Greece Trip: Day 3

Day 3: March 12, 2011

Here is the next day with pictures (You can click the pictures for a bigger view).

Picture from Lunch. Can you guess what it is?

We left Athens today and headed west towards Corinth. On the way we passed the straight of Salamis. We had a presentation on the major naval battle that took place there. In 492-490BC King Darius of Persia had tried to invade Greece and had been repelled so his son Xerxes had come back. He had been defeated at Marathon, but by this time he had captured Athens and was sailing to capture the Peloponnese peninsula which is connected by the isthmus of corinth next to the straight of Salamis. Before this the Greeks in Athens had needed some convincing to build several hundred triremes, but the famous Themistocles was able to do so.

So now, the Greeks needed to stop the Persians as a last ditch effort, they had about 300 triremes and the Persians about 350. So, they sent a servant, Themistocles' Pedagogue actually, to the Persian camp to pretend to be a traitor and tell them the Greeks were arguing thinking about splitting up, so the Persians wanted to take advantage of the moment and attacked the next day in the straights. However, because the straights are only 1 mile wide they couldn't use all tehir ships at once thereby negating their advantage in numbers. Also, there was a westerly wind blowing against them making it difficult to maneuver and making them disorganized. Because the Greeks were unexpetadlet ready and with those advantages, the Greeks won sunk half of the Persian ships and only lost 4o. Xerxes then went back to Persia because after the defeat he didn't to lose his important sea supply lines. He left general Mardonius in Greece to finish the job. He took Athens again and caused trouble, but was eventually defeated.

Corinth Canal

As we were going Yoni also briefly talked about the Greek economy which is based on four staples:Merchant Navy (they have the third most ships in the world under their flag and the most in the world are in Greek interests), tourism, agriculture, and light industry.

We then saw the canal at Corinth. We had a presentation here as well. There has been a desire for a canal there for thousands of years because it is only a few miles wide and saves a dangerous 400 mile trip around the peninsula. They didn't initally have the ability to dig a canal so they built a Diakos in the 6^th century BC, which was basically a road of types that they drug smaller ships across. The big merchant ships they unloaded and hauled the cargo and met back up with the ships on the other side. In 307 BC they sarted digging by Egyptian engineers said the sea levels at the two ends were different and would cause flooding so they stopped. Caeser then tried but died first. Caligula also tried but was told the same flooding problem, so he stopped. Nero also tried and got 3.3km done at 40m wide. Heratus Atticus and the Byzantines tried but didn't finish. Then after the Suez canal was finished they decided to try again. It was finally finished in 1893 after 12 years of planning and 12 years of building. It was actually on the same route Nero had mapped out. It is 6.4km long and 24 m wide and is 52m below ground level at the deepest point and has a water depth of 8m at lowest tide. It has a 1.5kmh current running through it. Today it is only used for small boats, much of it tourism, and there is no desire for widening it because of road transport and better sea travel. This canal though is quite impressive to look down its length, and it is unique in that standing in the middle, one can actually see both ends.

Temple of Apollo at Corinth

Ancient Corinth was a huge city, possibly with as many as 1 million people. It was powerful in that in controlled the isthmus of Corinth between the mainland and the Peloponnese peninsula and had a port on both gulfs, Lechaio port and Sencrai port. It was destroyed in 146BC by the Romans as an example and rebuilt in 44BC. There is a temple to Apollo (one of the oldest 7th-6^th century BC) and the old agora and Bema left. The Bema was where speakers addressed the public and where Paul was accused when he was in Corinth. After re-inhabitation under Roman rule it had facets of roman design in good plumbing and water supply and public latrines. They have found old pottery here. They found a piece from the 8^th century BC with alphabet inscriptions which indicates there was an alphabet as early as 1000BC, this is the earliest concrete evidence of an alphabet. It is interesting that at a similar time inscriptions have been found in Israel with Hebrew writing. Here also they have found a stone with an inscription from a Jewish synagogue and a menorah carving. Finally we saw an engraved stone as part of a road that says that Erastus the city treasurer paid for the road at his own expense. It is thought this is the same Erastus that Paul references as being a believer in Romans 16 and Paul is believed to have written the book of Romans from Corinth.

Stray dog that looks like a wolf golden retriever (For Jenn)

The Bema where Paul was accused

Inscription in the road at Corinth

Beautiful view from Mycenae

Fortress at Mycenae

Then we went to Mycenae was the earliest Greek civilization from 17^th to 11^th century BC. While others had been living there they can be considered the first civilization as one might consider people being a civilization once they have time for more than simply subsistence, when they can create art and other nonessentials for living. This was a fortress from that time and is one of the most important archeological sites in all the Mediterranean. Found here were 6 shaft tombs and a beehive tomb. The shaft tombs were simply deep shafts where the body and treasure was placed. The beehive tombs were shaped like massive beehives under a dirt mound. They were 33 layers of stone tall (~1.5ft per layer) and the stone above the entrance weighs 120 tons. While it was filled treasure when someone was buried when someone else in the family died it was dug up and they were buried there. The treasure seems to have been removed/disposed of when this happened so it is thought they believed it was only necessary for the crossing over portion. At the fortress is the famous Lion's gate. It is a huge carving of two lions mounted over the main gate and supported around using the Korval arch method (like the beehive). When the fortress was first discovered with the 6 (first 5, then another was found) shafter tombs a golden mask was also found and it was thought this might be the tomb of Agamemnon, but these were actually from the 17^th to 16^th century BC, not the 12^th century when Agamemnon would have lived. Though, the beehive was from that time so theoretically it could have been there is no hard evidence. It is interesting to not that much of what Homer wrote has been found in real life after subtracting a little exaggeration and story telling. So while Agamemnon was in Homer's stories, he may also have been real, or close to someone real. All this construction was just amazing though using massive stones to build the walls. While they weren't cut perfectly square and fitted like later construction, it was still immensely difficult since they had to place together odd shaped stones into massive well fitting walls. It was weird that the stones here were all made from a natural conglomerate making them almost look like a large aggregate modern concrete.

Finally to finish, we had a presentation on city planning. The first real cities came to Greece in the 9^th to 8^th century BC, it was just villages before that. They were on the coast with the fishing, fertile land, and trade. They had a grid shape and straight lines and they started building walls for defense. A sense of community and identity also formed. Then major aspects developed such as having temples and gymnasia and agora's (central marketplace and place to discuss ideas), and stadia for games. The Romans developed off of this with their style, though they always had a major north/south road and a major east/west road and they had real water and sewage systems unlike the Greeks.

Famous Lion's Gate

On a final note, while here in Greece, we certainly aren't going to starve. Every meal we've had we have ben kept more than full with plenty of past and cheese and mutton and potatoes to keep us quite full. And today I had a delicious fresh squeezed blood orange juice, while a little pricey, it sure was tasty, probably the best orange juice I've ever had. It's a good thing we are walking plenty while we're here though so we can still fit into the same clothes.

Beehive Tomb