Rituals of a forgotten past

On a night a month before the great festival, the priestess of Athena gave two little girls [arrhephoroi] covered baskets. They carried these down the steps on their heads toward the old cistern. At the bottom of the second flight of steps they came to a cave in the north face of the acropolis. Here the exchanged their baskets for two very similar ones. These they took through the darkness to the Priestess of Athena. No one knew what was in the baskets. The ritual was probably connected to the myth of Aglaurus, daughter of King Cecrops. She had carried a basket in which a foster-child of Athena was hidden.