SCHIROFORIE (Σειροφόρια). — An ancient Athenian festival in honor of Athena Skiras (to whom Demeter and Kore were associated), held to obtain from the goddess protection from the torrid rays of the sun during the agricultural work of summer.
It was celebrated on the 12th day of the month of shirophorion (= June–July) with a procession that set out from the Acropolis. The priests of Erechtheus (or Poseidon Erechtheus), of Helios, and the priestess of Athena took part in it, while members of the Etebutad family carried a white parasol (σχιρόν). Along the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis, the procession went to the place called, because of the chalky nature of its soil, Skiros, which was said to have been the first field sown by the Athenians and with whose stone Theseus had fashioned an image of Athena.