The most famous nekromanteio (oracle of the dead) of the ancient Greek world lies near the shores of the Acherousian Lake, where Acheron and Kokkytos, the rivers of Hades, meet.
Ancient literary sources describe the Acherousian Lake as the place where the dead began there descent to Hades, and associated Ephyra, the city located further north, with the ancient cult of the god of death.
The nekromanteion attracted people wishing to meet the souls of the dead, as these were able to foresee the future after having left their body.
Homer provides the earliest reference to the nekromanteion in his Odyssey, when Circe advises Ulysses to meet Teiresias, the blind seer, in the Underworld, in order to get an oracle for his return home.
The earliest use of the hill where the nekromanteion is preserved dates saved back to the Mycenaean period (14th-13th century BC).
The remains date back to the Hellenistic period. The sanctuary operated in this form continuously for approximately two centuries.
It was burnt down and ceased to function after the Roman conquest of Macedonia in 167 BC. It was occupied again In the 1st century BC when Roman settlers arrived in the plain of Acheron.
