This volume examines thoroughly the origin and early history of the Heraion on the island of Samos, one of the most important sanctuaries of the Greek world. Topography, architecture and history of the sanctuary are traced from the ›Minoan Thalassocracy‹ across the Mycenaean expansion, the ›Ionian Migration‹, the first blossom in the 7th century B. C. with international relations to Egypt and the Near East and the building of the first two temples, Hekatompedoi I and II, to the time of the construction of the first giant temple, Dipteros I, in the first half of the 6th century B.C. and set into the geographical context of the contemporary developments on the other islands in the SE Aegean and on the west coast of Asia Minor.