The Necromanteion of the Acheron
The site long seen as the “gate of Hades”, though its identification is now questioned.
- Location
- Bank of the Acheron, near ancient Ephyra
- Excavation
- 1958–64 and 1976–77, Sotirios Dakaris
- Today
- Now thought to be a fortified Hellenistic farmhouse
- Destroyed
- 167 BC, by the Romans
On the banks of the Acheron, near ancient Ephyra, lies the site that the excavator Sotirios Dakaris identified with the oracle of the dead of the Thesprotians, devoted to Hades and Persephone. The site was regarded as the meeting point of the Acheron, Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus rivers and as the “door to Hades”. In Homer's Odyssey this is where Odysseus enters the underworld.
Myth and reality
According to the tradition, devotees ate a ritual meal, sacrificed a sheep and descended through dark corridors. But later research questions the identification: the ruins date no earlier than the later 4th century BC and the site is now thought to be a fortified Hellenistic farmhouse. The Romans destroyed it in 167 BC.
