Jane Sproston Art : Aphaia

It's been a while since I did anything with the temples that I've visited in Greece over the years. I've had lots of different projects going on and different things to focus on. I thought that now would be a good time to get back to my temple drawings. The last one I drew was Sounio, my favourite temple. Aphaia on the island of Aegina is probably my second favourite temple. We've visited this early 5th century BC temple a few times with our last visit in 2013. Rather than catch a bus up the rather large hill that it is situated on, I liked to punish myself with a gruelling walk up the very steep ancient road that would have connected the temple to the sea 2,500 years ago. Yes, I like to do these things in 40 degrees centigrade. Sometimes the local people have offered us a lift in their car when they see use hiking for miles down some deserted road at midday in the middle of nowhere and we have trouble trying to explain that we actually like what we are doing! Such was the situation whenever I visited the temple of Aphaia. One hundred years ago it was completely ruined, however after archaeologists had excavated the area they realised that a large part of the temple was still there and basically put the stones back together. They also found the remains of a much earlier temple on the site.

When I first learnt about this temple while studying my GCSE Classical Civilisation it was always taught as the temple of Artemis on Aegina. It is actually the temple of Aphaia, a local goddess exclusively worshipped on Aegina. In some versions of mythology she was a companion of Artemis, in others she was the daughter of Zeus. The temple was said to be built on the spot where she was seen by the locals and then miraculously disappeared.