Kourion Complex (Apollo) post 1945 (1 of 2)

"72"

Cistern 3 discontinued from use. Possibly it was damaged by the earthquake and in view of the availability of spring water was not repaired. This cistern which one will find with the help of the general plan (fig. 2), near the east end of the large square, is shaped like a large storage vase. It has a settling pit at the bottom. One drew the water out of this cistern and cistern 1 by bucket.

Most of the pavement of the square has disappeared. The visitor will note small trenches here and there over the area it occupied. These are to show the drains which led the dirty rain water from the square to the lower ground beyond the eastern limits of the site. These drains originate near Cistern 1. They look as though they were to bring water into the cistern but this, of course, was not the case. The drain of Street 1 runs into the main square drain south of the south end of the Street. The pipe that brought clean water from cistern 2 to cistern 3 passed through the drain over a supporting slab which is still extant.

A stretch of the pipe line can still be seen just south of the Votive Deposit.

The Votive Deposits.

The Votive Deposit is to our right as we enter Street 1 from the square. It was usual in antiquity for a visitor to the sanctuary to make a gift to the god, possibly a juglet but more often than not a small terracotta figurine. In the course of time the quantity of these must have presented a considerable storage problem to the priests of Apollo. Probably soon after the earthquake of 76-77 it was decided to dig a pit, line it with a rubble wall, and pile up inside a portion of the many votive offerings that had accumulated over a period of some 600 years. The innumerable objects from this pit date from the 25th century B.C. to the time when eacn