Athens and Attica Week 4: Parthenon Frieze, Pallene, Loutsa, Brauron Museum, Porto Rafti, Koroni, Byzantine Icons, Parthenon

Christos Tsagalis joined us for our Epigram seminar this week, giving a talk entitled "Epic and Tragic Diction in Fourth-Century Epitaphs."

On Tuesday, Olga Palagia lectured on the Parthenon frieze at the Acropolis Museum. The four sides of the frieze that once went around the Parthenon are now placed on four walls in the museum. Most of the frieze is a cast because the originals were taken by Lord Elgin to England. The sculptures depict the Panathenaic procession, held every year in honor of Athena. Again, no pictures of my own because none are allowed at the Acropolis Museum, but the one below (from Wikipedia) is of a panel of the original sculpture still held in the British Museum.

Our bus trip Wednesday began at Pallene, where the ancient remains of a wall and temple are scattered throughout a neighborhood.

Our next stop was at the temple of Artemis Tauropolis in Loutsa and a small seaside sanctuary.

View from the sanctuary

Then it was on to Brauron. First, we visited the museum.

After the museum, we had a look at the Sanctuary of Artemis.

Next we had a look (from a distance) at the colossal statue on the island of Porto Raphti. We couldn't get to the island because it has no functioning port.

Our last stop of the day was at Koroni where we hiked up to the top of acropolis to hear Stephanie's report on the site.

On Thursday morning, Mari Georgopoulou of the Gennadeion Library invited us to her presentation on Byzantine Icons. Below is a picture from Wikipedia of one of the icons we talked about, the oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator.

Friday saw us back at the Acropolis and back in the Parthenon, this time paying attention to the building as it now stands, including the tower of the Franks which still has a functioning staircase up to the top.

View from the top of the Frankish tower

Athens and Attica Week 3: Prehistoric Finds, Eleusis, Acharnai, Dekeleia, Archaic Akropolis

Monday's epigram seminar focused on inscriptions housed in the Acropolis Museum, so no pictures. Allie, Sarah, and I presented a short report on the inscription from the base of the Anavyssos Kouros statue, also known as the Kroisos Kouros because of the name in the inscription.

On Tuesday morning we began the first half of our exploration of the prehistoric finds at the National Museum led by Jack Davis. 

That afternoon we attended the Wiener Lab seminar on food in which we learned about how the archaeological remains can tell us about what people ate. It reminded me a lot of CSI--finding clues and using science to piece together the answer to a mystery.

Wednesday's trip began with a stop at the sanctuary of Aphrodite along the Sacred Way. 

We also stopped at a Hadrianic bridge.

At Eleusis Margie led us through the site and Jon gave his report on the Telesterion, a hall into which the initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries were led.

After exploring the site we went into the museum and just in time, too. It had been sunny and beautiful but just after we went inside, it began to rain heavily.

Our next stop was another museum, this one in Acharnai.

After the museum, we stopped at the Menidi tholos.

Then it was on to Dekeleia which has been home to an ancient Spartan fort and, more recently, the Greek royal family. The site is in a nicely wooded area and families come here for picnics and walks.

Remains of an ancient wall

On Thursday Jack continued our study of the prehistoric finds at the National Museum.

We went up to the Thera room where, because I was busy taking notes, forgot to take any pictures! Perhaps on a future trip to the National Museum, I'll take some pictures I can put here.

Friday saw us back at the Acropolis, this time with Margie telling us about the Archaic Parthenon. We were allowed to cross the boundary ropes to get a closer look at the building. Here Margie points out a place where, between the classical blocks, you can see a bit of the old wall!

Athens and Attica Week 2: Archaic sculpture, Marathon, Ikaria, Pentele, Epigraphical Museum

In the inscribed epigram seminar on Monday afternoon, we talked about how we can talk about epigrams both as literature and as archaeological items and went through some of the relevant bibliography.

On Tuesday we met Nancy Bookidis at the National Museum to look at and talk about Archaic sculpture.

That afternoon we had our first Wiener Lab seminar, this one on pottery. After an informative series of talks given by pottery experts on the scientific means of analyzing ancient pottery and on how pottery was made, we were able to get some hands-on pottery making experience, though I never did take a picture of my beautiful pot that was the result. 

Our first bus trip of the term was on Wednesday. We visited the site of the battle of Marathon and walked around the tumulus under which the Athenian dead were buried.

We also had a look at the modern reconstruction of the trophy commemorating the battle. The height is completely a modern guess.

Next we went into the Marathon museum where a group of school children were also learning about Marathon!

One room of the museum was dedicated to the items from the sanctuary established in Roman times to Egyptian gods.

After the museum we headed to the tomb of the Plateans but all my pictures came out blurry. Next we saw the only tholos tomb yet discovered in Attica. 

The area covered with glass is a group of horse burials in the dromos which is unusual for tholos tombs. From a tomb we went to a cemetery. The Tsepi cemetery is a bronze age site with over 68 graves so far uncovered.

Our next stop was the lovely little site at Ikaria where once there had been a handful of buildings including a couple of temples.

The last stop of the day was at the ancient quarries on Mt. Pentele. There are still lines in the rock from ancient quarry tools and today there are rock climbing bolts for routes!

There was also a pretty deep and dark cave but all the pictures I took of it are terribly blurry. I did get one of the landscape from near the quarry site just as the sun was going down.

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On Friday, we met up with Nancy Bookidis again to look at Archaic sculpture but this time at the Acropolis Museum. No photographs are allowed at the Acropolis Musuem so I've acquired some images of what we saw from wikipedia. 

We spent Saturday morning with Molly Richardson at the Epigraphical Museum. Those of us in Joe's epigram seminar reported on specific epigrams. Allie, Sarah, and I reported on this one (which just looks like a block of stone in the picture, but there is an inscription on it!).