Greece Trip: Day 6

Here is today's.  Very few pictures because the museums where we for most of the day didn't allow photography.

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 5^th 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 4^th 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 8^th 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.

Bema monument at Berea

The 3 surviving steps at the Bema

"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:

On Mars Hill

Greece Trip: Day 5

Another note, sorry if these are a little rough, I'm simply typing them up each night and posting them without much proofreading.

A Monastery

Day 5: March 14, 2011

Today we were in Kalambaka, in central Greece. We were here to see Meteora (means suspended), the suspended monasteries. These are monasteries started around the 10^th century AD. They are built on top of rock spires sticking up out of the plains, some of them several hundred meters tall. Up until 1922 pilgrims and monks were raised and lowered in baskets, taking as much as 30 minutes one way. Then stairs were built into the rocks to assist in getting up and down. If the clouds are right they can appear suspended in the air, hence their name. There were 24 at one time, now there are 6 monasteries and 4 nunneries. The monks in the eastern world, the Eastern Orthodox Church, became monks to live a separate life devoted to God rather than like many monks of the Roman Catholic tradition that ran hospitals, orphanages, etc. They would spend 1/3 each of their time in praying, work, and rest. It was the Greek church that helped preserve the Greek language and culture throughout the Turkish occupation. You couldn't be a muslim and a Greek culturally. The churches were places where the greek language was spoken and taught and used.

Remains of a former monastery on a spire

Another Monastery

The supply lift at Varlaam where we visited

We visited the Monastery Varlaam. It was built in the 14^th century AD and then abandoned and rebuilt in the 16^th century which is when much of what is left today is from. Standing up in the monastery was a beautiful view looking out over other rock spires and a plain and large snow clad mountains behind them. This monastery has 14-16 monks living there and it has a museum and facilitates tours for part of the day. Sadly we didn't get to go up in the basket but hiked up a path and over a bridge, though they still use the lift (motorized now) for hauling supplies up. In fact, they will occasionally lower and raise a monk by hand, for old times sake. This monastery is particularly famous for its wall paintings. They have survived in their original form very well and better than most. We were able to see them (though no pictures were allowed) and they were quite beautiful and in amazing shape for being 500 years old. It was neat to see all the icons painted and hear about the meaning behind them and the different aspects of the painting. They obviously are not made to look real, but different aspects all have meaning pertaining to the person they represent or the beliefs about them. Icons from that time were painted by professionals who traveled around doing it, but they didn't sign them back then because it was for their religion, not fame. The church also had a holy section that only the priest could go into. This came somewhat from the tradition at the temple in Jerusalem of the Holy of Holies.

A Nunnery

The Greek orthodox (much from a presentation) are one direction Christianity went from the early days. When the Roman empire split the western half developed the Roman Catholic church while the eastern half based in Constantinople developed the eastern/Greek orthodox church. While there are some theological differences between the two, a big difference that cause division was that the catholic church recognized the infallibility of the Pope, while the greek orthodox church didn't, they resolved issues of belief through ecumenical counsels.

After this we traveled up to Thessaloniki in northern Greece, the second largest city in Greece at about 1 million people. The name means victory (Nike) in Thessoloy (the area) and was named after King Phillip won a great victory in this area. It has been continuously inhabited since it was founded in 316BC. We briefly stopped at the Byzantine Museum and saw some artifacts from the byzantine era. In particular we focused on early Christian tombs that have been found. It was interesting it wasn't until the 4^th century that crosses were used in connection with tombs.

View from on top the monastery

A 12000L wine barrel from the 16th Century

Old lift to bring up supplies

Another view from Varlaam Monastery

Cross from 4th Century Tomb

We then went to a Byzantine basilica, the basilica of Ayios Demetrius. The most important basilica in Thessaloniki. There are no basilicas before the 4^th century AD since Christianity was illegal before then. This basilica is from the 5^th century, so certainly on the older side. Demetrius was a Roman military official who was arrested at a Christian meeting. While detained he blessed another Christian who was to fight a much larger man in a gladiator fight, and he won. This angered the Romans who speared Demetrius to death. His remains are in the basilica built with his name. This basilica has 4 side aisles, and something I didn't know is there are always 3 entrances going into the main church from the Narthex to represent the trinity. This church was made a mosque after 1430AD when the Turks took over. After northern Greece was freed in 1912 it was restored back as a basilica though parts of it were destroyed in a massive city fire in Thessaloniki in 1917. Also in Thessaloniki we briefly saw the remains of the old agora and adium. The adium was like a theater, but was not built on a hill. A city wasn't fit to be called a city unless it had a theater or an adium and the culture that came along with it.

Basilica of St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki

Inside the Basilica of St. Demetrius

Our last bit of the day was a presentation on travel in the ancient world in preparation for seeing roads and places of Paul's travels. Travel has always been important and for much of history has been simply down by foot, that's what one is born with. Prior to classical greece it was all foot travel with only a little on mount animals such as mules or donkeys, or a horse if you were nobility. There were very few roads and the ones that existed were pretty rough and were usually more or less a foot path. Later the paths improved a bit for carrying carts, but they were just two grooves in the dirt or stone for the wheels and there were turnoffs every so often if carts needed to pass each other. The early carts had solid wheels and were quite heavy and pulled by oxen with wooden yokes since they didn't have harnesses and such for donkeys and similar animals. Once the Romans came though, the roads improved greatly, that is one thing they were known for. They even had distance markers every (5000 ft, a Roman mile) and maps have even been found with distances marked on them and services available at cities and stops. Most people could cover about 30-40km a day on foot (though it is said that Alexander the Greats troops could cover 100km in 24 hours providing a great military advantage) Paul did much of his missionary traveling by land which was rather grueling. Though he did travel by sea some which was the most efficient way for long travel and commerce. Traveling on the Roman roads and having to stop in different towns was one way the early church communicated. They would stay with other Christians and this allowed them to pass information and keep up on how different churches in different areas were doing. A lot of Paul's charges about being hospitable really make sense in this context. It is an interesting exercise to read the beginning and end of all of Paul's letters and look at the names and see how many are the same from people moving around and keeping in contact with each other.

That was pretty much all for today, though as I write this I smell cigarette smoke coming through the window and am reminded how popular smoking is here in Greece. It is far more popular than in the US, there is less stigma with it. Though it seems many buildings still don't allow smoking inside, though some do, including this hotel. However, this works well with the Greek desire to be outside a lot, all the cafes all have extensive outside seating and many have propane heaters as well so people can be outside for more of the year.

Greece Trip: Day 4

Day 4: March 13, 2011

Gulf of Corinth from Delphi

Temple of Athena at Delphi

Temple of Apollo at Delphi

We started the morning in Delphi waking up to a beautiful view at breakfast off the mountain out onto the Gulf of Corinth. This gulf is where many pilgrims came to then traveled the 17km up to Delphi to see the Oracle. Delphi is on Mt. Parnassus (2500m) about 1000m or so up and has a beautiful view overlooking mountain valleys including the valley leading to the Gulf of Corinth with 3 million olive trees. We briefly saw a small temple to Athena around the Delphi area. It is interesting in that it has a Tholos, a round building, one of only a few round buildings in ancient Greek culture. There was also a giant stone laying in the rubble believed to possibly have been from when either the Persians of Gauls attacked and started to demolish Delphi and large rocks came tumbling down and killed a few and so they left thinking the gods were against them. Delphi was a sanctuary for the gods. Maybe 1000 people lived there comprised of the priests and caretakers. Within the sanctuary area only the priests could stay over night and no one could die or be born there. Delphi was a religious, intellectual, cultural, and athletic center of the ancient world. The primary temple was to Apollo, as the story goes Apollo established the oracle there but it originally belonged to Gaeia, mother earth, and he killed a giant python, her son, in the process. So, to purify himself he went north and worked as a servant for 8 years. Apollo was the god of civilization, art, and music. At the time since there was no organized justice, if someone killed someone of something the victim's family would go after him. But, he could go to Delphi and pay a penance, either a fine or exile, etc, and be cleansed of the deed. This led also into the practice later that city-states would meet there to discuss differences or stop wars. There was a group called the Amphicteri (sp?) which was kind of like the UN of the Greek city-states. In the excavation of Delphi an important inscription was found from the Roman emperor Claudius talking about his 26^th acclamation and he references Gaeus the proconsul of Corinth and we know Paul was in Corinth when Gaeus was so it narrows it down to knowing Paul was in Corinth 51-52AD and that s probably where he wrote the book of Romans. People came to Delphi for over 1000 years until the 4^th century AD.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi

There was a presentation on this topic as well. The Oracle at Delphi was a woman who would inhale volcanic vapors form the earth that induced visions that would answer people's questions. People came with all sorts of questions, but the priority of asking them was Military people, athletes, poets, then heads of households. Her visions were usually kind of ambiguous. People would bring sacrifices and votive offerings to the oracle, in fact, if they didn't like the prophecy they got they might give gold to the Oracle and ask for another prophecy. Delphi was considered the center of the world, it was called the navel of the world. At Delphi there were many treasure houses used to store the gifts and offerings, often cities would try to have the nicest treasure house. They were built of local stone with marble decoration. The marble was imported from the islands, it was often done so by hanging it in the water on planks of wood between two ships to make it lighter. A retaining wall built here is interesting in that it is made with irregularly shaped, but well fitting, stones, this was supposed to help it hold up during earthquakes.

Polygon Retaining Wall

A presentation also touched on Greek athletic events. There were athletic games held at Delphi in honor of the god apollo. They occurred every 4 years. It started because Apollo served penance for 8 years but that was too long practically so they did 4 years. In fact these periods of years were called Olympiads and they were used to tell time, i.e. and event happened in the 2^nd year of the 5^th olympiad. However, olympiads were 5 years long since they counted the year at the end and beginning of the the games. Since we know the game started in 776BC, we have a good dating system for many events. The name olympiad comes from another of the 4 panhellenic games of which those at Delphi were a part of. There games at Mt Olympus for Zeus (the oldest games), the Pythynean games were the ones in Delphi, the Isthmian games in Corinth for Poseidon, and the Nemean games also for Zeus. During these games a truce/ceasefire was called in all Greece for the games and travel too and from. This was sometimes used as a time to try to negotiate a peace. For an athlete to win in these games was a very big deal for him and his city. In fact he would have food and shelter the rest of his life, kind of like today in Greece Olympic athletes can be made honorary army officers and given the salary even though they aren't in the military. The most impressive feat was to win at all four panhellenic games, kind of like winning the grand slam in tennis today. There were several different event including running (600 and 1200 ft and 1.5-3 miles), pentathlon, wrestling, and boxing, and chariot racing. The ~600ft running race was run the distance of a stadia which was a distance measurement of 600 human feet so the actual distance varied form place to place around 180-190m.

Sphinx

There is a 5000 person theater at Delphi overlooking the valley and we had a presentation of theaters there. They were used for plays and musical performances and talking. The one at Delphi held 5000 people, but some could hold several times that. They were designed in a semicircle with the seats ideally at 26 degrees to provide excellent acoustics so all could hear, even without microphones. In fact, at the theater at Ephesus the limestone used seems to echo high frequencies and muffle low frequencies to make the voices more clear. The events were usually free to go to as the events were sponsored by a wealthy citizen, as mentioned earlier.

Portion of the Frieze

The Charioteer

Model of Delphi

We then finished by going to the Delphi museum before driving to Kalambaka for the evening. The main attactions at the museum are a very large sphinxe from the 6^th century BC, and the famous frieze of Siphnos that decorated their treasure house. Part of it represented the clash of the gods and giants. It is one of the best preserved reliefs of the period. Finally, the most famous piece is the Charioteer. It is an excellently preserved statue from 470BC. While many statues were made in bronze then, not man have survived because they have been melted down and reused unlike the stone ones. It is a severe style and from the beginning of the classical period. It has great detail, it is a romantic realism. Very real but also idealized in size and proportions, it was about 1.8m tall which is tall for the time. It is considered one of the most important art pieces in the world.

Finally on our way to Kalambaka, we saw part of a 220km long aqueduct, sometimes covered, that brings water from springs to Marathon reservoir, north of Athens.

The Aqueduct

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

Greece Trip: Day 2

Sorry it has been a bit to get this posted but due to moving hotels lacking decent internet and the timeline of getting these written, here they are and plenty long to chew on.

1896 Olympic Stadium

Today we started by driving to the old Olympic stadium from the first modern Olympics in 1896. On the way , and yesterday as well, I noticed there is a lot of graffiti in Athens. Probably 1/3 of it is in English as well, from what I can read it seems to be a result of the protests, they are usually not flattering of government, police, rich, etc. But it is everywhere, ever Kiosk on the road has it on their doors/covers they put down at night. Many walls and especially corrugated metal doors in the sides of buildings. While maybe not as big a deal to Greeks, but certainly seems to at least to me, many stone and marble surfaces have been tagged. Many marble walls of buildings and even some statues have phrases, etc tagged on them. I suppose it certainly gives some character to the city, but is kind of sad too. On the way, Yonni also made some comments about mass transit in Athens, they have around 60,000 taxis and the subway when built had to be diverted around or sometimes go as deep as 20 meters, he said, in order to not have the vibrations from the trains destroy ancient buildings and structures. The original olympic stadium is the only one in the world built entirely of white marble, seats 70,000 people, and cost 1 million golden pounds. The first olympics were fashioned after a world exhibition in some ways, they lasted for five months.

Trireme Olympia

We then headed down to the cost of the Saronic gulf on the Aegean sea. On the Yonni made some interesting comments on universities. Due to Greek law only the state is allowed to have universities in Greece, though due to the power of European law now other European universities can have branches in Greece, but be solely there. While it seems unfortunate only the state can run universities, they do have an interesting provision that Greek police are not allowed on university campuses, with the original intent of allowing free speech, a kind of asylum for people to say what they want without fear of problems, but of course that rule has been abused. Down at the gulf we saw briefly a couple retired Greek naval ships and a recreated Trireme. It is an accurate recreation of a trireme built from ancient descriptions and sculptures. It was built by Greek and british researchers, partly as a means to test claims that it could go as fast as 14 knots, it can. This was an ancient warship with 3 rows of oars for propulsion and its means of attack was a ram on the front with wich to ram other ships at full speed. These were used solely for fighting, for defensive purposes. While they had 170 rowers and 30-40 other crew members, there was no place for sleeping and eating and living, that would all be done on shore. And in comparison to the Persians, all the rowers were freemen. It was this type of ship that helped the Athenians defeat the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. The Olympius, the recreation was used to help carry the flame for the 2004 Athens Olympics, it is now on display and is cared for by the Navy.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis

The rest of the day was spent at the Acropolis. Athens has been occupied somehow since around 3000B.C. And the first religious buildings and temples were built on the Acropolis around 600B.C., before that it had been a place for kings and rulers. The term Acropolis though simply means the high place in the city, and every Greek city had one. In 480 B.C. the temples were destroyed by the invading Persians. Afterwards in rebuilding the City the effort to build the current acropolis, and in particular the Parthenon, was lead by Themistocles, a leader in Athens.

The Parthenon from below and from the West

Greek architecture was a presentation done while at the Acropolis. The famous aspects of Greek architecture are the column types: Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian. The Ionic style, primarily from Greeks living in Asia minor, is defined by the curls, like scrolls, at the top, on the capitol. The Doric, the oldest and from the Peloponnese, is described by the very plain style over all with simply a large bead for the capitol. Finally the Corinthian was the fanciest with flowers and such for the capitol. When temples were built, they're designs were rather standard, they had an entrance, the Cella, and an inner area for the statue of the god to be. A temple was a pacle or the god to live, not a place to worship in, the sacrifices and worship was done outside, which is why the decorations mostly appear on the outside. In the Doric style if the front (facing east) and back of the temple had N number of columns, the sides would have 2N+1.For example, the Parthenon has 8 columns on the front and back and 17 on the sides. In the corinthian style, if the front had N, the sides had 2N+4. In the center of the temple is where a large statue of the god, for whom the temple was built, would reside. In the cities there would also be theaters and stadiums. The theaters were for plays and speakers while the stadiums were for athletic events. At different time periods of Greece it was done differently, but while at some times the Rich tended to have bigger fancier house, particularly later Greece, older times they would spend their riches on sponsoring events for the city, such as theater or games, etc. A huge part of being a citizen of a Greek city was loyalty and love for one's city, one desired above all else for one's city to do well and be successful and be a great place.

One of many wild dogs around Athens

The acropolis was had many functions. On a part of the hill which is the Acropolis is the Penyx (sp?), this was a place where the citizens would come to discuss and vote on the important issues that weren't dealt with by the parliament/delegates. Citizens were only free men from Athens (in respect to this particular site). It is said if not for this it couldn't function, i.e. if the slaves, etc voted. Part of this is that for a democracy to function, the citizens need to be educated and informed (actually George Nicholas a lawyer and statesman from the late 18^th century in America said something similar "An enlightened people will never suffer what was established for their security to be perverted to an act of tyranny."), this was something the slave and lower class weren't. It was very interesting that in the referendum votes citizens could not abstain or stay neutral, they had to pick a side, they had to say yes or no. While that may put on some pressure, it's not all bad. It could have some advantages if people in the modern democracies had to do that. Sure there could be downsides that those who didn't care would vote for the first guy or the slickest easiest guy, but it might push people to participate more early on. Say, in the primaries, if they knew they had to vote they would work harder to make sure someone who represented their views was in the final running. I think there are ups and downs to both aspects. The delegates that formed their parliament were chosen more or less at random from a pool of screened and eligible (i.e. had to have paid their taxes) candidates, they were only allowed to serve one year, they didn't want professional politicians.In Athens, daily judges were chosen at the Agora (city square and market place) and they made many decisions on daily issues.

On to the acropolis and the parthenon. Much restoration work has been done on it and it is continuing all the time. As pieces are found they try to put them back in their original place. If at least 2/3 of the piece is their they reconstruct the rest; sculpted by hand from the same type of marble, but of a whiter color so that you know what is new and what is old. The parthenon was built by Themistocles and the people of Athens in only 9 years in the second half of the 5^th century BC. Since then there have been turkish homes and harems on the acropolis destroying many other buildings and their materials used for construction, but the Parthenon survived nearly perfectly intact until 1687 when the Turks, while fighting, stored gunpowder in it and it blew up destroying vast amounts of it. The parthenon had a Doric style, with 8 columns wide (30m) and 17 columns (70m) long which follows the 2N+1 method. The aesthetics were very important to the Greeks, that is why they have columns and decorations when walls would work as well. And the top step before reaching the columns is actually curve down at the ends by 15cm that was from a little bit off it looks level, if it truly was level an optical illusion would make it appear not level. Also, the columns were about 2cm wider in the middle to counteract the illusion of being skinnier and they tilted inward a few degrees so they didn't look like they were leaning outward like they would actually straight, the til was slight enough that if they extended upward until they met, it would be 1700m high. The columns were 2m in diameter and 5m apart. It was built at the site where Athena and Poseidon battled to be the deity of the city, as the legend goes. Below the acropolis is the theater of Dionysus, it is the oldest in the world from the 7^th century BC.

Group Picture from the Entrance to the Parthenon

On a hill on the edge of the Acropolis is Mars Hill. This is the place where the Apostle Paul gave his famous talk about the Unknown God in Acts 17:22-31. We had a site presentation here about this. This hill was called the Areopagus by the Greeks first and it was where trials would happen. Ares was the god of war, and mars was the Romans god of war, hence why they called it mars hill rather than area hill The council of areopagus met there and was composed of citizens voted there who had tenure for life and had to have served a public office before then, and there was no size limit. There were two rocks up there, the rock of wrath and rock of shame where the accuser and defendant would stand, respectively. Many scholars and philosophers would gather here and that is who Paul talked to. They had a shrine to the unknown god there to make sure they didn't leave out any deities in their worship, so as Paul was waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy after leaving Berea he gave this speech there. It was really neat to stand there near where Paul gave this speech, though it looks different than it did back then because of an earthquake in 1651. Because of the old court there, the supreme court of Greece today is called the Areopogus.

Mar's Hill

The Acropolis Museum

We then went to the Acropolis museum after lunch. This new museum just opened in June 2010. It is built on 96 pillars over and excavated ancient city next to the acropolis. It is a fantastically designed museum with many statues and artifacts found and near the acropolis from the temples before the Parthenon and the Parthenon. On the third floor is a life size layout of the Parthenon and around this is placed the actual recovered pieces of the frieze (continuous stone mural around the top of the inner building of the Parthenon) and the metopes (blocks of sculpted murals around the outside of the Parthenon) and the Pediments the big triangle shaped massive sculpted stories at each end of the Parthenon (East and West, one telling of the birth of Athena, the other the battle between Athena and Poseidon). Nearly half of the frieze is in a museum in London from a long time ago, so replicas are here at this museum. The rest is attempted reconstruction or simply blank sections with names. The information for reconstruction and names comes form ancient myths and descriptions and from a detailed painting done by a frenchman a couple years before the Turks blew it up. Some sections are very full, others empty. The West pediment is reasonably intact while the East pediment is nearly completely destroyed and gone. The friezes are important in the art world and history. They are the first known art to depict movement and life in it, the movement and action of horses and men, a very realistic depiction as well. The Greeks were very much about a realistic depiction in their art, in their horses and perfectly proportioned bodies in their statues, etc. On a side note, it is important to remember all the statues and the Parthenon were all painted brilliant colors when they were made and are the simple white marble because of time other than a few small pieces here and there. To finish the day of learning a presentation was done on Greek education. Education in Greece was more than just school, it was the process of training a man into his real form, of raising up future citizens for the city (like mentioned earlier, welfare of the city was extremely important). They were taken to school by an elderly trusted family slave known as a pedagogue, this person was intended to be a positive moral and character role model in the child's life. They started school at age 7 and focused in 3 equal areas to have a balanced education: letters, music, and gymnastics. The letters were reading and writing and would involve memorization of passages as well. The music, interestingly enough, was not for becoming professional musicians (that was for slaves, etc), but for giving an understanding of harmony and rhythm, and the harmony between man and nature. The gymnastics was to provide physical training for the body. After completing this schooling around 14-16 years of age the poorer students would begin the family trade while richer students would mess around and enjoy life for a coupe years. At 18 they would serve in the military for 2 years before becoming full fledged citizens. While this training was only for men, women were taught in the home. This could be just household duties, but if that father wanted to, he might teach grammar, etc to the women. A side note that was given is that this wasn't a dishonoring of women by the Greeks, their way of honoring women, etc was by defining specific roles for people within a society.

That night after dinner, some of us walked downtown Athens for a few hours. It was about a 25 minute or so walk. When we were down there we got to see the tomb of the unknown solider the the ceremonial guards. It was neat, as we were getting ready to come back all of a sudden several hundred bicycles go riding past down the street blocking traffic for several minutes with lights on and blowing whistles and horns. According to a fellow there it is a weekly ride they do every Friday night for around 6 hours (assuming nothing was lost in translation). Very unexpected, but pretty cool.