The Goddess of Marriage Found in Greek Ruins

Greek archaeologists have found a 2,200-year-old statue of the goddess Hera, inside the walls of a city, near Mount Olympus, the place where ancient Greeks believed their gods lived.

The headless marble statue was found during the 2006 diggings in the ruins of ancient Dion, some 53 miles (90 km) southwest of Thessaloniki, Greece's second city (after Athens) and the capital of Greek Macedonia. "The life-sized - by human dimensions - statue had been used by the early Christian inhabitants of Dion as filling for a defensive wall", said archaeologist Dimitris Pantermalis.

"The 2nd century B.C. find appeared to have originally stood in a temple of Zeus, head of the ancient Greek gods - whose statue was found in the building's ruins in 2003 and after whom Dion was named. We have reached the conclusion that the statue of Hera stood next to that of Zeus in the temple," said Pantermalis, a Thessaloniki University professor, head of the excavations at Dion for more than three decades.

In Greek mythology, Hera was the jealous wife of Zeus, a notorious philanderer, and head of all gods. "The statue represents a female form seated on a throne, and is made of thick-grained marble like the one of Zeus. It shows exactly the same technique and size, which led us to link the two statues beyond doubt", said Pantermalis. "If confirmed, it would be the first time two statues of different gods have been located from a single temple in Greece."

The researchers suspect that it's also possible that a statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, could be found in the temple of Zeus and future excavations could uncover it.

Dion was a major religious center of the ancient Macedonians and Alexander the Great - a Macedonian himself - made sacrifices there before launching his victorious campaign against the Persian Empire in the 4th century B.C.

Besides many statues, till now, at Dion researchers have found ancient temples, theaters and a stadium, city walls, a hotel, baths and streets with a complex drainage system. During the early Christian era, Dion was the seat of a bishop.