More Ancient Greek Sites and Antiquities (Day 58 - GToE)

Holy cow, only 2 more days before I head home. It seems only yesterday that I was arriving in Edinburgh. Unsurprising, I saw more sites and antiquities from Ancient Greece today. I think anyone planting a bush in their yard will dig up some important rock from the fourth century B.C., which then ends up in a museum. I'm not saying it's not fabulous, but between the British Museum, Italy and Greece, I may have hit a wall on seeing any more ancient relics. :-)

Today started with a visit to two museums. The first was a very brief, yet interesting, visit to the Epigraphical Museum. I stumbled upon this museum when I turned the wrong way when heading towards Athens' Archaeological Museum. The Epigraphical Museum is dedicated to safeguarding, protecting, conserving, displaying, and promoting the conservation of inscribed stone monuments that it contains. It's a unique museum and is the largest of its kind in the world. They have some of the most interesting written monuments in their museum. One of the curators very kindly walked with me and explained how the Greek alphabet has essentially not changed since its inception. She showed and read to me some of the carved stones. It was surprisingly interesting. 

I then made my way to the National Archaeological Museum which is just around the corner. The NAM "is the largest archaeological museum in Greece and one of the most important museums in the world devoted to ancient Greek art. It was founded at the end of the 19th century to house and protect antiquities from all over Greece, thus displaying their historical, cultural and artistic value" (NAM website). The museum traces Greek art from 7000 B.C. to A.D. 500. The way the museum is setup is wonderful because it's set chronologically and you can see the evolution of Greek art from the stiff Egyptian-style to the David-like balance of the Golden Age, to the beautifully sculpted Hellenistic, and finally, to the influence of the Romans. If you remember exactly one week ago, I raved about how great the Naples Archaeological Museum was. The NAM certainly rivals it in the display of the splendid art of the ancient Greeks. There were golden masks, golden baby death blankets, beautiful sculptures, interesting and sad funeral stones, and so much more. I think my favorite was the cheeky Aphrodite, Pan, and Eros statue (photo). If you look closely, Aphrodite is about to hit Pan with her sandal. He must have said something quite inappropriate.

After leaving the museum, what started as a sprinkle of rain, turned into a deluge. I trotted into a local eatery and had some lunch (a pork gyro - yummy!!), which was dirt cheap and then traipsed through a local department store to kill some time and to wait out the rain. Eventually the rain lessened and I made my way to the meeting point for my afternoon tour. 

This afternoon I trekked about an hour outside of Athens in order to visit Cape Sounion/the Temple of Poseidon. According to legend, Cape Sounion is the spot where Aegeus, king of Athens, leapt to his death off the cliff, thus giving his name to the Aegean Sea. The story goes that the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull, was confined by its owner, King Minos of Crete, in a specially designed labyrinth. Every year, the Athenians were forced to send seven men and seven women to Minos as tribute. These youths were placed in the labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus, Aegeus's son, had volunteered to go with the third tribute and attempt to slay the beast. He had agreed with his father that if he survived the contest, he would hoist a white sail. Aegeus, anxiously looking out from Sounion, despaired when he saw a black sail on Theseus's ship, returning from Crete. This led him to believe that his son had been killed in his contest with the Minotaur. In fact, Theseus had overcome and slain the Minotaur, but tragically had simply forgotten about the white sail. A very sad story. 

In the years 444-440 B.C., a Temple to Poseidon was built on top of Sounion. Poseidon, second only to Zeus in power and importance, was greatly feared by mariners, because storms (which were conjured by a wrathful Poseidon) often led to shipwrecks. Therefore, the Temple was erected to appease the god with the sacrifices that were delivered to the temple. In the center of the temple would have been a statue of Poseidon. Pictured below is a statue from the NAM which may or may not be Poseidon. Found at the bottom of the ocean in a shipwreck, the statue may be either Zeus or Poseidon and at some point would have held the god's weapon in his throwing hand - a lightning bolt for Zeus or a trident for Poseidon. As for the temple, only 15 of the original 34 columns stand today. Interestingly, there is an inscribed name of the famous Romantic poet George Lord Byron, carved into the base of one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon, which possibly dates from his first visit to Greece, on his Grand Tour of Europe before he acquired fame. Byron spent several months in 1810–11 in Athens, including two documented visits to Sounion. There is, however, no direct evidence that the inscription was made by Byron himself. The inscription cannot be seen by visitors. Due to the terrible weather, the opportunity to take sunset photos was lost today. 

After that sojourn to Sounion, I returned to Athens, had some dinner, and went back to my hotel. Check out all my day 58 photos on my GToE photo site. 

Originally, tomorrow I had planned a three island tour (Hydra, Poros, Aegina) with a tour group, but it got cancelled. So now, I'm going to hop a ferry from the Athens port of Piraeus to Hydra and will explore this island on my own. I need to do something other than ruins for a day and touring a Greek island sounds like the perfect day. Sadly, it's too far to travel to Mykonos or Santorini for the day so Hydra it is.

Zeus or Poseidon? No one is certain.