Telesterion

The Telesterion ("Initiation Hall" from Gr. τελείω, "to complete, to fulfill, to consecrate, to initiate") was a great hall and sanctuary in Eleusis, one of the primary centers of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The hall had a fifty-five yard square roof that could cover three-thousand people, but no one revealed what happened during these events beyond there being "something done, something said, and something shown".^[1] This building was built in the 7th century BCE^[2] and was an important site until it was destroyed in the 4th century CE. Devoted to Demeter and Persephone, these initiation ceremonies were the most sacred and ancient of all the religious rites celebrated in Greece.^[3]

^ "Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander, Athenian Religious and Cultural Life in the Golden Age". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-01.
^ Translated by Nagy, Gregory. "Homeric Hymn to Demeter".
^ Smith, Sir William, ed. (1859). "Eleusinia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (2nd ed.). Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. p. 452.

[:1-1] "Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander, Athenian Religious and Cultural Life in the Golden Age". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-01.

[:3-2] Translated by Nagy, Gregory. "Homeric Hymn to Demeter".

[Antiq-3] Smith, Sir William, ed. (1859). "Eleusinia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (2nd ed.). Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. p. 452.

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