Hieron ton Mehalon Theon

The 'Sanctuary of the Great Gods' was a sacred site from the 7th century BC. The most important religious retreat for the Hellenic peoples was on Samothrace in the northern Aegean Sea. The old gods celebrated there were so mysterious and deliberately enigmatic that their names were never written down and were known only to cult initiates. The Great Mother, who embodied the concepts of fertility and the Earth, was central to the rites; she would later be personified as Gaia. Prayer and animal sacrifice were the usual forms of worship. Among the initiates who took vows were the historian Herodotus, Lysander of Sparta, and Philip V of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. The Hieron itself was the largest unsupported room in the ancient world. Later, the site would include other temples, shrines, and a theatre.