Silver obolus from Stymfalia depicting Heracles on obverse, Stymphalian bird and inscription ΣΤΥΜΦΑΛΙΑ on reverse. The obolus (or obol) is a Greek silver Coin worth a sixth of a Drachma. In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles ("glory of Hera " or In Greek mythology, Stymphalian birds were man-eating Birds with wings of Brass and sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims and were

Stymphalia (Greek: Στυμφαλία, ancient Stymphalos) is a municipality in Corinthia, Greece. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Corinthia (Greek Κορινθία Korinthía) is the area around the city of Corinth, located in the north-eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Population 2,852 (2001). The seat of the municipality is in Kalianoi, 41 km southwest of the town of Kiato on the Gulf of Corinth. Kiato (Greek Modern Κιάτο Ancient/ Katharevousa: -on is a seaside Town located in the northern part of the prefecture of Corinthia in the Peloponnese The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece. The municipality occupies a mountain valley with an average altitude of 600 metres. Mount Kyllene dominates it to the north east, rising to ca. Mount Kyllini or Mount Cyllene /sɪˈliːniː/ ( Greek Κυλλήνη /kyˈlːɛːnɛː/ Mod 2400 metres. The largest village is Lafka, but the principal antiquities are just south of the modern village of Stymphalia, a hamlet of ca. 100 inhabitants.

In ancient Greece, Stymphalos, lying in this valley of northwestern Arcadia, was renowned as the site of one of the labours of Heracles, the slaying of the Stymphalian birds. The term ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca Arcadia or Arkadía ( Greek Αρκαδία is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. The Twelve Labours of Hercules (Greek Δωδεκαθλος, dodekathlos) age a series of archaic episodes connected by a later continuous narrative concerning In Greek mythology, Stymphalian birds were man-eating Birds with wings of Brass and sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims and were Hera, whose presence is never far from Heracles was venerated at the site in an archaic form in which she took three phases, as maiden, matron and even widow. In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles ("glory of Hera " or ^[1] Pindar mentions an Olympic victor (a man called Hagesias) in his sixth Olympian Ode , and urges the members of the choir to venerate their virginal Hera, who was apparently a survival of pre-Olympian religion. Pindar (ˈpɪndɚ (or Pindarus, Greek:) (probably born 522 BC in Cynoscephalae a village in Boeotia; died 443 BC in Argos) was an Ancient The Ancient Olympic Games, originally referred to as simply the Olympic Games (Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες Olympiakoi Agones) were a series of Athletic In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera (ˈhɪərə or /ˈhɛrə/ Greek) or Here ( in Ionic and Homer Little else is known from literature of Stymphalos in Antiquity. Artemis was the principal divinity of the town and her temple seems still to have been in use in Roman times. One unusual aspect of the goddess is that her sanctuary is referred to in an inscription of the early second c. BC as that of Brauronian Artemis, an Athenian cult. Demeter and Hermes are also epigraphically attested.

Anastasios Orlandos excavated parts of the site for the Archaeological Society of Athens between 1924 and 1930. Since 1982, excavations of the site on the north shore of Lake Stymphalia have been under way, directed by Hector Williams for the University of British Columbia. Lake Stymphalia ( Greek: Λίμνη Στυμφαλία - pron The University of British Columbia ( UBC) is a Canadian public research University with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna Archaeological surveys and excavations have revealed a town refounded in the fourth century BC. ^[2]the later city was laid out on a grid plan, with six-meter wide roads running north-south every thirty metres, which intersected major east-west avenues at intervals over a hundred metres. Houses have also been identified, and a theatre, a palaestra, a fountain house, several temples and the sanctuary, where an inscription preserving the letters POLIAD. . . ("of the city") found by Orlandos in 1925, but now lost, seems to indicate Athena Polias as the divinity worshipped, though no further confirmation has been found. ATHENA was an Antimatter research project that took place at the AD Ring at CERN. In an annex to the temple several dozen loom weights suggest the further presence of Athena in a weaving workshop.

There are four early Christian cemeteries. Just to the north of the ancient city are the remains of the medieval Cistercian monastery of Zaraka, also partially excavated by the Canadian Institute. There are various other smaller sites scattered around the valley, but as yet there has been no systematic survey of them.

References

1. ^ Pausanias vii. Pausanias ( Greek:) was a Greek traveller and Geographer of the 2nd century CE, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus 22. 2.
2. ^ The Bronze Age and early classical Stymphalos has not been precisely located.

External links

• Stymphalos Excavations
• - Kiato Greater Area