This meant we got to Aegina early and consequently the site early. This gave us time to get fresh orange juice from a cafe nearby. We got on site and into the museum, where Jessica presented on the city of Kolonna. The site has some incredible pottery finds and the city was a major point of trade for most of its historical existence. There were even synagogues in the city until the 7th century CE.
Picture of a drawing of one of the pedimental reconstructions. The process of restoring and derestoring
these sculptures has been controversial since the first restoration in the early 1800s.
We hopped on the bus then and drove to the Aphaia temple on the east side of the island. Luke presented there. The pedimental sculptures are quite famous and are on display in the Glypthotek Museum in Munich. They famously were restored in the early 1800s and were then more famously derestored in the 1960s. The two pediments depict two scenes of Hellenic conflict with Troy - the Herakles sack and the Trojan War. Luke had us recreate the pedimental sculptures on the platform of the temple so we could understand what was happening in them. The pediments were either replaced or modified partway through their construction, possibly to depict more anti-Mede scenes following the Persian War. The Aeginetans were not well regarded after an attempt to Medize (establish friendship with the Persians) before the Persian Wars, but also fought exceptionally well at Salamis. These anti Persian actions may have colored the tone of the sculptures.
The inhabitants of Aegina were forced to trade because their island doesn't have enough arable land to support the classical population. And with naval trade, come pirates. The Themistocles’ reason for building the Athenian fleet before the Persian Wars was that the Aeginetan pirate problem had gotten out of control. Eventually, the island fell into the Athenian hegemony in the later 5th century, effectively ending its autonomy.
The temple. The restoration has put back up a remarkable portion. This much standing architecture
probably deserves more popular tourist interest.
After the temple, we headed to a family style restaurant where we had a reservation. We chowed down on tons of amazing Greek food, including at least five cheese dishes. It was fantastic and wound up being super reasonably priced. Feta here is so good and American feta has probably been ruined for me.
We hopped back in the bus and headed back to Kolonna to go to the beach. All went well in the water, including some epic chicken battles. Out of the water, things went a little less swimmingly (heh) as I stepped dirctly on top of a thorn bush and had to spend some time getting them pulled out of my feet on the beach. I limped my way back to the boat with help from Amy and Luke, where I eventually learned that the captain himself had found out about my injury from Amy's inquiries seeking tweezers. He invited me to the bridge and helped pull out some of the smaller splinters. Definitely not something I expected to be able to do. Amy even took pics on the bridge.
Smiling on the bridge. The captain used a needle from a syringe to remove some lingering bits of thorn.
Yeah, so two days from the end I get my first real injury. Thanks to Amy and Luke for helping with the thorns in my feet and thanks to Abi for helping get the foot wound equivalent of rubber neckers out of my hair. It's unclear what compels people to continue to speak to someone biting down on a hat while things come out of their feet painfully, but Abi and Amy were really on top of things.
We took the boat back to Athens lounging on the top deck. The sun was warm and low and the breeze was lovely.
Two days left. Sad it's ending, but excited to get onto the next thing.
Thanks for reading.
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