The old platform in the Argive Heraeum

Abstract

In his recent article ‘The Old Temple Terrace at the Argive Heraeum’, J. C. Wright discusses the date of the platform supporting the remains of the earliest Argive Heraeum—in other words, the uppermost terrace of the Hellenic (viz. Classical) Heraeum. Is it itself a Classical structure, or a late Bronze Age platform re-used to accommodate the first peripteral temple of the seventh century BC? Wright would connect both the platform and the temple upon it with the first stages of proper Hellenic culture, in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. On pp. 191 ff, he denies that I can possibly be right in following the oldest investigators and assigning this platform to the Bronze Age. But I must confess that his arguments, however learned, have so far failed to shake my conviction.