7/14 - Messene, Lykaion, Bassai

Long term readers, skip to the next paragraph. If you haven't been on the blog before, welcome! I'm currently unable to publish pictures, but I will be back in Athens by this weekend to start retroactively adding photos. Anyways, to the post!

We woke up before 0600 so we could run and then swim for longer. There were still a few mosquitos enjoying the early morning, but the bloodthirsty bugs were unable to deter Abi, Melissa, Sophie, and me from plunging into the Mediterranean. Then we went back to breakfast in the sci fi dining room before getting on the bus to Messene. Hotel Keralis was a wonderful place to stay and I recommend it highly if you're in Pylos.

The bus ride to Messene was a sleepy one and we tumbled down the steps onto the first site a little foggy from sleep. The hot morning sun burned that fog away rapidly as we met our guide Dr. Petros Themelis. We walked around Messene, taking in the structures of this massive city. Think about Boston. The streets are crazily twisted and chaotic from the city's colonial era building. Now imagine a city that had planning, like Chicago after the Great Fire. Messene and Megalopolis are like Chicago compared to other city states. They were founded in the 4th century BCE by Epaminondas, the famous Theban general and leader. This much later founding date means the city was more planned than other cities of antiquity.

Notably among the artifacts displayed were three incredibly incredibly intact sekomae, the weights and measures tables standardized by polities. The bottom hole would be plugged, the enclosure filled with the good in question, and then the plug would be removed to fill an amphora. The size of these Late Hellenistic measures are consistent with others found across Greece from the time period, which means that there was communication between polities about standard measures! That's fantastic and super cool to think about.

The lower basins of the sekomata.

The upper half of one of the sizes. This is the only time I saw the upper half on the trip. Puts into perspective

nicely what these tables would have actually looked like. 

Lastly, we hiked down to the stadium, which is only partially reconstructed but also incredibly majestic. I got some great pictures before we had to go back up to the bus and I promise waiting for them is worth it.

The stadium at Messene. I was a fan of the expansive view at the far end.

Also, one question I have, which is something that I discussed with Luke on the way back to bus, is why isn't Messene more publicized? It seems like it has everything that the archaeological community could want. Maybe it's that the buildings might be redundant. But there are multiple attested temples that are still unexcavated. Who knows. Anyways, moving on to the rest of the day.

We hopped on the bus and had another hour until we stopped in modern Megalopolis, which is quite some distance from the ancient city of the same name. It was just a quick stop and break though, as we proceeded up Mt. Lykaion almost as soon as we arrived.

The switchbacks up Lykaion gave us some beautiful views of the valleys below. Panayiotis also crushed it on the hairpin turns. The man’s ability to make a huge bus dance like he does is continually impressive.

We were greeted by Dr. David Romano and Dr. Mary Voyatzis, who have been working on the site since 2003 and plan to continue to do so for at least three or four more years. The site has two major areas, an altar to Zeus on the south peak of the mountain and a lower complex with more buildings for the athletic games that took place there. Here's the crazy part. The cult of Zeus here is continuous to Mycenaean times. There isn't a “gap” in the early Iron Age. That's crazy! It calls into question the “Dark Age” in this area. And the shards that were used to establish this were tiny, according to Mary. So it's entirely possible that people need to re-sift some soil samples for these tiny shards.

Professor Romano lecturing on site. Professor Voyatzis is on the left. 

We also saw the most recent results of a trench that was dug two days ago. It's such a fresh find that I've chosen to wait to get in contact with him before I go along and completely botch the explanation. Still, it was awesome to see the new, fresh archaeology being done.

There's also an incredible plan to create Greece’s first cultural heritage park in the area. David and Mary even met with the president of Greece to discuss the idea. The park would have land in three different provinces and a trail network would connect sites, towns, and sanctuaries in the region. Hopefully it's coming soon. Greece has National Forests, but this would be more of a national park than anything.

One last note on Lekyaion. We saw three eagles circling near the top of the mountain. Immediately everyone interpreted this as a favorable omen for the rest of the day. For non classics people, the eagle is the favored bird of Zeus and seeing that many or even one would have been positively regarded in ancient times as well.

Author's update: They found a human sacrifice on the mountain! Between when we were there and today when I'm updating this with pictures this happened:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/10/skeletal-remains-confirm-ancient-greeks-engaged-in-human-sacrifice

It's super exciting that the legends of human sacrifice have been confirmed.

We had to take all the switchbacks down that we had come up on. Fortunately Panayiotis deftly managed the road as we headed the long way down the mountain towards Bassai.

There was also a long way up the mountain towards Bassai. Panayiotis had been driving since 8 am at this point and showed no signs of flagging on the intense mountain roads. We got to the top and as I saw the site from the bus I asked, “Did we take a wrong turn for the circus?” The Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai is housed within this giant protective tent that shields it from the worst of the elements while restoration is completed.

You almost expect a Barnum and Bailey's sign out front. 

Steve was our expert on the Temple, which, if you believe the dodgy notebooks of the 1810s investigators, housed the first Corinthian column. It also has a peculiar door on the east side where it is speculated that the sun would shine through onto the cult statue. Even odder, the temple is oriented North-South, while virtually all other temples in Greece are East-West along their major axis. If that weren't enough, the friezes from the temple are in the British museum and suffer the same controversy as the Elgin marbles. So all in all the site raises more questions than we have answers for. Steve did a good job at articulating these questions and many of the leading hypothetical answers as well as being emphatic about the temple’s peculiarities so that we fully understood their import.

Inside the tent. The restoration work is still ongoing.

Finally, we left the temple and got on the long road to Olympia. We had a lot of bus time today, but it was managed well with little stops and breaks to use the restrooms and stretch.

Tomorrow we have a full day at Olympia. I have to give my site report on the treasuries there. Hopefully we'll be able to have another race too.

Thanks for reading.

Edited 7/17 for misattributing Dr. Themelis’s place of employment and botching the date of Messene’s founding.