionalised codification system
for stories and myths like the Athenians were in the fifth century BC. This might lead to
misinterpretations when small divergences within comparable images or different versions
of texts are overlooked or disregarded.13 It is therefore important to look at the version of
the myth which was most prevalent during the period considered.
No work of art, as we may call the group of maiden statues discussed here, exists
independent of its audience and context.14 A dissonance occurs when the original intended
audience and culture have faded away and the modern audience lacks the necessary tools
to ‘read’ them as they were originally intended to be ‘read’. It is no wonder that, lacking
9 SOURVINOU-INWOOD (1991) vi. 10
SOURVINOU-INWOOD (1991) 9. 11 SOURVINOU-INWOOD (1991) 5. 12
SOURVINOU-INWOOD (1991) 10. 13
SOURVINOU-INWOOD (1991) 13. 14
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these tools, most scholars have not attempted a full ‘reading’, instead opting to remain on
the firmer ground of archaeological analysis and historical contextualisation.
In order to avoid any partiality towards a certain ‘reading’ resulting in certain elements
being highlighted unjustly, we need to look at the whole imagery of the Erechtheion, and
the buildings surrounding it, as a collection of symbols and conceptual structures that
generate meaning by the interaction of the image, the viewer, and the archaeological,
historical, social, and religious context of fifth-century Athens.
Before we can look at the temple, however, a thorough examination of the korai
themselves is needed, not only of them as a highly defined group of six statues, but also of
each individually. As I offer these descriptions I will draw special attention to their dress
and hairstyle as these are potential indicators of how they were ‘read’ by the
contemporaneous Athenian. Making comparisons between the korai and contemporary
depictions of maidens in similar dress, like those on the Parthenon frieze, provides
information on what these statues might represent for fifth-century Athenians.
However, as we cannot infer how the fifth-century Athenians might have ‘read’ the
korai from the statues alone, more context is needed. We thus have to understand the direct
surroundings of the statues. To do so, we will focus on the Erechtheion in the second
chapter. An archaeological discussion about the Erechtheion alone, however, will not
suffice. The whole ‘northern sanctuary’, which includes the remains of the Old Athena
Temple the South Porch is partly build upon, the Pandroseion, the Kekropion, and the
North Court, needs to be addressed, since the relative proximity of these areas suggests
there are not only archaeological connections between them but also cultic ones. We know
from local mythological narratives that Pandrosos was Kekrops’ daughter and that she was
involved in raising Erichthonios. Depictions of this myth and other related narratives help
us understand why these cults are also archaeologically interconnected. However, not all
scholars studying the Ionic temple believe it to be the “so-called Erechtheion”, as Pausanias
calls it in his Hellados Periegesis.15 I will address the fundamental question whether the
Erechtheion really is the Erechtheion by discussing the alternative locations of three
scholars, Kristian Jeppesen, John Mansfield, and Noël Robertson.
As mentioned above, on the most basic level the korai should be ‘read’ as temple
decorations. Until now, however, scholars have not addressed the full implications of
speaking about them as temple decorations. Consequently, most previous interpretations
are based on architectural or historical connotations, while leaving out myth. A visitor of
the Akropolis in the fifth century BC would not have seen the korai as separate from the
15 Paus. 1.26.5.
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building they are part of, nor would they have seen the Ionic temple as a sanctuary separate
from the others on the Akropolis. In the third chapter, I will therefore focus on the
patriotic Athenian mythological narrative that can be ‘read’ on the temple decoration of
the Akropolis. If we, thus, carefully envelop the statues in their full context, including myth
and the connection to the other elements of the ‘northern sanctuary’, we can move closer
to a full understanding of the meaning the Porch of the Maidens held for the fifth-century
Athenian.
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CHAPTER ONE – THE KORAI
The portico of the six maidens protruding from the main building of the Erechtheion is
an iconic sight of the Athenian Akropolis (PLATE 1-2). In order to engage in a meaningful
reading of these statues, I will now focus on the information we can glean from the statues
themselves. After a few general remarks on the porch as a whole throughout history, I will
follow with comprehensive descriptions of the individual korai. In 1976, Hans Lauter was
given the chance to measure and describe the statues in detail.16 His book will, therefore,
form the basis of my descriptions, which will be enhanced by later perspectives from other
scholars. Subsequently, I will attempt to ‘read’ specific elements of the statues, such as the
garments and hairstyles, that are of particular interest if we are to make sense of the statues
within the context of the Athenian society of the fifth-century BC.
Throughout this chapter, and the rest of my thesis, I follow the designations Lauter
uses to refer to the individual korai as depicted in the image below: korê A for the statue on
the back row’s north-western corner, korê B for the one on the front row’s south-western
corner, C and D are the two in the middle from…