We visited some more ruins today. This was part of a Roman theater. In building the wall, the Romans used some block that was laying around from earlier times, and just by coincidence used block that had the law code of Gortyn inscribed on it. The Romans used the blocks in random order. Archeologists rebuilt the wall using the same blocks, but put them in order so once could (theoretically) read the code as it was originally inscribed.

Tree where Zeus mated with Europa

Another sure winner was the tree where Zeus mated with Europa. It’s an amazing piece of archaeological work. These mythical events can be hard to pinpoint. Actually, the Greeks are still pagans in some ways. If there’s a mountain top that needs a temple for Zeus, they build a Church on the mountaintop and dedicate it to Isaiah. And if a fishing village needs a temple for Neptune, they build a Church and dedicate it to St. Nicholas. (No relation to the Western Christmas character.)

Phaistos Disk

We visited another Mayan palace, this one at Phaistos. I’m sure you will be amazed to learn that this is where the famous Phaistos Disk was found. It allegedly is an early use of printing with moveable type. To bad it’s in Linear-A so we can’t read it. Why did we ever need Gutenberg? His expertise with metallurgy, fonts, and systems of locking type into a frame were justs incidental. Or maybe practical printing was a little harder than some lay people think.

Libyan Sea

We finished up the day at the Libyan Sea. The temperature was mild. The breeze was refreshing, and the water was beautiful. Life can be hard.

Bull and Olive Tree

We arrived in Crete late last night. Dinners are very long – 2 to 3 hours. My butt gets sore. Especially when we don’t start dinner until after 8. We spent much of the day on the Minoans. We visited Knossos Palace and the local art museum with much of the discovered Minoan art. The Minoans had an amazing civilization. It’s quite obvious that the mysterious people in Akrotiri started out as Minoans, and equally obvious they surpassed the Minoans in their culture.

Minoan Palace Water Pipe

We know very little about the Minoans because we haven’t been able to decipher their written language, which we call Linear A. In addition, when the Minoan civilization fell they never revived. There is no later civilization with writings referring to their ancestors. We don’t even know what they called themselves. The only thing we can do is guess from the ruins and artwork that they left behind.

Throne Room

For example, we saw this throne room. The archaeologist who excavated Knossos, Arthur Evans, used primitive techniques. He reconstructed the palace with cement, and he wasn’t afraid to use his imagination when filling in the details. We don’t know whether the Minoans had a single ruler, whether he was a king, the chief land owner, or something else.

Man Leaping Over Bull

Minoan art shows the same free forms and open expression found at Akrotiri. This painting shows a man literally grabbing a bull by the horns, throwing himself over the bull’s back, then landing on his feet behind the bull. (This fresco is a reproduction.) But we don’t know whether the Minoan’s actually did this or whether it was some kind of idealized mythical story. We do get glimpses of their civilization, but there are plenty of tantalizing questions.

Man Leaping over Bull

Here are a couple of more pics. This is a depiction of a man in the air, probably the man in the fresco as he does his bouncing handstand off the bull’s back. I’ll put a couple of more pics below.

Swinging Man. Looks playful, doesn’t he?

Woman’s Head

Bull’s Head

Welcome to my new home!

Just about all buildings in Santorini were destroyed by an earthquake in 1959. A few have never been repaired and are still for sale. I decided this would be a nice place to live. I’ll call the agent when we get home. Don’t tell Danita. I want to surprise her. I’m confident she will be very surprised.

Bell Tower

We toured a few more villages on the island, then spent some time at a black sand beach. Santorini is certainly a beautiful island, but it also suffers greatly from overbuilding. All trash has to be compacted and shipped off island. Much of the water comes from desalinization plants and is not really fit to drink. The rest of the water and other utilities comes via under-the sea cables and pipes, or by boat. Santorini has plenty of arable land, but it’s mostly taken up by the tourist industry. It’s a beautiful place to visit, but it is facing some large challenges. Here are a few pics from the island.

A Village Square

Disembarking the Ferry

Motivation not to dawdle when disembarking. It’s almost like the running of the bulls.

House basement with Decorated Storage Vases

We had an amazing visit to the archeological site on the southern edge of the island near the village of Akrotiri; followed by a tour of the corresponding Museum of Prehistoric Thera. People have lived at this site since the 5th century BC. The more recent inhabitants were the most interesting. These people lived here in the 2nd century BC. They came from the island of Crete and were originally part of the Minoan civilization. Once established on the island of Santorini, they developed a civilization that was incredibly wealthy and was 1000 years in advance of anybody else.

Very Expensive wood Coffee Table

The dig is totally enclosed in a building. The roof automatically adjusts to control the amount of light. Temperature and humidity are also controlled. All this was done when Greece had a totalitarian government. The government wanted to emphasize Greece’s contributions to civilization to encourage tourism and made unlimited funds available to the Athens University school of archeology. Today, there are barely enough funds to maintain the existing infrastructure. No archeological progress is being made, but what we can see is almost unbelievable.

2 story house with toilet and sewage

The firsts pic shows the basement of a house which had some large jugs for storing supplies. In spite of this being basement storage, the jugs were elegantly decorated. The second picture shows an extremely expensive wooden table. Like all wood, the table was burnt and recovered, as I will reveal soon. This pic shows they had 2-story houses with toilets and a sewage system (circled in red). All this 4,000 years ago!

Village Square

The village itself was large. The archeologists discovered a village square, which means the community was planned. The incredibly large window you see in the house at one side of  the square was probably to provide extra light and ventilation to people working on a loom. These people had both wool and linen. Cotton and silk would not be available for quite a while.

Dolphins Swimming in Water

The museum contained some of the art found at the site. Jugs were decorated with dolphins swimming in the water, birds in flight, and other abstract concepts. Some of their art looked quite modern. The sophistication of the art was not available in any other western society for 1000 or 1500 years. The freedom of the lines indicates the society was free — probably an self-governing aristocracy. There is no indication these people had a king, emperor, or other ruler.

Early writing

The people had a very advanced notion of trade. Scales and weights were found, allowing the precise measure of goods. Archeologists found indications of the beginning of writing. All manor of advanced technology was found, including the ability to hollow out marble to make cups, and advanced bronze processing.

Fresco of fashionable woman with makeup and painted nails

The frescos were particularly incredible. The medium itself requires assurance and free-flowing lines. The painting and drawing are done on moist plaster. They cannot be redone or fixed. The subject of the frescos is equally informative. This fresco is of an extremely fashionable woman, with a fancy double-skirt, full makeup, jewlery, and even painted fingernails. One can easily discern her sense of self. This is nothing like the stilted characters Egypt and other civilizations were creating at the time. The picture below is of dancing monkeys. Monkeys didn’t live in Greece. This fresco shows how much traveling people in this society did. Up to this time, every character was presented in profile. The monkey circled in red is the first known instance of an artist rendering a frontal view of a face. And the last, for a very, very long time.

Fresco of Dancing Monkeys

The visit was delightful, in part because I had not read anything about these people. The city was abandoned in 1628 BC when the volcano made its very large eruption. The city was buried just as Pompeii was. But the citizens had plenty of warning. They were able to pack up their valuables and leave the city. They took all their jewelry and precious metals. Pumice covered the island. Anything organic burned. Wooden objects, such as the coffee table above, left a void in the pumice. Archaeologists used this as a mold and poured plaster of paris into the void to discover the object.

Solid gold Ibis

This is the only precious object found. It is a gold Ibis. There was a large pile of animal horns, which archaeologists determined was from sacrificed animals. They found a clay box at the bottom of the pile of horns. Inside the clay box was a wooden box. Inside the wooden box was the Ibis.

Our guide promised to tell us more about these people as well as the Minoans. But we will have to wait until later in the trip to learn what she has to say.

Jug decorated with flying bird

Tonight, we will visit a winery on the edge of the cliff to enjoy some locally produced wine and an amazing view. Dinner will follow.

Fira with Donkey Trail

The island of Santorini is a volcano. In 1600 BC, it had one of the largest eruptions in Earth’s history, probably killing off the Minoan civilization. The eruption created a huge peak, which collapsed from its own weight. What’s left is an island with 1000 foot high cliffs, with the water in the harbor another 1000 feet deep. It’s quite dramatic. This is a picture of Fira, the main village, with the donkey trail leading up from the harbor. Fortunately, our tour company took us up the hill on a bus.

Oia

There’s only one harbor on Santorini island, and only one road going up the hill. The ride is quite exciting for the uninitiated. After checking into our hotel, we took the bus up to Oia, the other main village on the island. The entire island is given over to tourism. They have arable land, but there are so many houses and hotels on the island, they have given up their farming in favor of tourism.

Unseen Scene

Winds can be quite intense. We heard the rattling of doors and windows in the lobby this morning. Protective canvas covers at our outdoor restaurant spent the evening flapping loudly in the breeze. I never saw the most photogenic part of Oia because there were too many people. Instead, I offer this picture, which I found in a magazine.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the church on the Oia village square.

Oia Church

Ringing the Bells

100 Year Old Olive Tree

We’ve spent the last two days on the island of Paros. Paros has fertile soil, plenty of water, and was an important source of marble in the classic period. Today, it has a good, balanced economy with just a small amount of tourism. It is what I think of when I think of modern Greece. This picture shows an olive tree with an incredible trunk. It is probably 100 years old and still producing olives. The olive tree is really a bush. The impressive trunk is actually several bushes mingled together. The colors are strange because I shot the picture through a bus window. The window had some kind of sun tinting.

Church

Here’s a picture of the church in the village square, with some stunning flowers in the foreground. Many Greek families have two houses. They came from a village but had little opportunities for a job. They moved to a city and bought a house or apartment. Then they inherited the house of their parents (or grandparents). There’s no real point in trying to sell the parent’s house, so they use it as a summer home.

Village Alleyway

Greek cities are filled with tiny little alleys that wind around. This provided protection against the wind (which can be fierce), more shade in the street, and protection against pirates. So says our guide, and who am I to argue with the guide? The Greeks continue this idea even in new towns. It’s just how things are supposed to be, I suppose.

Paros Village

Here’s an overview of a village on Paros. It was quite scenic and relaxing. But I’m not alone in thinking that 2 1/2 days may have been a longer stay than we needed. The weather here has been at or near 100 degrees the last two days. It is much hotter than normal, and much hotter than was forecast. Everybody on the tour has said they would have packed differently if they had known what the weather would be.

Church in two different lights

This pic is of a famous Church which started at 5 separate chapels and was combined with additional construction into one building. It’s iconic, but I included it because it shows how dramatic the light can be in Greece. The two pictures are of the same building. One is shot with the sun setting behind the building. The other is from the other side with the sunset light shining on the building.

Windmills

This is the other iconic view of old town Mykonos. The windmills were the primary source of income before 1970. There was almost no farming, but steady winds. These mills ground much of the grain for Greece. The picture also gives an idea of the crowds of people in town. We walked through Little Venice and I felt uncomfortable from the crowding. This was with only one cruise ship in port. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like when there are 5 or 6 ships in port (which is a common thing).

Delos Today

Today we visited Delos, a 20-minute ride in a small ferry. Once Delos was the most important city in the Aegean sea, and one of the most important in the world. Today, it is a total ruin. Only a few guards live on the island. Back in the day, Delos was populated because it had trees, a river, and a lake. The Greeks needed a place to rest and provision their ships.

Lions in Adoration for the birth of Apollo

Before long, it had become a religious sanctuary for all of Greece. When Athens defeated the Persians and formed the Athens league, they stored the league treasure on Delos, and the island became even more important.  As I wrote yesterday, Athens moved the treasury to their own city and used it to build the Acropolis. This triggered the Peloponnesian wars, which Athens lost.

Villa of Dionysos

This was the end of an era, but it also created new opportunities. It removed Athens from control of Delos. Delos quickly became even more important as an international free-trade zone. Every major country had representation on the island, and almost everything was traded. The major profit was in wheat and slaves. The ultra-rich came to the island to show off and make themselves even richer through business and trade. The Villa of Dionysos (named after the subject of the mosaic on the floor of the courtyard) was the biggest and richest house.

Phallus represents Dionysus (Bacchus)

This was definitely a place where the tour guide added a lot to the visit. With very little to see, a lot of interpretation is required to understand the importance of Delos to the ancient world. The most entertaining ruin was the temple to Dionysus, which the Romans renamed Bacchus. The god of wine, dancing, and emotional excess was represented with two statues of a phallus.

Rock Wall Construction without Mortar

Delos included a theater and other things contained in any important city. I won’t bore you with all the pictures. However, this picture of typical construction is interesting. Walls were built with stone and painted with adobe. Notice there is no mortar used in this construction. Our tour guide said this type of construction is more difficult. But I think the mild weather and the lack of importance in keeping the cold wind out might have been an important factor in their using this building technique.

Salamis

As we left Athens, we passed by Samalis Island. This is the site of what may be the most important battle in all of history. The Golden Age of Greece started when Athens and their allies defeated of the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. But that battle would not have occurred if the Persians hadn’t previously lost the naval battle at Samalis.

Samalis

The Persian fleet got themselves trapped inside the strait between Samalis Island and Athens. Stuck in narrow waters, they were unable to maneuver, making them an easy target for the freshly-built Athens navy. In the picture, the strait is between Samalis on the left and Athens on the right. If you click to blow it up, you can see a small red ship in the middle of the strait.

We started the day with a 4-hour ferry ride to Mykonos. If there’s one thing the Greeks know, it’s ships. That shows in the Greek ferries. Our ferry was big enough to hold people. And cars. and trucks of all sizes. (They off-loaded two tractor-trailers at our first stop. I saw them preparing to unload more at our stop.) The passenger area is very large. Seats are more comfortable than a train. There are several classes of tickets. Some of the young people were laying on the floor in sleeping bags. Others sat in an exclusive club area. I didn’t see all of the passenger areas, but there were at least two decks. The ferry was large enough to be a small cruise ship. It has only one ramp, which aft. Our first stop was Tinos. The ferry sailed into port forwards at a high speed. Then it turned itself around while coasting towards the port while simultaneously lowering its ramp. They came to a prompt but smooth stop a foot or so away from the dock, anchored two lines, then dropped the ramp the last foot or so to the dock. The bottom of the ramp was the only part of the ship that ever touched the dock. People, motorcycles, cars, and trucks immediately started streaming out. Traffic cops were clearing traffic out of the area so all vehicles and people could disembark as quickly as possible. Disembarking took only a few minutes, after which the process was reversed as the ferry took on passengers for Mykonos. The boat couldn’t have been at dock more than 15 minutes. If anybody wasn’t in position in time, they would miss their opportunity to embark or disembark. It was a masterpiece of choreography.

Our view at lunch

Before 1960, Mykonos had one small town which was virtually ignored. Inhabitants were poor because the soil is completely unarable. Shortly after that, it was discovered by the super rich, then became the playground of the jet set. Buildings look new because they were almost all built after 1970. There is so little land that the streets are about as wide as donkey paths. In spite of that, all streets are for 2-way traffic. Tour busses, ATVs, SUVs, and pedestrians all share these alleyways. Often, one driver has to back up to the previous intersection. Mykonos would normally be way to expensive for Road Scholar, but it’s the only way to get to Delos. Normally our lunch would be at the “cheap tables”, inside and away from the window. However, a family had rented the restaurant for a wedding reception. We were “forced” to eat at the waterfront tables.

Hotel view

We have a 5-star hotel. Our room assignments are random. Some have a private salt-water swimming pool. We are higher on the hill with a walk-out balcony and a fabulous view of the island. We have several hours of free time this afternoon. Tonight, we will tour the old city.

Winged Victory

Our tour of Athens was very satisfying. Unfortunately, I’m having troubles turning our tour into an interesting story. We started our tour with the stunningly beautiful Acropolis Museum. There were plenty of Greek statues, pediments, etc. The most famous is this statue of Winged Victory. It is a masterpiece of movement.

Carriers of Wine

This is the other stone carving that caught my eye. These young men are carrying wine. Notice the young man on the right set his jug down to take a rest.

World’s Oldest Theater for 5,000

Our next stop was the Acropolis itself. This is the oldest theater in the world, since the Athenians invented theater and this was the first they built. During the spring celebration, commoners were paid to attend the theater, this being considered a type of adult education. Up to three actors were on the raised platform on the left. The chorus was in the flat semi-circle area. The stadium seated about 5,000.

Myconian Wall

The Acropolis was the center of the area long before Athens was formed. This is the remains of a Mycenaean wall, probably from around 1100 BC.

Temple of Victory

This is the temple of Victory, located on the edge of the Acropolis.

Parthenon

The Parthenon was the showpiece of the Acropolis. It was also where the Athenians stored their wealth. The statue in the Parthenon was a 30-foot-tall ivory and gold statue of Athena.

Erechtheion

The religious center of Athens was a much smaller temple called the Erechtheion. This had a man-sized statue of Athena, protector of Athens on the upper level and a statue of Poseidon on the lower level. Note the three Caryatids supporting the portico.

Roof Mockup

This is a mock-up of the Parthenon’s roof. It used cypress wood and marble tiles. It was quite heavy.

Tower of the Wind

This building is called Tower of the Wind. Its 8 sides were supposed to represent the 8 directions of the wind. The holes in the sides near the top contained beams projecting out. They were used as sun dials to tell the time.

Temple of Hephaistos

The Acropolis was the show-point and religious center of town. The money spent to build it came from tribute paid to Athens after they defeated the Persians. Other city-states felt the money should have been used on defensive projects such as a stronger navy. Resentment from this mis-spending was the root cause of the Peloponnesian wars. However, the true heart of Athens was the Agora, just down the hill from the Acropolis. This is where the markets were. It is where people voted, held their congress, etc. The Agora is mostly a total ruin, but it contains the Temple of Hephaistos, which is the best-preserved temple in Athens. It is a typical temple. Its preservation is thanks to having been converted to the Church of St. George.

Jury Selection

This machine was used for jury selection. Jurors were selected randomly the morning of a trial, to minimize the possibility that the accused would be able to bribe the jury.

Great Meteora Monastery

We spent the morning rushing through breakfast so we could beat most of the busses visiting the monasteries. (Actually, the Greek members of our party had to do a lot more rushing than Danita and I. Our tour guide is not a person for rising early.) We managed to beat many, but not all, of the busses to the Great Meteora Monastery. We were able to move ourselves past two more busses by walking steadily up the steps while others stood to the side, panting.

Church Building

Non-flash photography was permitted except in the Church itself. Unfortunately, the building is quite dark. The only pictures I could take were outside. This shows the outside of the Church portion of the building. All of the monasteries were rebuilt in the 15^th century. We were able to visit the Church because it is no longer used for services. The monks moved their services to a less impressive area when the monasteries gained their UNESCO protected status. It was an appropriate thing to do, in part because the number of monks has dropped dramatically since WW II. Today, there are probably a dozen monks left. For at least some time, St. Nicholas (the smaller monastery we visited) was down to one monk. We saw a lot of 15^th century frescos and icons. We heard explanations for all of it, but it didn’t all stick. Nonetheless, it was an amazing and impressive site.

Tower

Our other visit was to the St. Nicholas Monastery. It had far fewer visitors, and it was a much smaller Church area. These allowed us a much more intimate experience of viewing the paintings and icons. The monasteries fly the old Byzantine “Double Eagle” flag. This flag is  quite popular in Greece, as a symbol of their connection to the past.

Double Eagle Flag

Our Guesthouse (the yellow building), viewed from St. Nicholas