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Lagina 57 pictures 2.20 minutes HQ video The Lagina Sanctuary, which was a prominent cult center of the Carians is still famous today and is also known by the name of Leyne. Lagina Recent research has revealed that this region was inhabited from the Antique Bronze Age (3000 B.C.) on to the present. The Kings of Selecucid dynasty by virtue of great constructional efforts, built the Lagina sanctuary as a religious center and the city of Stratoniceia, 11 km. away, was the political center. At the Lagina sanctuary there are propylon (monumental gateway), the interconnecting Sacred Road, an altar (sacrificial and dipping place), peribolos (wall encircling the sanctuary), Doric stoa and the Temple of Hecate. The Sanctuary The sanctuary is surrounded by walls of about two meters in height, which also form the back wall of the stoa. The monumental entrance building, with three entrances and an apsis at the western end supported by four Ionian columns, is connected to the stoa with a door. From the monumental entrance gate to the altar, there are ten rows of steps leading to the stone-paved road. The Temple The temple, encircled with five rows of steps, located on an Attic Ionian pedestal, with a single row of columns with Corinthian capital, is at the center of the sanctuary. The temple is pseudo-dipteral with 8x11 columns, and is built in the Corinthian style. The inscriptions at Lagina and on the walls of the Bouleterion at Stratoniceia reveal that those two cities were connected by a Sacred Road and during festivities a splendid ritual procession carried the key of the temple from Lagina to Stratoniceia. Hecate, the deity of Lagina, is the grandchild of Caios and Phoibe, Titan descendants of the sun. Her father is Perses and her mother is Asterie. Asterie and Leto are twin sisters. Hence, Apollon, Artemis and Hecate are cousins. An Anatolian deity, Hacate reigns over air, land and sea. Therefore, in works of art she is represented as a single body, but generally with three heads. She is empowered to open the door of Hades of the underworld. Hecate is also the mistress of the dead. She is present at funerals and takes delivery of the dead spirits. She is the sender of bad dreams (nightmares), ghosts and spectres, but, as sender, can also defend man against them. At the same time, Hecate rules over oracles, magic and spells. Oracles and witches are Hecate's priests. Her principal attributes are a female dog, a female wolf, a mare, a snake, a hatchet, a dagger, a key, a torch, an earthenware pot and a crescent moon. Back to Turkey Index