Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

ii4 The Tritopatores or Tritopatreis

broken boundary-stone, found at the north-eastern corner of the
truncated triangle (fig. 37, no. 1) and inscribed

[HAB]ATON 'Not to be trodden,1
showed that the spot was taboo1. Behind it were vestiges of a low
circular tomb marked out by large stones. Beyond that in turn was '
a four-walled enclosure roughly trapezoidal in shape. In front of its
two eastern corners stood a pair of similar boundary-stones (fig. 37,
nos. 2 and 3), both inscribed in lettering of c. 450—400 B.C.

HOPOI : HIEPO 'Boundary of the sanctuary
TPIT0PATPE0N of the Tritopatreis.

HABAToN Not to be trodden.'

Yet another ancient stone, built into the southern wall of the
precinct, reads:

HIEPoN [TPIToPA]TPEoN 'Sanctuary of the Tritopatreis.'
Here, then, in immediate juxtaposition with the Street of Tombs,
was the simple dbaton of the fifth-century Tritopatreis. Within
a stone's throw of it stood till recently the modern Church of the
Hagia Trias (fig. 37), which by a curious coincidence, if no more2,
recalls the triple character of the local numina.

U. Kohler3 in 1879 published a similar but somewhat later
boundary-stone, which he had copied years before in the Central
Museum at Athens. It is inscribed in letters of c. 400—350 B.C.

OPO£IE 'Boundary of the sanct-

POTPITO uary of the Trito-

PATPEX1N patreis
H >-n

> &

-< N
>
>

a.

1 A. Bruckner loc. cit. p. 104 suggests that the actual apex, where the road forked, was
probably consecrated to Hekate.

2 A. Struck GriechenlandWien u. Leipzig 1911 i. 131 f. {supra i. 171).

The Church of the Hagia Trias was removed in 1931. Excavations conducted by the
German Archaeological Institute in the mound beneath it and in some neighbouring areas
proved that the whole site had been used as a cemetery from the Protogeometric period
down to the Byzantine Age (K. Kiibler, R. Eilmann, and W. Kraiker ' Ausgrabungen im
Kerameikos' in the Jahrb. d. kais. dtutsch. arch. Inst. 1932 xlvii. Arch. Anz. pp. 183—208
with plan, sections, and figs., K. Kiibler and W. Kraiker id. 1934 xlix Arch. Anz.
pp. 196—245 with plan and many figs., E. P. Blegen in the Am. fount. Arch. 1932 xxxvi.
jjj_357, H. G. G. Payne in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1932 Hi. 238, 1933 liii. 269).

3 U. Kohler ' Horosstein der Zakyaden' in the Ath. Miith. 1879 iv. 287,8v. in the Cm/-