Revisiting Mount Taygetos: The Sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis

“Artemis bearing the epithet Limnatis, was the goddess of transitions and boundaries, conspicuous among the Peloponnesians. Her sanctuary on Mount Taygetos, on the borderline between Laconia and Messenia, was described by Strabo and Pausanias as the place of murder of the Spartan King Teleklos by Messenian youths. Subsequently related to the Messenian Wars, the sanctuary became a symbol of Messenian independence, and after centuries of diplomatic and military struggle between the two neighbours, was finally incorporated into the Messenian territory, due to a Roman Senate’s resolution. In 1841, Ludwig Ross published his finds from a remote site called Volimnos on Mount Taygetos, above the Langada Gorge; inscribed stelai and bases built in the small church of Panayia Kapsocherovoloussa, attested the presence of a shrine dedicated to the cult of Artemis Limnatis. Other votive objects discovered in the area and delivered to the Kalamata Museum, affirm this argument. Nevertheless, an inscribed stele from Messene, attesting the presence of a Limnatis’ sanctuary above the Choireios gorge, to the south of Volimnos, created a problem still not treated by scholars adequately. The study of votive objects from Volimnos, exhibited in the Kalamata Museum, as well as the primary results of an ongoing survey in the area of Central Taygetos, may give some answers to questions arisen. “