For people who regularly read the blog, skip this paragraph. For those of you reading this for the first time, welcome to the blog! Some technical problems have prevented me from uploading images to the blog until at least the end of the Peloponnese trip, but I will be retroactively putting in pictures as soon as I can back in Athens.
The run and swim crew added a new member in Melissa this morning! While she seemed to have regrets about her decision to get up so early, the warm water and sandy beach were a strong enough incentive to get her to sacrifice sleep.
As we ran back up, we also made a dog friend! We later learned her name was Sheila and that she belonged to an excavation team staying at our hotel. She was incredibly friendly and we got several pictures with her.
Sheila! She would aggressively cut in front of our running path just to lay down so we'd pet her.
Breakfast at the hotel is conducted in this room that looks like something out of a sci fi movie. Very white and somehow not echoey. The floors are gleaming white marble too. Definitely the best hotel breakfast we've had thus far.
If you imagine just a little bit, this room could be in a Kubrick film.
We hopped on the bus and made for Methoni, where Cassia presented. The fort is primarily a Venetian construction that sprawls over the tip of the peninsula. More people than me described their experience once we were set free as being on an “adult playground” with good views. I climbed all over the walls and gates and even got to go into the seaside octagonal prison. The cells were tiiiiny. Being in jail there would not have been a good time. An incredible site and definitely worth the visit if you go to Pylos.
The prison tower from the gate over the path leading to it.
We grabbed a quick beverage at a nearby kiosk and then got back on the bus to head north of Pylos to look at Nestor's palace and the other excavations near the site. Dr. Sharon Stocker, director of the site, showed us around. The Palace of Nestor is under a huge shade roof with catwalks suspended from the ceiling that allow visitors to walk directly in the air over the palace complex. The palace was first seriously excavated in the 1950s and boasts the biggest single collection of Linear B tablets of any site thus far, with ~1100 tablets found in the archives and around the palace. There's also a bathtub preserved in situ, which is incredible. It also prompted another round of drains and plumbing questions from me. Thank you to Dr. Sticker for entertaining all of them. The decoration is still visible too! It's just one of many decorations that were found intact. The famous illustrator Piet de Jong recreated many of these floors based on the fragments. The throne room floor especially would have been a riot of color and patterns.
The recreation. The non-square lines on the bottom half have been interpreted in many different ways.
We left the palace to go to a nearby tholoss tomb. The site was robbed in antiquity, so not much has been found there. Just a few 10s of meters from the entrance though is the recently (2015) discovered Grave of the Griffin Warrior, which is one of the richest Mycenaean burials ever excavated. Astonishingly, the man buried there was so wealthy that no ceramics were found among the grave goods, which makes it hard to accurately date. The massive amounts of metal and other precious objects from the site are set to be published this October at an ASCSA conference.
The display at Pylos. The roof structure is gorgeous.
Then we had the Chora Museum, where finds from the palace and surrounding burials are displayed. Our guide for the museum was Efythmia Tsiolaki, a PhD student who does research in the region. One item that particularly caught my interest was a massive, absolutely massive storage jar that was found in the archive room. We don't know what it stored, but this jar is crazy!! We weren't in the museum for long as we had to move on.
Our next stop were the Volidema Tombs, which are chamber tombs cut into the rock on what is now a roadside. The most notable remaining feature of the tombs were the massive slugs that now cling to the inside surfaces of them in great quantity. We also had lunch in the nearby town and some people swam, including Luke, who tried to swim to the island in the middle of the bay but was forced to turn back due to time constraints.
And again, we were back on the bus back towards Pylos. This time we had to meet a boat in the harbor for the trip over to Sphacteria. I rode the way over sitting on the bow of the boat with Sally, Asia, and Sophie. We had a brief stop at the French victory memorial for the Battle of Navarino Bay, which really helped lock up independence for the Greeks in 1828. Then we were at Sphacteria, the site of the first known Spartan surrender. In 425, 420 Spartans were trapped on the island. The Athenians eventually forced the surrender of 292 of them with a siege. Abi presented on the site and discussed how the account we have from Thucydides is pretty wildly inaccurate with regards to the distances he ascribes to the topology. It's a “topographical argument mapped onto a philological argument,” according to Abi, so if you’d like the sides spelled out, please let me know and I can explain it more thoroughly.
Then we hiked. Up a very narrow track that runs the spine of the island, we hiked. Through spider webs and thorny brambles and treacherous rocks, we hiked. We reached what Brad ascertained with Google Maps to be the halfway point and all but five turned back. Luke, Clinton, Jason, Tim, and I attempted to run the rest of the path to its terminus on the north end of the island. We did make it and took many pictures from the top. Exhausted, we headed back down. It's weird, but I really don't like attempting to move downhill at speed. It's stressing on the shins and way too easy to get out of control. Anyways, we all made it off the trail. There was a brief swim and then we headed back into town for shower and dinner.
A modern stelae at the top of the trail on Sphacteria.
Looking north from the top. You can see Frankish fortifications on the far hill.
Picture of the jetty where we tied up our boat.
Today was probably the most physically demanding day we've had thus far. And I felt great at the end of it. If pain really is weakness leaving the body, then I'm the least weak I've been in a long time. We leave Pylos tomorrow and head for Olympia. I'm excited.
Thanks for reading.
Edited on 7/15 for readability.
No comments:
Post a Comment