 I would like to introduce you now the cave sanctuary for Dionysus and the Nymphs, and we're going to Nothengris and Caliphia on Chakitiki. My introduction is based on the paper of Ioannis Milonopoulos with the title Nature as Sanctuary and Nature in the Sanctuary. Since Neolithic times, caves and gris were intensely used. During that time they served as gravesites and only rarely as shadows or dwellings. A religious connotation through the connection with the underworld can be attested already at this early date. The notion of caves as a transcendental place between the two worlds was quite present in the human mind. Numerous caves were associated with gates to the underworld like the Sanctuary of Vemeter in Aloysus or the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Cape Tainaren in Laconia. However, these are really important or prominent examples, let's say, that belonged to a sanctuary complex but not served as independent cave sanctuaries. The most known one is maybe the cave of Zeus on Mount Aida on Crete where Rhea was hiding baby Zeus from Gronos and just to give you an overview what we have from the most known or most prominent examples. The god that was most frequent worshipped was not Zeus but Pan from the fourth century and his cult was widespread in Akkadia and Attica. And we know above Delphi we have Mount Panasos, there was a cave for Pan and the Nymphs, the so-called Corricane Cave. And before I want to continue just the question but what makes a cave sacred? Because we're always talking about this in this context and so I want to go maybe a step back to keep this in mind. As Mikiya Aida stated, a place in general receives a sacred value simply through his appearance and natural features. And with focus on caves we have a look on the words of Robert Wegman. He was saying there were no set criteria in antiquity for designating a cave as sacred. The selection was based on the randomness of local tradition. Non-fless the existence of certain attributes like running water, shade and pleasantly scanted vegetation could be interpreted as a sign of divine presence. So coming back to Milonopoulos also he's saying that just the human activity transformed those places into a sacred place. So not every cave we have was turned into a sanctuary but every cave had the potential to become one. So and with all this information I would like to travel with you all now, sorry, to Shakiriki which is located in Northern Greece and to show you the cave of the Onesos in the Noems. And this site I'm talking about now is part of my research project which is based at the University of Basel. It's founded by the National Science Foundation. It's called Coulson Sanctuary on Shakiriki and here you have a map on all my places I focus on and I have just one cave and just because I think no one knows Shakiriki so much. Just a basic introduction. It's a peninsula. It's a trident-like shape as you can see with the three fingers we say it in German or the three legs it's called increased. The first one is called Palena, modern Cassandra, the second Siphania and the third is Athos with the Holy Mountain Mount Athos. And the cave I'm talking about is situated here on the first leg. Here another map sorry this is in Greek. The sanctuary is called the cave is belonging to Sanctuary complex the sanctuary of Sus Armonis called and this is located near Arthitos. And why this cave is important the assignment of a cave, assignment to a cave to a particular deity is not always clear especially cults of the Onesos are rarely detectable. The exception is the cave of Caliphia which is one of the few securely identified caves of the Onesos in Greece. I exclude here the cults of private character that were performed in Roman times in caves. The cave or we're dealing now with fits into the Dionysian landscape where the god was associated with several types like we have voids here, a cave and a spring. And yeah this seaside complex combines all those features this can be linked to Dionysos because the cave we are dealing here with was surrounded by woods we have a waterfall that's not existing anymore today and it was a really nice area. And also as Katja Sporn the director of the German Archaeological Institute wrote an article about cave sanctuaries in Greece. She suggested that the existence of a water source was one essential reason for the establishment of a cult in a cave in general. Susan Cole stated Dionysos needed caves because caves were a source of the clear water required wine to its proper dilution for consumption. And taking also the mythical childhood into account which tells us that baby Dionysos was brought after his birth by Hermes to the names of Nysa and they raised the child in the shelter of the cave makes also the worship of Dionysos and the names plausible in this context. So just to give you an idea how a cave can be linked to Dionysos. And for this cave we have unfortunately also a literary source. Xenophon is telling us in the connection with the death of Akasilapos something he's saying while he was engaged in this operation at mid summer a burning fever system and since he had previously seen the sanctuary of Dionysos at Alphitos a clear longing took possession of him at this time for its shady resting places and its clear cool waters. And yeah he reached the sanctuary but on a seven day he fell sick and he became yeah and he came to his end outside the sanctuary. So this is telling something asked about the theoretical function also of this place which is interesting. Today Archaeological remains here you see a few from above also located so the cave is actually here and later just we don't have time to explain everything there was later established a temple of Zeus Amon and in Roman times there was another peak of the sanctuary so there was a bath which can be associated with the worship of Asclepius also and as you can see here the whole area was just discovered in 60s and 70s because they wanted to build a hotel there so you see it's really yeah everyone wants to be at this place and yeah here you can see a plan to give you an idea of the cave so it was formed like a gallery with two main branches that meeting here the one is east-west orientation it's 70 meter long and the other one is north north south is 11 meter long and you can see this here how is it located in the plan and it's the sanctuary is received from outside today it looks like this it's a little bit scattered because of the later building activities there so the entrance to the cave is this little narrow one is really you have to be really small and tiny to enter it and yeah just the remains that we can see today are a staircase leading up to a hallow niche and the entrance I just showed you was here here's a plan of the staircase here also the entrance and this is a look inside the cave inside the cave there was nothing there's no evidence for court activity unfortunately but excavation just took outside place there was also a geological research about the cave inside and the whole area around but basically yeah the area was explored around the staircase and unfortunately today it's a problem because the spring inside the cave was wanting to try because they piped everything to the nearby hotel and so the yeah that's really the cave is not in good condition and it's aging and colis collapsing unfortunately and yeah to the staircase I go first focus on the architectural remains for the staircase which was dated to the fourth century we can make a nice comparison to another cave of the nymphs also located in northern Greece this is the cave of the nymphs in Miesa which also got a little bit like a monumentalization in the fourth century with with a staircase leading to a niche or another entrance to the cave so this is here a comparison and I would like to draw and for the other features we have around here you can see the cave the staircase and there was in the fourth century also established a fountain house next to it because this has a connection with the later temple of Sus Amon because the temple was served with water from the cave then there was in Roman times a cistern and in late antiquity a water mill so you can see there was a continuity always using the water of the spring from the cave yes and just to give you here an idea how it looks today it's not really clear just here again for you as a focus point the entrance to the cave and the fountain house was located here this is part of the cistern from Roman times and in front there was the water mills everything is a little bit mixed up or you cannot really divide it here if you see it from the first for the first time yeah from the archaeological records unfortunately the layers are often disturbed here caused by the later building activities from the area but we have pottery from the Bronx age indicating in early use then we have this giveaway with concentric circles and then with linear decoration so this dates us through to the geometric period but for the divine presence of Dionysus we have just those shirts bearing the name of the god and they were found outside of the cave dating to the second half of the eighth century then there we have a dedication on an inscribed it's like an inscribed inscribed rim of a Athenian red figure gratae so there are some like this which yeah make it clear that Dionysus was worshipped here then also from the fourth century we have this marble head and there was also yeah a dedication from a priest of Dionysus which is also quite interesting but I skipped this just to mention it is important and for the numismatic evidence various coin issues of the city of Arthitias implies the presence of the Dionysus coins from the middle of the fifth century BC depict on the rivers a grapevine with five grapes in an inqueous square you see this in the right corner the picture is not really clear but you have to trust me here and this is a symbol which can be linked to Dionysus and while these early coins are showing on the operas Athena Aris appears at the first half of the fourth century then the head of Zeus Amon this is clear because also we know the temple was built at this time and on the rivers there is a Kantharos which is can be associated also with Dionysus here so this is interesting because we have the existence of both cults together for the fourth century which can be yeah the numismatic evidence is here quite helpful if you want to interpret it like this and the names are not really visible also not from the archaological remains or from the shirts there's nothing like but it's just something interesting if we go to Roman times there was the city or the colony of Cassandria and which incorporated the whole territory where the cave was located and it's interesting that then they put a picture of the nymph of Nusa there with baby Dionysus on the on the coins so there's like for them it seemed like it was important to keep the cult alive still yeah to come to an end other cults of Dionysus in the cave are just known from literary sources there was also a cave on Euboea this is in southern Greece we know just this from Pausanias for example and there was maybe also another cave for the Dionysus into Benghian mountains in Macedonia but the one we have here is according to the shirts with the inscriptions we found we can say this was dedicated for Dionysus and the existence of water make it also clear that it was for the nymphs we see where there was a long continuity in use so maybe it already started in the Bronze Age we have pottery there but this is not clear what the ritual was like but then it's clear the 8th century Dionysus was present in the 4th century we have this monumentalization with the staircase leading to the cave and the whole cave was then incorporated in this whole sanctuary complex with the other temple for Sus Amon and also still maybe in use in Roman times when the sanctuary had another peak yes and in reality we know nothing the truth is in depth as Demogrid is saying and thank you for your attention