Day 6: 15-March 2011
Today we drove out from Thessaloniki to the town of Pella. This is the site of the “newer” capital of the Macedonians. This is where King Philip II and Alexander the Great would have lived. Sadly, because of excavation work we weren't able to go out onto the actual ruins, but we were able to see the museum (sorry, no pictures allowed). The town was founded around the 5th century BC. The macedonians had their origins from southern Greece, they were from Dorian descent. Pella was a rather sophisticated design with running water going through sand filters and a sewage system, it was also laid out in an orderly grid fashion with 2 main roads crossing it with the Agora in the middle and the palace at one end. Pella itself was a very rich city with many musicians and other types drawn to the royal court. Much of its wealth game from the gold mined from Panger Mountain which allowed the financing of King Philips expditions to consolidate Greece under his control and Alexander the Great's military feats in conquering the known world all the way to India with 35000 troops and spreading Hellenistic culture and the Greek language as he went. Greek became the lingua franca of the known world, in fact it was primarily spoken in Egypt for 1000 years, which is why the Old Testament was translated in Greek, the Septuagint, in Egypt and the New Testament was written in it. There are always two sides to every story, while Alexander accomplished amazing feats, he killed a lot of people in the process, he was rather vicious in working to accomplish his goal of an incredibly large empire. However, there is the side that what he did also made Greek the common language and allowed the Bible and Christianity to spread more easily.
At Pella we had a brief presentation on Greek Mythology. The first mention of the gods was from the Mynoan civilization around 2000-1400 BC. They were often used as an explanation of natural phenomenon that the ancients didn't know how to explain, whether it was Zeus controlling the skies or giants causing earthquakes, etc. The Greeks were the first to represent the gods with human attributes, not being perfect. They could fall in love or even lie. They were all told orally until the time of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Within the stories of the gods there was much confusion and perversion in their relations. The gods were created out of creation. First were the primordial gods, such as Gaeia mother earth. From her and her son came the titans which then fought with the gods over control of the earth and the gods won. Zeus became king of the gods and the sky, Poseidon of the sea and Hades of the underworld. There were 12 different main olympic gods and cityies would pick a patron deity, such as Athens had Athena, etc. Though gods differed around the Hellenic world they all worshiped 4 of them: Demeter, Dionysus, Hestia, and Apollo. Besides gods there were also demigods which were the children of a god and human, Zeus in particular was quite a philanderer and produced many of them, an example of one would be Herakles or Jason.
We then visited the tumulus at Vergina. This was a place where 3 tombs of the macedonians from the 4th century BC were found. One had been plundered, one is believed to be the son of Alexander and Roxanne, and one is very likely the tomb of King Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. While very little in archeology is completely sure, it is quite likely in that the time and place are right and the style and hastily built style (King Philip was assassinated so there was no time to prepare beforehand) and the fact greaves (armor for the shins) were found that were different lengths (King Philip is known to have had different length legs) lends much credence to the fact it probably was King Philip. It was found undisturbed in excellent condition. It was an underground mausoleum type structure with a Greek temple designed front. The archeologists descended into the tomb from the top, kind of like grave robbers would, to investigate the inside, but they have left the front door unopened and undisturbed. The tomb is now covered inside the museum in excellent condition, much of the painting of the front it still there, though perhaps not as brightly colored as it used to be. This to me was an awe-inspiring sight, simply because this tomb was 2300+ years old and was in excellent condition, nearly undisturbed in front of my eyes. Inside the tomb were a pure golden box containing the bones of King Philip and a golden wreath on top made form 330 pieces of gold leaves and acorns. Also found was a beautiful box with the remains of his 8th wife (newest when assassinated) and another golden wreath as well as a preserved purple cloth that her bones were wrapped in. This is considered one of the most important archeological finds. The detail and beauty and richness and age of these boxes was nearly overwhelming. They were incredibly beautiful and the workmanship was very detailed and also knowing they have been so well preserved they could have come from a jeweler after 2300 years was amazing.
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| Bema monument at Berea |
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| The 3 surviving steps at the Bema |
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| "Paul" reciting I Thessalonians |
We then went to Berea (Verea in Greek) to see the steps of the Bema where Paul spoke. When we were there it was goofy but also neat in that a tour cruise that was also there had an actor dressed as Paul who recited a large portion of 1 Thessalonians. It was kind of neat in that it gave a little feel for what Paul may have been like. It was a man who stood up and started to speak over the crowd of people milling around spewing out ideas and some people would stop and listen and others simply ignored him. While there we had a presentation on God-Fearers. These were people in ancient times who were gentiles but were attracted to the Jewish faith and lifestyle. They were attracted by the monotheism, as opposed to the many pagan gods, and the ethical standards of the Jews. The Jews would let them worship with them but they weren't quite accepted into their society. There is archeological evidence for the god fearers, at some theaters signs have been found listing seating areas for Jews and god-fearers. While not used by name, they were mentioned in the Bible such as in Luke 7 with the Centurion or Acts with Peter and Cornelius. In Thessaloniki many God-fearers were converted to Christianity and often formed the nucleus of many early churches. They were often Paul's target audience, he would go to synagogues and preach and draw them away which would anger the leaders. That is why so much of Paul's writing talks about or alludes to many aspects of the OT because these God fearers were familiar with the stories of OT and would understand what he was referring to.
Tonight we went downtown Thessaloniki along the water front, the harbor of Thessaloniki. There are many cafes and higher end bars all along the waterfront packed in densely. It seems to be a very popular to place to be, even on a Tuesday night. Again, like elsewhere, many of the people at these cafes were sitting out on the sidewalk at chairs and tables with small heaters overhead. It was nice looking out over the harbor. We stopped at one for awhile and sat outside and had coffee. It was relaxing, then we had to walk maybe a 1 to 1.5 miles back to the hotel.
I talked about this issue of graffiti on Day 2 that I have noticed a lot of and I meant to post pictures, but I forgot to, so here are some. This is just a small sampling of what we've seen in both English and Greek.
In Athens:
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| On Mars Hill |
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