Structure, Sculpture and Scholarship: Understanding the Sanctuary of Hekate at Lagina

This dissertation creates a cultural biography for the Hellenistic Sanctuary of Hekate at Lagina that traces its function and meaning from the moment of its construction to the modern period. Built in the second century BC by a hybrid Greek and Karian population, this sanctuary represents the only major complex dedicated to Hekate, the goddess of liminality, magic, and crossroads. In this study, I demonstrate that her choice as a patron reflects distinctly local styles, and specifically addresses the needs of a people in political and cultural transition. The builders of this temple were only recently colonized by Greeks, and my analysis of the resultant architecture and cult show that the period was one of change and assimilation.;In addition, using theories of experiential architecture, I demonstrate that individuals' personal interactions with the sanctuary played a crucial role in defining the space and its meaning in the broader socio-political context of the era. By creating walkthroughs of the sanctuary, I establish how an ancient visitor would have interacted with the buildings and sculpture, and how this would have affected the significance that was assigned to the complex.;A comparison of the Temple of Hekate to its contemporary, the Temple of Artemis at Magnesia, highlights the uniquely local nature of the building at Lagina. The Sanctuary of Artemis was also built in the second century BC, and there are a number of commonalities between the two complexes in terms of their layout and their architectural forms. However, in-depth analysis exposes differences in their function, decoration, and the cult. I argue that these variances can be attributed to the sites' differing cultural identities. Magnesia, which had a long established Greek identity, had different priorities than the new, hybridized site of Lagina.;By also examining the modern archaeological histories of both Magnesia and Lagina, I demonstrate the importance of the sites and their remains beyond their original, intended function. Both Lagina and Magnesia played important roles in the history of the Ottoman Empire, as each played host to some of the earliest Ottoman forays into collecting and the field of classical archaeology.