The Healing Temple

As a pan-Hellenic centre for healing and medicine for the better part of eight centuries, Asklepieion is antiquity’s most famous institution of healing. Built on the slopes of a verdant hill southwest of today’s Kos, the extant ruins overlooking the sea date from the fourth century BCE. The institution saw its heyday during Hellenistic and Roman periods. This is where the science of medicine was born and developed thanks to Hippocrates’ school. His was a methodology that systematised observations and research on the human body. Archaeology notes that the medical school was replete with baths for hydrotherapy, fountains for drinking and thermal water. Excavation findings included wonderfully crafted and anatomically-correct votive offerings. The most significant findings to date include 17 inscriptions, 24 surgical instruments, 4 votive offerings in marble, and several coins.