Ritual and the cosmos: Astronomy and myth in the Athenian Acropolis

Abstract

The paper deals with the cult of the daughters of the mythical king of Athens, Erechtheus, who lived on the Acropolis. This myth establishes the deceased daughters as goddesses who are owed cult by the Athenians. It further equates them with the Hyades, a prominent star cluster in the constellation of Taurus, which they form after their deaths. We examine here the possibility that this myth not only narrates the placement of the girls after their death in the sky in the form of the Hyades, but also may have bound the constellation to certain festivals held on the Acropolis, which through their aetiological myths were connected to the daughters of Erechtheus and in which the participation of young girls (Arrhephoroi) was important. To explicate this cult, we explore its context on the Acropolis as fully as possible, through the visual arts, the literary myth, the festival calendar, and the natural landscape and night-sky, so as to determine whether the movement of the constellation of the Hyades was indeed visible from the Acropolis during the time when the young maiden cult rites were performed on the hill. © International Astronomical Union 2011.