What Dreams May Come. An Incubation Relief from the Asklepieion of Epidauros

Abstract

In 2009 during excavations at the courtyard of the late eleventh-/early twelfth-century CE church of Aghios Ioannis Theologhos at the site of Palio Ligourio, the first incubation relief from the Asklepieion of Epidauros was unearthed (Epidauros Museum inv. no. 1305). The relief, dated to the beginning of the fourth century and, probably, imported from Athens, depicts an incubation scene and the associated dream. Asklepios and his wife, Epione, preside over their sons, Machaon and Podaleirios, conveying the power of healing to an ailing man, reclining on a stibas, until now not documented otherwise in the sanctuary of Epidauros.