Terrace of the Lions

The Terrace of the Lions is marked by a series of marble figures crouched as if ready to spring, their jaws open in frozen snarls. These statues, carved by the people of Naxos shortly before six hundred BCE, originally lined a sacred way on the island of Delos to guard the path to the birthplace of Apollo. They were positioned facing east, toward the dry bed of the Sacred Lake, where ancient tradition held that the god had been born.