If you read yesterday, you know the computer is gone for another week. If you didn't, now you know too. Those are the breaks, but the blog keeps rolling.
Another hike to the top of Lykabettos this morning at 6 am with Abi and Sophie went quickly enough to see the sun come up. The Moon is full-ish right now and was low in the sky again, leading to some great photographs and views. You can really see the whole city from the top of the hill, including a surprising number of rooftop pools.
After devouring breakfast, we hopped on the bus. A quick jaunt took us down to Piraeus and the archaeological museum. Two highlights from the museum. The bronze sculpture of Athena has masterful craftsmanship. It's just gorgeous. The condition of the statue is remarkable and the way the gallery is set up sort of feels like a temple cella. The Piraeus museum is not terribly large, but it has some really fine pieces.
Athena with her arm outstretched. The left hand probably would have held a spear.
The other highlight was Amy's “gift” to me. She went through the museum catalog and selected for each person an item that she thought they would like or riffed on some of the humor that the group has generated for each person. I got the metrological relief and without a doubt it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a museum. It has standard measures on it, which is fantastic. We've seen tables for measuring quantities of goods, called sekoma, in several places, but the relief is one of two known in the whole world. The measures are based on the lengths on the body, evident from the arm, hand, and foot present on the relief. Amy even gave me a printed copy of the article on the relief! That level of above and beyond action is pretty characteristic of Amy though, who has exceeded superlatives thus far on the trip. At this point I think she could convince the group to hold the pass at Thermopylae against the Persians, if it still existed (due to alluvial deposition, it does not).
The Metrological Relief. It would have been double its surviving width.
After the museum, we walked to the Zea harbor. On the way, we got to duck into the remains of the Arsenal of Philon, a naval building destroyed by Sulla in 86 BCE. Upon arriving in the harbor, we met Dr. Chryssanthi Papadopoulou, who talked to us at the British School a couple of days ago, and went down under a building to look at ship sheds. Ship sheds are an important and highly controversial class of structures. They provided both shelter and a place for dry dock repairs for triremes in Athens. However, their size and exact method of use, as well as their total capacity, are still current topics in the literature. Basically, ships were hauled out of the water onto slipways and then dragged back into the long narrow room for cleaning and refitting. Dr. Papadopoulou explained the three components of the Athenian navy that were necessary for it to be a force. First, the ships themselves. Second, the sheds to keep the ships from rotting after too much exposure. And third, the walls around Piraeus kept the sheds safe from attack. We also walked around the harbor and saw the very few pieces of the Themistoclean wall that remains.
The ship shed under a modern building in Piraeus. The slipway is pictured.
Our last stop was one of the coolest things we've done thus far on the entire trip. We got to board and man the oars on the HS Olympias, a reconstructed trireme that functions much like the U.S.S. Constitution does in the States. The ship is the only functioning trireme in existence and was used by experimental archaeologists to study the capability of ancient triremes. It turns out that Xenophon and Themistocles were not too far from the mark in their discussion of the ships’ capabilities. Brad presented while we were sitting on the rowers’ benches below decks. He had a really detailed history of the development of naval warfare and the nitty gritty of ships in the ancient world. He also answered the approximate 1 billion questions I asked super well. Thanks Brad!
The Olympias from the dock.
The view below the decks.
We ended our day there and drove back to the school for tasty pasta lunch. I spent the afternoon doing all the necessary things before leaving on a trip. Laundry, snack shopping, ATM runs, and packing. We leave tomorrow so get HYPE!
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