Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron: Where Girls Became Bears

The Story of the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron

On the eastern coast of Attica, where a small river runs through a marshy valley toward the sea, lies one of the most charming sanctuaries in Greece. Brauron was sacred to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, wild animals and childbirth, who protected young girls and women. It was among the most important religious sites in Athenian territory, and its festival drew processions all the way from the city.

Brauron is famous for a ritual that is not known anywhere else in the same form. Young girls from Athenian families came here to serve the goddess for a time, and they were called arktoi, which means bears. The ritual, known as the Arkteia, seems to have marked the passage from childhood toward womanhood. Painted vases found at the sanctuary show girls running and dancing, some in short tunics, as part of the ceremonies.

An old myth explained the custom. A tame bear once lived in the sanctuary, and when a girl teased it, the bear scratched her. Her brothers killed the animal, and the angry goddess sent a plague. To make amends, the Athenians were told that their daughters must serve Artemis by playing the bear before they married. Whether or not the story is true, it shows how closely Artemis was linked with wild creatures and with the lives of girls.

Brauron was also connected with Iphigenia, daughter of King Agamemnon. In the version told by the playwright Euripides, Artemis saved Iphigenia from being sacrificed at Aulis and carried her away to the land of the Taurians. At the end of his play Iphigenia in Tauris, the goddess Athena declares that Iphigenia will become the priestess of Artemis at Brauron and will be buried there. Visitors in antiquity were shown her tomb near the sanctuary.

The main buildings of the sanctuary included a small temple of Artemis, built in the 5th century BC on a terrace at the foot of a low rocky hill, and a large stoa shaped like the Greek letter pi, surrounding a courtyard. The stoa contained rooms that may have housed the girls or held dining couches, and part of its colonnade has been restored. Clothing and jewelry dedicated by women who had given birth were offered to the goddess, and inscriptions listing these gifts have survived.

Over time, the river flooded and covered the sanctuary with thick layers of mud. This was a stroke of luck for archaeology, because the waterlogged earth preserved fragile objects such as wooden items, along with a remarkable collection of marble statues of children, offerings made by grateful parents. Excavations began in the middle of the 20th century and revealed the temple, the stoa and the sacred spring.

Today the site at Vravrona, as Brauron is called in modern Greek, is a quiet place surrounded by fields and wetlands, about 40 kilometers east of central Athens. You can walk along the restored colonnade of the stoa, climb to the temple foundations and see the small stone bridge over the stream. Leave time for the excellent museum next door, where the statues of children, the votive offerings and the painted vases bring the world of the little bears vividly to life.