Plynteria

Abstract

Throughout the Greek world, women had charge of washing and dressing the statues of goddesses. Callimachus in his 'Fifth Hymn' describes details of the Argive women preparing to take Athena's statue to the river to bathe it. Best known is the specific Plynteria ("washing") rite at Athens in late summer (the twenty-fifth of the month Thargelion), when the ancient wooden statue of Athena on the acropolis was undressed, washed, and given a fresh, expensive, robe by women of the Praxiergidai genos ("clan"). The temples were closed for the day; no meetings of the public assembly took place. It was considered unlucky when Alkibiades arrived in Athens in 407 BCE on the Plynteria.