Lagina Sanctuary Of Goddess Hekate: Archaeologists Found Ceremonial ‘Sacred Road’

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - The so-called "Sacred Road" has been unearthed between two ancient cities  Stratonikeia and Lagina, in what is today western Turkey’s Aegean Mugla province.

Both towns have remained continuously inhabited throughout the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Turkish Republic periods.

Lagina Sanctuary of Hekate. Image credit: AA

Earlier this year, archaeologists found more than twenty 2,000 years old columns at the 3,000-year-old Lagina Sanctuary, named the center of Paganism, a number of ancient tombs and the Northern City Gate on the Sacred Road.  which are 2,000 years old.

The sanctuary of theholds worldwide significance for being home to the largest temple built in honor of Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft, magic and ghosts.

Bilal Soğut, who heads the excavations at the Lagina Sanctuary, told that the team will unearth the columns at the site.

During continuing Excavations continue and archaeologists now report the discovery of the 3,000-year-old ceremonial pathway between the temple of Hecate and the city of Stratonikeia.

"The Sacred Road was used as a ceremonial path for the Lagina Hecate sanctuary from antiquity to the present," dig site head Bilal Sogut, who is also a lecturer in Turkey’s Pamukkale University, told Anadolu Agency.

The 3,000-year-old Lagina Sanctuary is widely known  for being home to the largest temple built in honor of Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft, magic and ghosts.

"It is the most important sacred road that connects the political center Stratonikeia with religious center Lagina," Sogut said.

Image credit: AA

"In ancient times, priests from Lagina would participate in ceremonies with a girl carrying the key in front and a choir in the back, walking the Holy Road and passing through the Northern City Gate into Stratonikeia.”

The temple at Lagina is the only one to be depicted peacefully by the Amazon warriors, the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks, according to archaeologists.

Sogut added that one of the highlights of the ancient city of Lagina were its tombs, which will be preserved by archaeologists and later exhibited  in their original locations, to 'keep the burial traditions of the Sacred Road alive.'

Written by Conny Waters - AncientPages.com Staff Writer