The monumental stairs
Broad flights joining the three terraces up the hillside.
CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท ฮฮฯฮฯ ฮฮฟฯ โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Nljst โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Michael Schmalenstroer โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Entry is **about โฌ8**. โ **โ Three terraces joined by monumental stairs** โ **the climb to the top is hard work** (three successive broad flights), โ **and not wheelchair-accessible** above the first terrace; โ **but the first terrace is level**, reachable, and the whole site is visible rising from it. โ **Largely unshaded** despite scattered pines โ **start at opening**, with a hat and water; do not climb it at midday in August. โ **Uneven stone and ancient steps** โ closed shoes. โ **It closes one day a week** โ check. โ **Explanation is middling** โ โ **visit the Kos archaeological museum first**, which holds the Asclepius mosaic and sculpture from this very site. โ **โ What remains is foundations and a few columns** โ no standing temple; **the value of the visit is the plan, the place and the view**. โ **4 km from town**: taxi, bicycle or the seasonal **tourist train**; buses are limited. โ **The village of Platani** is on the way and its tavernas are good. Allow **an hour and a half**.
๐ฌ Ask on WhatsAppOpen in Google Maps โ**The hospital of the ancient world and the medical school of Hippocrates โ three rising terraces on a hillside above the sea** โ 4 km from Kos town, and the island's most important site. An **Asclepieion** was a sanctuary of **Asclepius**, god of medicine, โ **but it was not only a temple; it was a therapeutic institution**: patients came from across the Mediterranean, **stayed, bathed in sulphur springs and followed a regime**, then **slept in a sacred portico** awaiting a dream that would prescribe their cure. โ **Kos was the most famous of them** because the **medical school of Hippocrates** stood here โ the school that separated medicine from magic. โ **The site is built on three terraces** joined by monumental stairs: the **first** with porticoes and Roman baths, the **second** with the altar and a small temple, the **third** with the great Doric temple. โ And from the top you see **the sea and the Turkish coast**.
Broad flights joining the three terraces up the hillside.
Foundations and columns of the Doric temple on the top terrace.
Remains of the water buildings the treatment was built on.
Platani, 85300 Kos, Greece
**A mixture of practical medicine and religious rite โ and the site was designed for both.** โ **Arrival and preparation**: the patient came **from across the Mediterranean**, **washed and purified** and made an offering. โ **The stay**: they remained **for days** in the sanctuary โ **a dietary regime**, **bathing in the sulphur springs** (for which the site's baths were built), **rest and exercise** in the porticoes and the clean hillside air. โ **Things that genuinely work**, by today's standards too. โ **The central rite โ ยซincubationยป**: the patient slept a night in a **sacred portico (abaton)**, **awaiting a dream** in which Asclepius or his serpent appeared and prescribed the cure. โ **In the morning the priests interpreted the dream** and turned it into a practical prescription โ herbs, diet, exercise, sometimes surgery. โ **Cures were recorded**: patients **hung votive plaques** and models of the healed body part โ **and those plaques are our most important source** on the illnesses and the treatments. โ **What set Kos apart**: **the school of Hippocrates alongside the temple** โ **so clinical observation was advancing here** in parallel with the rite.
**Three things came together in one place: the water, the position and the school.** โ **The water**: this hillside has **sulphur and mineral springs** โ **which is the basis of the place**: bathing and drinking were the core of the treatment, **and the sanctuary was built around the springs**, not the other way round. โ **The position**: Kos lies **on a main sea route** between the Aegean and the East, **and hard against the Anatolian coast** โ **so patients reached it easily** from Asia Minor, the islands, Egypt and Syria; **and a patient crossing the sea needs a near harbour**. โ **The school**: **Hippocrates was born on Kos** around 460 BC, **and a medical school stood here** that trained physicians and developed **clinical observation** and case recording โ **giving the island a scientific reputation, not merely a religious one**. โ **And the compounding**: **reputation brings patients, patients bring money and donations, and money expands the institution** โ **so the Asclepieion grew across three terraces** over centuries, funded by those it cured and by rulers. โ **The end**: the site declined as Christianity spread, **then earthquakes destroyed it**, **and its stone was used** to build the castle of Kos.
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