The Nekromanteion (or Nekyomanteion) of Acheron, the Oracle of the Dead, was the most famous in the ancient Greek world. Archaeological finds — Mycenean shards and a bronze, Mycenean-style sword — indicate that worship of the gods of the Underworld was carried out here from the 14th-13th century BC. The oracle reached its acme in the late 4th and the 3rd-2nd centuries BC, and was destroyed by fire by the Romans in 167 BC.
The site stands on a rise that once formed an islet on the drained Lake Acherousia, surrounded by a grove of willow and poplar (the grove of Persephone). Its morphology matches precisely the descriptions of the descent into the Underworld given by Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Strabo and Pausanias. In the Odyssey, Circe advises Odysseus to come here to consult the soul of the seer Tiresias.
The main sanctuary was a square building enclosed by a polygonal wall and divided into a central hall and two aisles, with an underground hall carved into the rock beneath it, roofed by 15 limestone arches. Those seeking to communicate with the dead stayed for days in the dark rooms, subjected to a special diet, prayers and rituals. Excavations by professor Sotirios Dakaris for the Archaeological Society of Athens confirmed the location described by Homer, beneath the church of the Monastery of Aghios Ioannis Prodromos at Lykouresi, near the acropolis of Ephyra.
