By Nicolas Bard

Paleopolis is a small settlement of Samothrace, located on the northern coast of the island and is about 4.2 kilometers from Chora. There is today the Archaeological Museum of Samothrace and the great historical value of the Great Gods. It is the largest archaeological site of the island, which was in antiquity mysterious center. In this place was found the impressive victory of Samothrace, prehistoric walls, the medieval towers of Samothrace built by the Venetian dominant Gatelouzi, while the Apostle Paul’s stables, the monument to be the first, was also close.

The sanctuary of the Great Gods is a temple complex of approximately 50 acres, in which mysterious ceremonies were performed, dating from the 7th century BC, with the deities worshiped being different from those of the Olympian gods of the Twelve and related to the deities. They were near the ancient city of Samothrace-Paleopolis-and received ambassadors from other city-state cities during the holidays.

Indeed, there were several famous celebrities of antiquity, who participated in these mysteries, such as historian Herodotus, the Spartan ruler Lysandros and many Athenians, while references to the temple complex are made by Plato and Aristophanes. During the reign of Philip II of Macedonia and the subsequent Hellenistic era with the reign of Alexander the Great, the temple was a sanctuary of the Macedonians and during the successors of Alexander the Great the island was a point of conflict.

He remained an important religious location during the Roman period, with Emperor Hadrian visiting it and writer Marko Teentio Varron describing the mysteries before he began to pass through obscurity during antiquity. The location is also known as the place where the statue of the victory of Samothrace was originally located, which is today at the Louvre Museum in Paris, magnetizes the eyes and distracts the attention and admiration of all visitors.

The area of ​​the sanctuary was first explored in 1444, but the essential exploration began after the discovery of the statue of Samothrace’s victory in 1863 by French Consul Charles Sampouzo (based on Adrianople), and a few years later a French archaeological mission was sent. Shipments were followed by Austria in 1873 and 1876, which cleared the premises of Ptolemy and the Gallery, as well as some excavations in the sanctuary, Arsinio and the Mosque.

The great findings of the archaeological excavation were shared with the Ottoman government, so many of them ended up at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Museum of Art History, such as the statue of a winged victory and others in the Army. Along the way, however, some of the crates with antiquities disappeared. Sampuazo returned to the island in 1891 to search for the sections of the bow of the ship on which the statue of the victory of Samothrace was located, and during that period he discovered the theater of the sanctuary.

The French Archaeological School of Athens, together with the University of Prague, excavated during the period 1923 to 1927, followed by excavations by the Institute of Fine Arts at the University of New York in 1938, which brought to light the Palace building. In 1956 there was a partial restoration of the front of the sanctuary building, and since 2013 the maintenance program of all monuments of the archaeological site began.

The sanctuary of the Great Gods in Samothraki kept in his viscera great and inimitable beauty and aesthetic finds of antiquity, such as statues, figurines, offerings, coins and amphorae, many of which were removed and are abroad today. Samothraki is a cradle of Greek culture in the North Aegean and a part of a continuous historical presence, which needs further promotion, development and attention. Such an important center of culture in the Greek border must not pass into obscurity, but to bring out all its treasures into the light and claim the evolution and flourishing it deserves!