Pelasgic wall
The Pelasgic wall or Pelasgian fortress or Enneapylon (Greek: Εννεαπύλον; nine-gated) was a monument supposed to have been built by the Pelasgians, after levelling the summit of the rock on the Acropolis of Athens. The wall was believed to be 6 m (20 ft) thick according to archaeological remains of the site.[1] Thucydides[2] and Aristophanes[3] call it "Pelargikon", "Stork wall or place". "Pelargikon" refers to the line of walls at the western foot of the Acropolis.[4] During the time of Thucydides, the wall was said to have stood several meters high with a large, visible fragment at 6 m (20 ft) broad, located on to the south of the present Propylaia and close to the earlier gateway.[5] Today, the beveling can be seen but the foundation of the wall lies below the level of the present hill.
The Parian Chronicle[6] mentions that the Athenians expelled the Peisistratids from the "Pelasgikon teichos". Herodotus[7] relates that before the expulsion of the Pelasgians from Attica, the land under Hymettus had been given to them as a dwelling-place in reward for the wall that had once been built around the Acropolis.
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Sketch of the course of the Pelasgic wall. -
Pelasgic wall on the summit of the Acropolis, south of the Modern Museum -
Southwest wing of the Propylaea and Pelasgic wall.
References
- ^ "Acropolis". www.brown.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-05.
- ^ Thuc 2.17.1
- ^ The Birds (play) 832
- ^ "Acropolis". www.brown.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-05.
- ^ Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides. CUP Archive. 1906. p. 13.
pelasgic wall athens.
- ^ line 60
- ^ Hdt 6.137.1
Bibliography
- Jane Ellen Harrison, Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides, Cambridge,
- Anna Maria Theocharaki, The Ancient Circuit Walls of Athens, 2019.
- Spyros Iakōvidēs, The Mycenaean Acropolis of Athens, 2006.
- Eirini M. Dimitriadou, Early Athens: Settlements and Cemeteries in the Submycenaean, Geometric and Archaic Periods, Monumenta Archaeologica 42, 2019.
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