KIRRHA
(Xeropigadi) Phokis, Greece.
The
port city of Delphi, confused even in antiquity with
Krisa, leading to speculation in modern times as to
whether there were indeed two separate cities. Krisa was
known to Homer and Pindar; it has been identified with
fortification walls at Haghios Georgios on a mountain
spur near modern Chryso, several km from the sea.
Pindar locates the hippodrome, also seen by Pausanias,
at the foot of the acropolis; although he refers to the
Kirrhan Games, the plain and gulf continued to take
their names from Krisa. Since excavation it has been
concluded that Haghios Georgios was occupied only in
the prehistoric period, except for small sanctuaries indicated, for example, by a double altar with an archaic
dedication to Hera and Athena. Kirrha is known to have
thrived in the 7th c. B.C., levying tolls on pilgrims to
Delphi until the city was destroyed by the Amphictyonic
League in the First Sacred War about 600 B.C. The site
of the archaic city has not been located; it was probably
close to the shore between the modern towns of Itea and
Kirrha (formerly Xeropigadi) to the E. Excavations at
Kirrha produced nothing earlier than the second quarter
of the 6th c., when the necessity for a port presumably
resulted in the rebuilding of the town. At Magoula, on
the N or landward side of Kirrha, excavations produced
material from early prehistoric periods as well as remains of the 4th c. wall. A large sanctuary, surrounded
by colonnades providing accommodations for pilgrims,
may be the Temple Precinct of Apollo, Artemis, and
Leto seen by Pausanias at Kirrha. Various naval buildings and Roman baths have been discovered near the sea.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pind.
Pyth. 10.15, 11.12;
Paus. 10.37.4;
J. Jannoray in
BCH 61 (1937) 33f
MP, 457f
I; L. Lerat
in
RA, sér. 6.31-32 (1948) 621-32.
M. H. MCALLISTER