Cases 5 and 6:
Religious Dedications
The artifacts from various votive deposits displayed here reveal many characteristics of worship in the Sanctuary of Zeus. On the top shelf, left, of case 5 are artifacts from a votive deposit consisting of an informal pit with ashes from a sacrifice (see the photograph on the wall beside the case). In this pit were some small terracotta toys or animals (M I and TC I ) and several dozen miniature vases (P 2-44). It would appear that credit went more to the quantity than the size of the vessels dedicated. The only larger piece of pottery gives us the name of the dedicator, Aischylion, which is scratched on the bottom of a skyphos (P I ).
The top shelf, right, displays material from a ritual meal pyre. The vessels, of normal size, include utilitarian items such as lamps (L 187 and 189). The meal appears to have ended with the smashing of the drinking cups, perhaps by means of the rocks discovered in them. On the wall one can see the skyphos (P 1338) still in the ashes of the pyre with the stone (ST 651) inside it.
The bottom shelf of case S represents yet another type of votive deposit. On the slopes of the valley's eastern side, several hundred meters from the Temple of Zeus, a simple pit was discovered cut into the soft natural bedrock. Roughly circular, about 2 m. in diameter and 1 m. deep, this pit contained some 526 vases. Many were nestled inside one another and neatly stacked, and the pit cannot, therefore, represent a garbage dump. Different shapes were represented in rich abundance: the kylix (P 1022), skyphos (P 951), lamp (L 164), miniature hydria (P 1057), and kalathos (P 1004). Although the dates of the vessels range over at least two generations, all were buried together about 480 B.C. They may reflect an attempt to hide votive offerings of the Sanctuary of Zeus or some other shrine, for there is no clear evidence of the deity to whom they had been dedicated.
Case 6 contains other types of dedications made in the Sanctuary of Zeus. The silver coins on the circular stand were found in a deposit of ash and burnt bone from sacrificial debris. Although the circumstances of their discovery indicate that they were consecrated to Zeus, it is not clear whether they were deposited by a single person, for their geographical range is fairly large: Sikyon (C 901, 902, 904), Athens (C 903), Aigina (C 905), Phlious (C 906), and Corinth (C 1659). To the left of the coins is material from the destruction debris of the Early Temple of Zeus (see case 19, p. 60). Each fragment must represent part of the wealth of the sanctuary in the early 5th century B.C. This wealth includes a miniature double ax (IL 376), the head of a young man (BR 897), attachments from vessels or furniture in the form of lions' heads (BR 849, 896, 898), a votive plaque with the incised figure of a bull (BR 708), and (toward the center of the case) a lead kouros, or young man (Fig. 9), made from a mold. Another kouros, from Isthmia, was made from the same mold—an indication of direct commerce between the Panhellenic sanctuaries.
Fig. 9.
Lead kouros (IL. 201).
Little has survived of the statues of victorious athletes—another type of dedication common at Nemea. The olive leaves which once made up the crowns on such statues (BR 74, 109, 139, etc.) and scraps of bronze statuary which can be recognized as hair (BR 999), feathers (BR 1000), or an eyelid (BR 990) bear mute witness to the devastation the site has endured. Smaller dedications were less attractive to vandals and thus remain to the archaeologist. These include terracotta figurines of horses and riders (TC 38, 90, 131, 136, etc.), of a Persian warrior (TC 91), of the god Pan (TC 95), and of Zeus himself (TC 69). So too miniature vases like those already seen in other contexts abound (P , 54 and 55, 333 and 334, etc.), as do aryballoi , the flasks in which ancient athletes carried the oil with which they coated their bodies before exercise (P , 97, 239, 559). In addition to such artifacts known to have belonged to Zeus because they were discovered in sacrificial contexts, other, more prosaic, items are specifically labeled as his property. One example is the mug incised
On the wall between case 5 and the picture window is a PHOTOGRAPH of the open square which surrounded the Temple of Zeus. Excavations here revealed the pits which once contained the cypress trees of the Sacred Grove (alsos in Greek; see pp. 157-59 and Fig. 58). The cypress, sometimes associated with mourning, would have been especially appropriate to a sanctuary associated with the death of the baby Opheltes.
A STONE PILLAR next to these photographs has thirteen vertical facets above a rough "base" which was originally inserted into the ground (I 107). Near the top of the pillar is the inscription W POS EP IP OL AS , "Boundary of the Flat Area," in Argive letters of the late 4th century B.C. It would seem, then, that the Sacred Square at Nemea was officially called the Epipola just as Olympia had its Altis and Delphi its Peribolos.