archaeologist have found a sway engraving 20 kilometer ( 12 naut mi ) from Athens depicting what is likely an strange temple that stand where the illustrious Parthenon is now found . The graffito is at least 50 years older than the Parthenon and uses a term that had confuse archaeologists for a while : Hekatompedon .
As translations go , Hekatompedon is quite straightforward : the 100 - foot ( 30 - meter ) building . It had been found in decrees date from the time before the Persian attack and the building of the Parthenon , 480 and 450 BCE respectively . One decree hints at hoarded wealth storage of some sort , and archaeologists have debated if this was a tabernacle or maybe an capable courtyard with treasuries over the Acropolis .
The graffito is signed by Mikon , who ’s believed to have been a shepherd in the locating that is now known as Vari . The sculpture present not only his name and the word Hekatompedon , but also a drawing of a temple .
“ The newly published graffiti of Mikon ’s drawing off is significant . If Mikon call in his drawn tabernacle a Hekatompedon , then it is likely that the terminal figure Hekatompedon in the rescript referred to a temple too . Indeed , theParthenonthat stands on the hill today was once called the Hekatompedon , ” co - writer Janric van Rookhuijzen , from Radboud University , write in an clause inThe Conversation .
There are over 2,000 pieces of graffiti found in that position made by sheepman and goatherd that had been study by track author Merle Langdon from the University of Tennessee . The team worked out that Mikon ’s scribble of the tabernacle could not possibly be the Parthenon we can still see today in Greece ( minusthe marblesstolen by the British ) .
The key to that is in the ABC’s used ; Mikon had used a very ancient playscript , which suggests that it was doodle during the 6th 100 BCE .
“ The lettering is also pregnant because it shows that , perverse to what is unremarkably thought , sheepman could read and write , even at this early day of the month when literacy in the Hellenic world was still diffuse . Why the sheepman bring forth so many graffiti is not known – it may have just been a anatomy of escape during the dull moment of their chore , ” van Rookhuijzen explained .
The squad suggests two potential knowntemplesthat survive between 130 and 75 days before the first of the Parthenon was laid ; one is the so - called Bluebeard Temple and the other is the Gigantomachy Temple . The researchers decided to refrain from picking between the two due to more uncertainty on the history of the ancient Acropolis .
A newspaper discourse this graffiti and its meaning for ancient Athens is release in theAmerican Journal of Archaeology .
