Sounding the mountain: Analyzing the soundscape of Mount Lykaion’s sanctuary to Zeus

The Panhellenic sanctuary to Zeus on Mount Lykaion, Greece offers the rare example of a persistent isolated soundscape from antiquity. Both architectural remains and ancient written accounts of the site are limited, ensuring that the rituals and athletic competition practices remain largely unknown. However, unusual sonic relationships in the lower sanctuary emphasize that vision was not the only avenue for ancient cult experience. Visitors today can experience startling moments of communicative ability between distant positions, often linking prominent landscape features with original building foundations or the hippodrome surface. Other architectural features appear sonically isolated within the ritual complex. On Mount Lykaion, the persistent soundscape of the lower sanctuary and its immediate surroundings offers a situated experience of how the site could have been organized and used by cult participants. The hippodrome was in use for nearly 150 years prior to building construction: could synchronicities in architectural foundations and acoustic accentuation point to possible acoustic capitalization in ancient structure siting? Moreover, what can a focus on ancient practices and sonic site engagement offer to better understand the limited physical and literary remnants? Research to answer these questions uses sound-based analysis strategies of written and archaeological sources alike. Recordings on-site use binaural recording technology and psychoacoustic analyses to detect whether and where sonic relationships exist between architectural and landscape features with possible roles in ancient use. The paper concludes with current findings, demonstrating how sound-based discoveries support alternate theories for ancient site dynamics as well as possible architectural alliances.