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Pyxis showing a marriage procession: the bride is driven in a chariot from her parents' home to that of her husband. The Marlay Painter The British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum -
Fragment of an Attic red-figured loutrophoros, depicting a woman holding a loutrophoros. The British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum -
Red-figured loutrophoros (vessel for ceremonial bath water) showing a bride and groom. The British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum
On the southern slope of the Acropolis, south of Odeon of Herodes Atticus, there existed a small outdoor sanctuary dedicated to the Nymph, the protector of marriage and guarantor of conjugal happiness. Given that this sanctuary was not documented in written sources and lacked any monumental structure, except that it was defined by a small peribolos, its identification was established through the marble boundary stone (horos) of the sanctuary with the inscription ΗΟΡΟΣ ΗΙΕΡΟ ΝΥΜΦΗΣ (boundary stone of the sanctuary of the Nymph), discovered on-site, and by numerous inscribed fragments of vases that referred to the Nymph’s sanctuary.
In this sanctuary, the Athenians dedicated luxurious ceramic ritual vessels, known as loutrophoroi, with which they carried the water for the bride-to-be’s pre-nuptial bath. On the eve of a wedding, the bathing ceremony, the “loutrophoria”, took place: a joyful procession of friends and relatives of the bride headed to the Kallirhoe spring, near the river Ilissos. The procession was led by a child playing the flute, followed by the woman carrying the loutrophoros. The procession carried to the bride’s house the purifying water for her bath, which was considered to have purifying as well as fertility properties.
The loutrophoria constituted a social event, an integral part of the ritual for the transition from unmarried to married life. After the wedding, the loutrophoroi containing the water for the ritual purification were offered by the new couple to the Nymph to ensure them a happy and fertile married life. The sanctuary of the Nymph remained in use for an extended period, from the 7th to the 1st century BCE, when it was probably destroyed during the invasion of Sulla in Athens in 86 BCE.
