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From Hora it is 3km to the hamlet of Paleopoli (see below) and, in a stony but thickly wooded ravine between it and the plunging northwestern ridge of Mount Fengari, lie the remains of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods . Buses from Kamariotissa stop nearby, opposite a small car park on the seashore. From the late Bronze Age until the early Byzantine era, the mysteries and sacrifices of the cult of the Great Gods were performed on Samothraki, indeed in ancient Thracian dialect until the second century BC. The island was the spiritual focus of the northern Aegean, and its importance in the ancient world was comparable (although certainly secondary) to that of the Mysteries of Eleusis. The religion of the Great Gods revolved around a hierarchy of ancient Thracian fertility figures: the Great Mother Axieros, a subordinate male deity known as Kadmilos, and the potent and ominous twin demons the Kabiroi , originally the local heroes Dardanos and Aeton. When the Aeolian colonists arrived (traditionally c.700 BC) they simply syncretized the resident deities with their own - the Great Mother became Cybele, her consort Hermes and the Kabiroi were fused interchangeably with the Dioskouroi Castor and Pollux, patrons of seafarers. Around the nucleus of a sacred precinct the newcomers made the beginnings of what is now the Sanctuary. Despite their long observance, the mysteries of the cult were never explicitly recorded, since ancient writers feared incurring the wrath of the Kabiroi (who could brew up sudden, deadly storms), but it has been established that two levels of initiation were involved. Both ceremonies, in direct opposition to the elitism of Eleusis, were open to all, including women and slaves. The lower level of initiation, or myesis , may, as is speculated at Eleusis, have involved a ritual simulation of the life, death and rebirth cycle; in any case, it's known that it ended with joyous feasting, and it can be conjectured, since so many clay torches have been found, that it took place at night. The higher level of initiation, or epopteia , carried the unusual requirement of a moral standard (the connection of theology with morality, so strong in the later Judeo-Christian tradition, was rarely made by the early Greeks). This second level involved a full confession followed by absolution and baptism in bull's blood. The only accommodation near the Sanctuary is in the tiny hamlet of PALEOPOLI, where the old and basic Xenia Hotel (tel 05510/41 166 or 41 230; ?43-58) offers a downmarket alternative to the smart but overpriced Kastro Hotel (tel 05510/89 400, fax 41 001, www.kastro.hotel.gr ; ?73 and upwards), which comes with pool, restaurant and sea views; there are also some basic but en-suite rooms (?34-42) down on the seashore below the kastro .
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