Samothrace - Sanctuary of Kabeiroi (Sanctuary of the Great Gods)

Beyond the Sacristy at the Sanctuary of Kaberoi stood the Arsinoeion, the largest roofed rotunda of Greek antiquity (diameter over 20m/65ft), built by Arsinoe (later Queen Arsinoe II of Egypt) between 289 and 281 B.C. It occupies the site of an earlier cult building, now represented by walls and a rock-cut altar brought to light by the excavators within the Arsinoeion. On the hillside above the Arsinoeion are remains of an ancient road and a circular building.

Going along the middle terrace past an Archaic altar at Samothrace's Sanctuary of Kabeiroi, we come to the re-erected facade of the Hieron, built in the late fourth century B.C., with a portico added in the second century. At the south end is an apse (under which a crypt was built in Roman times), giving the building a plan reminiscent of a Christian church. Here, the adepts were admitted to the second degree of initiation (epopteia), probably after confessing their sins at two marble blocks outside the east side of the building.

Parallel to the Hieron are the Hall of Votive Gifts (sixth century B.C.) and the Altar Court (340-330 B.C.), the colonnade of which probably served as the stage wall of the (badly ruined) theater built about 200 B.C.

The excavations at Samothráki lie 500m/550yd inland. From the museum (behind the Xenia hotel and restaurant) a signposted path runs southeast, passes through an iron gate, crosses the middle one of the three streams which flow down through the hilly terrain and, after passing a viewpoint, reaches the first large structure on the site, the Anaktoron (House of the Masters or House of the Gods; ca. 550 B.C.), in which the worshippers underwent the first degree of initiation (myesis). The northern part of the building, the holy of holies, was closed off; in the southeast corner is a libation pit.

Immediately south of the Anaktoron at the Sanctuary of Kabeiroi, on a higher level, is the "Sacristy", in which registers of the initiate were maintained.

At the Sanctuary of Kabeiroi at Samothráki there are several altars dating from the early period of the cult. They lie between the Arsinoeion and the next building to the south, the Temenos. Built between 350 and 340 B.C., this was the first marble structure on the site, with an Ionic propylon which had a frieze of female dancers in Archaicising style (fragments in museum).