In one of these temples, we see a forest of 155 columns. This was replaced by the Polycratean temple of 540–530 BCE. The temple created by the Rhoecus sculptors and architects was destroyed between 570 and 560 BCE. There were many temples built on this site, so evidence is somewhat confusing and archaeological dates are uncertain. It was replaced later by the Heraion of Samos, one of the largest of all Greek temples (altars were in front of the temples under the open sky). Hera may have been the first deity to whom the Greeks dedicated an enclosed roofed temple sanctuary, at Samos about 800 BCE.
Her name is attested in Mycenaean Greek written in the Linear B syllabic script as ?? e-ra, appearing on tablets found in Pylos and Thebes, as well in the Cypriotic dialect in the dative e-ra-i.
van Windekens, offers "young cow, heifer", which is consonant with Hera's common epithet βοῶπις ( boōpis, "cow-eyed"). In a note, he records other scholars' arguments "for the meaning Mistress as a feminine to Heros, Master." John Chadwick, a decipherer of Linear B, remarks "her name may be connected with hērōs, ἥρως, 'hero', but that is no help since it too is etymologically obscure." A. So begins the section on Hera in Walter Burkert's Greek Religion. According to Plutarch, Hera was an allegorical name and an anagram of aēr (ἀήρ, "air"). The name of Hera has several possible and mutually exclusive etymologies one possibility is to connect it with Greek ὥρα hōra, season, and to interpret it as ripe for marriage and according to Plato ἐρατή eratē, "beloved" as Zeus is said to have married her for love.