dknuth

[dknuth]

Crete - Gortyn

Once again we have left the Minoans and traveled to the time of the Classic Greeks and Romans.

Gortyn in the south-central of the island became a very large and important Greek city, eventually the largest Greek city of Crete and then the capital of Crete under the Romans. It remained so until its destruction by the Arabs.

What we saw would belie that vision of the size of the city. The main reason for visiting Gortyn is the Law Code. The Greeks copied the entire law code of the city onto a wall.

It is the most complete copy of a municipal Greek Law Code we have. (Since ancient Greeks were organized by city-state there was no such thing as a national law code.)

The wall with the code on it is under the large structure in the back of the buildings here.

There is most of a Christian Basilica nearby.

And that's about it. There is a citadel on the top of a nearby hill, but we didn't go there, I understand there are some ruins scattered through the olive groves, but we didn't see them either.

I always find it interesting that the largest city in the area at the end of ancient times is reduced to so little today.

We also stopped at the Ancient Minoan cemetery of Armeni. The Minoans dug tombs into the ground with fairly large rooms. At least the wealthy ones did. They dug a long trench into the ground and then down into the rock to get deep enough to excavate the tomb below the rock level at the end, a considerable effort.

This gives a better idea of the size.

Many of these tombs were discovered undisturbed, so the grave goods were intact. Most of those were ceramics: pots and jugs of various styles and ceramic coffins. These were generally unbroken, about the only unbroken Minoan ceramics found.

Our next stop is the city of Chania in northwest Crete. (It's pronounced Han ya. I would never have gotten that right!) We will be there for three nights, including one free day to wander around the popular town.

[dknuth]

Crete - Phaistos

Phaistos was the second largest of the Minoan palaces. It is located on top of a long ridge with views across the valley.

The large plaza is still very visible in the back of the site in this photo, along with other plazas.

The paving is still largely intact.

Again the site went through multiple phases: multiple Minoan palaces, a Mycenaean palace after the fall of the Minoans, and a classic Greek phase. Sometimes they built on top of the ruins of earlier phases, sometimes they cut and dug down through them.

The Greeks used the site as residential and so dug well through the earlier levels.

You wouldn't initially think that fire would be a big issue in stone buildings, but it was. Of course beams, door and door frames were wooden, but the major flammable item was olive oil, large containers of olive oil, which burns very hot! The fires were hot enough that the calcium in the brick went through a chemical reaction to make cement. The collapsed remains with the cement and aggregates from the rest of the brick became concrete, which the Italian archaeologists called calcastruzzo, which just means concrete. In many places, they initially thought they were at the bedrock level, before realizing that it was concrete from the fire in upper levels and there was much more below. Here you can see a layer of this concrete above more material.

The Greeks didn't like the old entry steps, so they built a new ramp entry over and through previous construction.

The most famous item found at Phaistros is the Phaistros Disk.

This clay disk is pressed with symbols in a spiral on both sides. While people can guess at what the symbols might mean, no on has been able to read it, or even know if it is read spiraling in or out.

Our next stop was Agia Triada. It appears to been a wealthy villa near Phaistos, near the river. It had storage areas as well as areas for the production of finished goods.

It was closed to visitors that day, but we looked in through the fence.

The main Minoan road ran from Knossos on the north shore to Phaistos. This site would have access to the ocean on the south shore. So it may have been a shipping site to locations on the North African shore. In line with that thinking it had its own very large kiln, large enough for shopping containers.

Then it was back to our hotel village in the mountains, the Thalori Retreat. The rooms are old village houses. As a single, I had a nice one-room house with a little table and entry patio outside the door.

There is a small church that is a Unesco World Heritage site.

It has a long and complicated history, including refugees from Islamic Egypt, monks, revolutionaries, etc.

There was a small white and orange cat that followed us all around the town. Very nice, but, we were informed it was not an official resident of the hotel. (probably should be)

The mountain immediately behind the village always had clouds flowing over the top, so the top wasn't visible. Early the last morning, the clouds relented a bit and I could see the steep knob at the top. You can just make out the sharp curve almost hidden in the clouds.

[dknuth]

Crete - Knossos

Today we visit the big Minoan site, Knossos. It's physically huge compared to the other sites we've been to, and of course it's the most famous. We arrived a little after opening. No lines at the entry, and crowds compared to the sites we had all to ourselves, not bad at all.

Knossos is also a very ancient site. Evidence has been found of pre-pottery neolithic occupation, at an age that would make it the earliest farming location in Europe. about 7,000 BCE.

It really starts looking Minoan at the start of the bronze age around 3,300 BCE with the construction of the earliest palace complex. The Minoan age continues until 1,490 BCE a run of 1,800 years.

The site is not only large but extremely complex. Over almost two millennia the palace was continually remodeled and reconstructed, sometimes almost completely rebuilt after major destructive events, and minor changes in between. Individual areas of the structure will combine elements from multiple disparate ages.

After the Minoans, the Myceneans arrived from Greece and occupied the palace for another 120 years. A final post-palatial period lasted another 300. In all the palace site was occupied for 6,000 years. After the post-palatial period, the Knossos/ Heraklion area continued to be the largest city in Crete to this day, with the palace serving as a source of building materials.

It appears that the Minoans had excellent trading connections with the other civilizations of the eastern Mediterranian, but at the same time they were isolated enough to minimize the turmoil from invasions and raids from surrounding groups. It was a perfect location to build a complex society, with refined arts, and wealth.

Arthur Evans was widely credited with discovering Knossos, but a Greek, Milos Kalokairinos actually discovered it and started excavating in 1875, 24 years before Evans, and had widely promoted the discovery of the site. But Greece was still controlled by the Turkish at the time and they shut down his work. Evans finally got permission to excavate after Greek independence.

Now, on to the actual site. As we headed towards the modern entry, we passed the ancient road into the palace.

The remains of high-end houses lining the road have been found.

Coming to the palace there is a large paved plaza with the outer wall of the palace behind. Note the large white stone blocks on the lower level of the wall at left. Those are gypsum, a very soft rock that carves easily and is available in a large hill just to the north. But gypsum easily erodes with water. So much of the gypsum on the site has been decayed.

In this plaza area are the remains of large circular grain storage buildings. At the bottom of this one, you can see the walls from earlier phases of construction.

The Minoans seem to have not liked direct entries, usually requiring one or more turns. That occurs here. Reaching the building you would need to make a right turn, pass a guardhouse? and enter a corridor, which would make more turns before entering.

The current raised walkway follows the route of the earlier structure.

Around the next corner are the remains of a large room on the left. Evans declared this to be an entry hall and inserted the stairs in the background of the photo to support that claim.

It is widely believed to be an audience hall now alongside the route to the interior.

Instead of going up the inserted stairs we followed the correct route around to the central plaza. One reason to believe this is the correct interpretation is that it is the normal arrangement in other Minoan cities.

This plaza is the largest of all the Minoan ones, and huge compared to some of the others.

The spaces around the plaza seem to be arranged in the normal manner, but the vertical relationship can be different, with many spaces on a level below the plaza, such as the "Throne Room", actually a fairly small room, although well decorated by murals. We are not allowed in, having to look in through the door. It's also fairly dark, so getting good photos is not easy.

It took some work to take and then edit a decent photo of the space.

There are levels both above and below the plaza level, plus the excavation/reconstruction is not to the same period from area to area, they can be 1,000 years apart, so developing even a rudimentary understanding of the layout was difficult for me.

This area was one level up from the plaza.

While this was one level down.

While this famous facade with its columns is the most public image of Knossos it probably didn't even originally exist. It was an invention of Evans. Clearly better marketing than archaeology by Evans here.

The lower portion of the wall was originally, but reconstructed. The vertical columns and horizontal beams in that stone wall were originally timber, but Evans reconstructed them with reinforced concrete textured and colored to look like wood. Reinforced concrete was a new material at the time, and in retrospect not really compatible with the ancient materials. So the use was a mistake, but honestly, Evans really didn't have enough information to know that.

There were many other spaces in the complex, some from the First Palace Period, some from the Second, and some that were built during the Third Palace Period when the Minoans had been replaced with Mycenaean Greeks.

So I am really at a loss to see how more photos of what will look like random bits will help at this point.

But Knossos was an incredibly complex structure at a very early time in European history. There wouldn't be anything like it in Europe again for over 1,000 years.

We will get to the museum in Heraklion at the end of the trip and see many of the frescos and other objects from Knossos. I am trying to decide whether it would have been better to go right away when it might have been easier to understand the relationship between the objects and the building, or whether that would have just created a mental overload. In reality, to truly have a chance to understand Knossos it would take more than one visit to both the site and the museum. But we are better off than most, as we had Peter as our guide and he has been an archeologist at the site for over 25 years.

After leaving Knossos we headed for the south coast and our new hotel, a restored village high in the mountains overlooking the sea.

The first part of the trip was through heavy rain with little to see.

Luckily the driver had wipers and a better view.

Then it cleared and we headed up into the mountains from the valley.

And up, and up.

Finally, we could see the village at 2,500 ft. The ocean is visible beyond.

There's a most impressive view from there.

[dknuth]

Crete - Day 4 - Gornia

Our first stop today was Gornia, a smaller Minoan site high on a hill above the bay. But along the way there the sun was breaking through the clouds over the mountains.

The residential sections of the town step up the hill.

Peter picked a particular house to discuss how it was laid out and used. For instance, it was two stories because a section of the steps to the second floor remain.

While the lower section of the ground floor walls remain, the upper floor is gone. The town was destroyed in a massive fire. It was so hot the calcium in the mud brick walls basically turned to cement and covered the floor of the lower level with concrete.

Maria selected a different house where there was a bench that had held ceramic equipment for small scale wine pressing, visible in the center of the photo.

At the crest of the hill was the central plaza of the village. There was a long discussion about whether the arrangement fit the standard model well enough for the town to be considered a Palace. I expressed the opinion that it was being overly picky. They clearly had some of the qualities, but the area available at the top of the hill was not large enough to fit all the pieces in the "proper" positions, and probably not every town felt the need to be a miniature copy of Knossos.

There were the kind of structures expected in a palace, but not in what is viewed as the "proper" locations.

There were nice cobblestone streets in the town. But they were too narrow for carts.

On the way to the museum that was our second stop of the day, we made a welcome quick stop for coffee. The member of the Orange Cat Clan stopped by to say hello. I had no food for him, but he was friendlier than he appears.

Our next stop was the Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos. This is a very new and modern museum focusing on the archaeological discoveries in eastern Crete.

The vast preponderance of the materials in the museum are ceramics. Ceramics were produced throughout most of the occupation of Crete. The are of technical methods of production and styles are fairly easy to identify. Crete is generally poor in metal ores, so ceramics were easier and more economical to produce.

I have always appreciated the plasticity of clay and the ability of artisans to produce an infinite variety of shapes and styles from it.

Jugs with spouts in various configurations were always indicitave of the time. The mottled look on this vessel was intentional. They placed materials on the surface to get that effect in firing.

These two pots with a similar shape had very different decorations. I thought the floral pattern was unique and attractive.

Like most places in the world, pots shaped like animals were produced.

Ceramics were important enough to be prominent in grave goods. This is a reconstruction of a grave with the items as they were found.

Ceramic coffins were popular.

Looking much like coffins without a lid, bathtubs were another large ceramic product.

I'd be amazed if no one was ever buried in a bathtub when a similar coffen was not available.

As the centuries progressed many more styles were developed.

Of course not everything was ceramic, for the wealthy there were gold and precious stones.

With the coming of the Greeks new styles were introduced.

Images reflected new clothing and hairstyles.

Human figures became more realistic.

Bronze items became more involved. This small plaque looks like an elephant at first glance, but look again. It's a shepherd carrying a sheep on his back.

Depictions of mythical animals from other regions appeared. These griffin and sphinx were not part of the local mythology.

There was so much to see, it was difficult to pick a few items. Two hours of slow walking through the museum, was hard on my back, so I was pleased to head down the street to lunch.

Here is a view of the local streets.

Tomorrow we hit the big time at Knossos. While I am looking forward to the justifiably famous site, I am dreading the crowds. So far we have been off the main tourist routes and so have had most of the sites to ourselves.

[dknuth]

Crete - Day Three

Today we left the later civilizations and returned to the Minoan, at the east end of the island. We started at the Archaeological Museum of Sitia, with their extensive collestion of Minoan ceramics, mostly arranged chronologically.

Styles that were indigenous vs imported were discussed, as well as those that copied vessels in other materials, such as baskets and metal.

Cooking pots that had tripod feet to sit in the fire were pointed out.

Lots of the large storage pots were on display. This one had symbols of the double-headed axes which were an important religious symbol.

There was one cabinet with the important religious items. The two-headed axes on stands, and the "Horns of Destiny", which stood along the edges of the roof of important buildings.

There was one display of clay tablets with Minoan Linear A script that had been baked when the storage building burned.

The script was not designed to be pressed into clay and it is believed that the clay tablets were short term records until the information was transcribed onto parchement of papyrus for permanent records. Of course those materials haven't survived.

There were also many large ceramic bathtubs too.

The rhytons. vessels with a small hole in the bottom were new to me. There were ones shaped like bulls heads,

and cone shaped ones.

Were they for drinking, or for sprinkling liquids in some religious ceremony? No one knows.

The most famous and important object in the museum is the Palaikastro Kouros, an carved ivory figure of a young man. Dating to about 1500 BC, it is exquisitly carved. The abdomen is missing in the statue and is believed to have been a golden loincloth.

It is kept in a glass case in the middle of the room, which makes it difficult to get a clear photo of it.

It is commonly believed to represent a young Zeus, and the site continued to be revered as a Zeus site long after the statue and the rest of the buildings from its time were destroyed.

It was found broken in many pieces during the excavations at Palaikastro. The upper half was shattered and the lower half was found in the next room. The supposition is that someone held the statue by the legs and bashed it into the wall to get the gold center and then threw the legs into the next room.

We next went to the Palaikastro site, but it has been little excavated and greatly destroyed in ancient times, so there was not a lot to see, except to be in the location where the Kouros was found and understand the destruction.

Then we were on to Zakros, another Minoan palace location. It's an unusual site. There is very little arable land next the the site, and the palace was not located on the high ground but in a low area next to the river.

On the other hand, many rich items were found in the excavations (now in the museum in Heraklion).

The palace appears to have been a later addition to an existing village site and has enough in common with Knossos to point to a relationship; similar imported Egyptian high-value items, etc.

The site does have a very nice harbor though and the palace was right beside it.

The ruins of the palace can be seen on the left side of this photo.

There were some structural innovations visible in the buildings, particularly the insertion of timber posts into the stone walls. (now replaced by concrete)

The big question is why there is a palace here at all. The best explanation is that it was an entry port for traffic between Egypt and Knossos. Knossos being on the middle of the north shore, it would have been a long sail to Egypt, with much of that along the coast of Crete. Zakros provided a good harbor and a place to restock before completing the journey.

From Zakros we drove across the mountains to the south show of Crete to our hotel in the beach town of Lerapetra.

Did you catch the goat on the top of that mountain?

We stopped at an old Venetian villa along the way.

It has been restored, along with some of the smaller buildings on the property which operate as a vacation rental. It also has two churches, also closed.

The town of Iepapetra has been a great base, with our hotel right on the beach.

[dknuth]

Crete - Day two

Today, we leave the Minoans and visit a Classic-era Greek City and a Venetian-era church, experiencing a downpour in the process.

The first stop was the Greek city of Lato. The town's citadel stands on a rocky hill high above the plains.

The plains are full of rich-looking olive groves.

The valley is surrounded by rocky mountains, which provide protection and doubtless keep the valley well-watered from runoff.

Unlike the Minoan town of Malia, Lato needed to defend its town center by placing it high above the rocky slopes and building a fortification wall.

Inside the double-gated entrance, you must climb steep stairs between rock walls.

The town center sits on the saddle of the ridge, and is fairly small.

By Homer's time, about 100 Greek cities were on the island of Crete. The Greeks considered each city its own independent state. They were not good at working together and often warred with each other. So, it's likely that these defensive measures were to protect them from other Greeks.

From Lato, we drove to the Panagia Kera church in Kritsa. This Greek Orthodox church was built in about 400 AD while the Venetians were in power in Crete. So we travelled thousands of years from the Minoan city of Malia yesterday.

Originally, it was a narrow church with a single vault, but donors added side vaults in later years.

The interior was highly decorated with frescoes depicting religious themes, including the life of Christ, saints, and local patrons. The frescoes are very damaged, but some are clear enough to understand.

It started raining while we were outside the church discussing history, but it started pouring while we were inside. When we were done, it had let up a bit, and we ran for the coach. While driving to lunch, it was raining hard enough for the driver to stop for a few minutes.

It continued raining during lunch, and then we drove to our next hotel. So it worked perfectly: we only had to dash through light rain. But the roads looked like streams. Our guide kept assuring us it was not normal April weather, but while it was a little cool and slightly damp, we were all just fine.

[dknuth]

First Day in Crete

Today, we visited Malia, our first Minoan "palace." It is on a coastal plain about an hour east of Heraklion.

The term "Palace" for the Minoan town centers is traditional but incorrect. They were called that when first excavated in the early 20th century, but they are not a traditional palace, and the name has stuck, so I will continue the tradition. These palaces have several elements: a large central courtyard, elements of a temple, like altars and offering locations, and huge storehouses for storing grain, olive oil, pottery, and other local production. These might have been used for trade, central storage, and distribution in times of storage. What makes these palaces is that while they are multifunctional, they are clearly planned rather than growing organically. So clearly, there was some organizational structure to plan and construct these palaces.

The central square is large and would have been surrounded by the building. That's a little harder to envision now as the entire structure is limited to about 3' in height.

The central square is surrounded by religious structures, storage, elite housing, and what appears to be a central kitchen. It's large enough to hold festivals and other large public events.

One problem with understanding the society is that we have very little Minoan writing, and no one has ever deciphered it. So all the information we have comes from the ruins themselves and the artwork. Beyond that, it's reasoned guesswork.

The current thinking is that these combine the temple, the town center, the public space, and the administration. Is the administration based on a king or priests? We can't tell. Both systems were used in the ancient world at that time.

One unusual aspect is that while this was a large city, there is no sign of defensive walls. In most parts of the world, cities of any size had walls; the fact that there are none here says the society was very different.

There are storage rooms for grain, jars of products, and specialized rooms for olive oil. Each is designed specifically for its contents.

The grain was in round silos with a clay floor and a roof with a center post.

Along with the lack of defensive walls, the storerooms were on the outer edge of the complex, not in the center, where they would have been protected.

Olive oil was in rooms with platforms for the jars and a drainage system on the floor to catch any spillage. While grain and other products were stored on the edge, olive oil was stored in the center, adjacent to the plaza. Obviously, olive oil was a valuable product.

Several large reconstructed ceramic storage vessels, about 6 feet tall, are on display at the site. They would have been stationary, not moved around. Even empty, they would take several men to move.

Other areas around the site include an elite home with attached workshops. These have been determined to include ceramics, metalworking, and other high-value production areas. This would indicate that the workshops were the property of the owner, and the artisans were employees.

The models below show the overall site and a speculative reconstruction of the palace complex.

One issue with the model is the number of floors. In some areas, there was a second floor; the remains of stairs make that clear.

But there is nothing in the ruins to indicate a third floor. This kind of speculation in the preparation of exhibits makes the archaeologists grumble.

After leaving Malia, we headed into the mountains to the Lassithi Plateau. The plateau is 3,000 feet high and a steep climb just 25km from Malia.

The plateau is wide and flat, with some of the best soil in Crete. It's famous for its produce, especially potatoes. We will be eating Lessithi potatoes every day this trip.

It is famous for the hundreds of windmills with their cloth sails. But they are not mills, they were constructed to pump water from wells for irrigation. So, instead of substantial buildings, most are metal towers, much like similar windmill water pumps in the western US. And like in the US, most farmers have switched to electric or diesel power for the pumps, so there are not many with the attractive sails that made the area famous.

The taverna where we stopped for lunch had several with sails in its garden, so we tourists could take photos with them.

Our final stop for the day was at a very small cave. Like most caves near ancient civilizations, it was believed to be sacred and was one of the caves rumored to be the birthplace of Zeus.

[dknuth]

Archaeology of Crete

Today, I arrived in Heraklion, the capital of the Greek island of Crete. This archaeological tour, run by Peter Sommer, will explore mainly Minoan sites and Greek, Venetian, and other ruins. It will be my third tour with them. I have found them to be well run, and they have very knowledgeable guides. We will have two archaeologists leading this trip.

Minoan civilization has fascinated me since I was a child reading my grandmother's collection of National Geographics, so it's great to finally get here. This trip is just me, as these archaeological tours require too much walking and standing for Cathie.

I arrived mid-afternoon, so I used the time to walk around Heraklion. It was about a 4-mile walk down a pedestrian street to the harbor, a good way to get a little blood flowing after all the sitting on planes.

This fountain dates to Venetian control of Crete, 1200 to 1650, when it fell to the Ottomans.

It looks very Venetian, as does this building.

They are both very nice, but not very Greek.

The small boat harbor was quiet, but it was a Wednesday afternoon.

The tour begins tomorrow. We have 13 people on the tour, mainly from the US but also from England and Australia.

There was a local history museum not far off my route, but standing around a museum was not that appealing today, compared to a wall in the fresh air and sunshine.

That's enough for the day, now a brief nap before the initial group meeting and dinner tonight.

[dknuth]

Sigiriya

My last stop before heading to the airport was Sigiriya Rock, despite the rock being close to my hotel.

The rock is about 600 feet high, and on top of it are the ruins of a royal palace. After incursions by Indian kingdoms, King Kashyapa built his palace on the rock as a fortified position in about 490 AD

There are stairs to the top, and I understand that the upper ones are pretty exposed rock-cut ones. This morning, I was not feeling in the condition to make the climb; my balance was poor, the neuropathy in my feet was acting up, and I was basically feeling old.

So I just visited the gardens, ruins, and museum at the ground level.

The museum does have very good-quality reproductions of the famous frescoes on the upper part of the wall above the stairs. Apparently the king was quite proud of the ladies of his court.

Then, it was time for the long drive to the airport.

After seeing Sri Lankan traffic, I used Anura Bogahalanda (Phone/WhatsApp 0777 284460) as my tour guide and driver for four days. He was excellent as both a guide and a driver. He was going home to Kandy every night, which meant two hours each way. On this last day, he drove two hours to Sigiriya, then to the rock, three hours to the Colombo airport, and three hours home. All that saved me the stress of winding my way through the trucks, cars, buses, tuk-tuks, pedestrians, dogs, and cows on the roads, for which I am very grateful.

My flight left Colombo at 3:20 AM, so I got to the airport at 3 and needed most of that time. As is common in many parts of the world, there is a security check at the airport's door, one after check-in, and a third at the gate. At each of these, all electronics, including all charges and cables, everything in any pocket, belts, and shoes, need to come out/off. It all takes a while.

Finally, flights to Doha, O'Hare, and Madison took 30 hours from door to door to get home.

This month-long trip was good and always interesting, but I am glad to be home for a few months.

[dknuth]

Anuradhapura - Sri Lanka

The older capital city of Anuradhapura was a couple of hours in a different direction from Polonnaruwa, so I made it a different day trip.

Founded in 437 BC, it remained the capital city and center of Theravada Buddhism for 1500 years until the invasion of the Chola from India in 993 CE.

Sri Lanka served as a center of Buddhism as Hinduism replaced it in India. Buddhism was exported to SE Asia from Sri Lanka.

Much of this time was in the early days of Buddhism when images of Buddha as a man were not considered appropriate, and other things were used as a physical focus for adherents: stupas, images of a footprint, etc. As a result, there are fewer Buddha images in Anuradhapura and many Stupas, including some very large ones, some of which are still very active worship sites.

Some of the stupas have lost their plaster coating and are unadorned brick. The Jetavanaramaya stupa, standing 400 ft. tall, was the third tallest structure in the world when it was built. An estimated 93 million baked bricks were used in the construction.

There are several stupas still coated in white plaster.

The Ruwanweli Maha Seya Stupa, built in 140 BC, is a significant place of veneration for Buddhists. It houses about two quarts of Buddhist relics.

There were many pilgrims at the site, and they were preparing for a much larger participation that evening.

There is a particularly nice moonstone at the entrance.

A few words about the significance of the moonstone thresholds:

It symbolizes the Samsara Chakra - The Wheel of Life

The outermost ring is flames representing Desire, Anger, and ill will.

Next are the Four Animals representing Birth, Diseases, Old Age, and Death.

Leafy Vines signifying Greediness.

Then Swans symbolizing renunciation of household life.

Finally, at the center is the Lotus Flower, signifying Pure Abodes.

The details vary from stone to stone, but the basic symbols are consistent.

A large pool still stands.

It is visited by humans, including monks and monkeys alike.

On the drive back to the hotel, we encountered a couple of slowdowns. The first involved tourists riding elephants on the road.

The second was a truck carrying an elephant in the back.

[dknuth]

Old Capital Cities

The two old capital cities of Sri Lanka are about 2 hours from Sigiriya; Polonnaruwa is to the east, and Anuradhapura is to the Northwest.

Anuradhapura is the oldest, founded in the 4th century B.C., and the center of civilization for 1,200 years. The Cholas dynasty from India sacked it in 993. When the Cholas were defeated in 1056, the city was in ruins, and the capital was moved to Polonnaruwa. It remained the capital until 1263, when it fell to another attack from India.

Thereafter, the capital would be in Kandy.

I see two main differences between the two cities.

Anuradhapura, being the oldest and thoroughly sacked and then abandoned, has fewer structures in good condition. It also dates to a time when it was considered improper to have images of the Buddha, and so Buddhist construction focused on more symbolic structures, specifically stupas. It has a number of large stupas in good condition and are still a focus of Buddhist worship today.

Polonnaruwa was founded over 1,200 years later, and much has changed. In particular, it was now acceptable to have images of the Buddha, many of which still exist. With statues and paintings of the Buddha abundant, stupas apparently had mainly gone out of favor, and there are many fewer of these huge structures. The ruins of the temples are much more recent and intact, so they are easier to understand.

We started by visiting Polonnaruwa. The ticket office is in the museum, so the visit starts there. Most of the statues are in poor condition or are fragments. What was particularly useful was the models of how some of the structures would have looked.

The first structure we investigated was a hybrid of a temple and a stupa: a large circular temple with a cone-shaped roof and a small stupa in the center.

Today it looks like this.

At the entrance is a Moonstone, a semicircular stone with rings of animals and plants, symbolizing the progression to nirvana. On either side are guardian figures. The Buddha in the center is visible from the entrance.

But there is a small stupa behind him.

It's a nice transition from the massive stupa to a temple with a figure while keeping a small stupa in the center.

Other temples took a variety of styles. This one is more like many Hindu temples. Since the structures were made of brick and plaster, fine details have disappeared. So it is impossible to say what it actually looked like.

Other temples have become mainly buildings for the protection of an image. Since many of the statues were made of brick and plaster, having a roof over them was important, especially in this climate. The failure of the roofs has caused great deterioration in the brick statues.

This temple had a corbeled vault for a roof, which held up better, but the large standing Buddha was free-standing and probably toppled at some point.

The best part of a visit to Polonnaruwa is the group of large Buddhas carved from a native stone wall at the location of the Gal Vihara Monastery.

To modern eyes, the veining of the stone adds to the beauty of the carvings, but originally, they would have been plastered and painted.

While they were in the open before the modern roof, from the remains of foundations it's evident that each statue originally sat in an image house.

As with many Buddhist images a lot is going on to the trained eye. The frame around the Buddha on the back wall has four small temples on it. The dragons coming out the sides of the frames have small creatures coming out of their mouths. But the symbology of all that is beyond me.

The other seated Buddha is back under an overhang and its setting is more elaborate.

It also still has the remains of the plaster and gold leaf. However, it has more modern protection from the weather to preserve it.

The next statue is a large standing Buddha. The veining of the stone is especially prominent on this statue. I have seen comments about the sculptors making sure the dark veins don't go across his eyes, but it would not have mattered to them as it was going to be plastered and painted.

The final statue is of the dying Buddha.

These statues were my primary interest in coming to Polonnaruwa.

There is also a large stupa here, but small image houses holding statues of the Buddha are all around the base.

The interior of an Image House.

The four quadrants of the stupa have modern cast metal seated Buddha statues, which I particularly liked.

With that, I will wrap up this post and cover Anuradhapura in the next one.

[dknuth]

Buddhist Cave Temples - Sri Lanka

Today, we drove north out of Kandy to Sigiriya. We stopped at two Cave Temples. The first one is at Aluvihare, which is the smaller and less known of the two. It dates to the 3rd century B.C. and has had an interesting history; in the first century B.C. Buddhist monks decided to transcribe key Buddhist texts into the local Pali language. They picked the Aluvihare temple as the place to do that. 500 scholarly monks congregated at the temple to chant the texts and transcribe them onto ola leaves (a type of palm).

These are interesting books as the leaves are a few inches wide, one to two feet long, and are bound into horizontal books with strings through the leaves. The text is written by embossing it with a metal stylus into the leaf. Ink is then wiped over the leaf, only sinking into the embossed areas. This writing method was largely responsible for the current style of the letters in the Sinhalese language. Typical straight lines used in most alphabets caused the leaves to crack when they dried. So curved, circular letters were developed.

Here is a sample of some of the old books.

(I may have that image upside down. I can't tell from the script.) Here is what a leaf used to make the pages looks like.

The decorated caves mix ancient and modern styles. The carvings are ancient, but the paint is modern.

I have read of heated discussions in Tibet monasteries where Western art historians want to do a massive amount of work to restore and stabilize ancient wall paintings, while the local monks want to paint over them. It depends on how you see the paintings. The Westerners see them as historical artifacts, and the monks see them as teaching tools that don't serve their purpose if they are in too bad a condition to use for education. I believe the same thing is going on here. These caves are not national treasures and have seen a lot of changes over the centuries, so maintaining their purpose as teaching tools takes priority.

Our second stop is in a very different condition. These are world-famous caves and a World Heritage Site, so preservation is the top priority.

The caves are high on a cliff, 160 meters above the plain. From the parking lot, there are 364 steps (Really? It felt like more.)

The definition of the sacred area of the temple here is different than in some other places. Here, the entire platform in front of the temple is included, so shoes come off well before reaching the caves. The ground there might be stone paving, native rock, or packed sand. It's pretty wet here, so the ground is sandy with standing water. I brought easy-to-slip-off shoes instead of sandals. If I wear them without socks, they are too big and won't stay on. So I was walking around in sock feet.

The white buildings in front of the caves and as gatehouses were added in the 1930s.

The caves are larger here which is a help for seeing the larger reclining Buddha statues.

This is not a depiction of sleeping but of the Buddha as he is dying and passing into Nirvana.

There are many statues in the four large caves. Most of them are various depictions of the Buddha.

The walls are completely covered in paintings.

Why are there so many Buddha statues? I suspect in part because wealthy supporters donated for their construction to show their piety and get recognized.

It is considered disrespectful to take a selfie with your back to an image of the Buddha. Most sites have a sign saying this. The sign here was the best I saw.

In the courtyard outside the caves is a bodhi tree, usually made from a cutting of a tree from a cutting going back to the original tree that the Buddha sat under when he achieved enlightenment.

The view shows the mountainous terrain.

The caves are remarkable for the many statues and paintings, but adding more photos would not effectively show that, so I will end here.

[dknuth]

Royal Botanical Garden - Kandy

My first stop of the day was the Royal Botanical Garden, established in 1821 and covers 147 acres. It's a great garden: well maintained and with a vast collection.

It has a particularly large collection of palms. I don't remember how many varieties, but it was more than I realized there were. They have several large alleys of the most majestic palms.

A unique palm is the Double Coconut. It has the largest plant seed, at up to 40 pounds. It only grows in the Seychelles and was discovered in 1743. The huge coconuts had been seen floating at sea, and since the trees hadn't been found, it was believed they came from an underwater plant.

There is an orchid house since Sri Lanka has over a thousand varieties.

A lovely rose garden with a nice variety.

Some decorative planting areas.

And a lot of huge tropical trees.

I spent two hours here and could have spent a lot more.

We stopped at a tea factory, which was more interesting than I expected. The factory has areas for initial drying, rolling, sorting, and final drying, with pretty basic machines in each area. We tasted a variety of teas, most from the same type of tea bush, just dried or fermented differently.

Then we went to the Abuluwawa tower on top of a mountain, with good views over the area, when the sky is clear. It wasn't.

But it was a good opportunity to climb a dozen stories to the top of the tower for a little exercise.

[dknuth]

Temple of the Sacred Tooth

My hotel looks across the lake to this Temple, a major Buddhist Temple.

This is believed to be the left canine of the Buddha. The story is that the Sacred relic was brought to Sri Lanka by Princess Hemamala & Prince Dantha from the city of Kalinga in ancient India during the reign of King Keerthi Sri Meghavarna (Kithsirimevan 301 -328).

After arriving in Sri Lanka, it was viewed as a great sacred relic. It was believed that its possession gave sovereignty to the kingdom with it. As a result, it moved around Sri Lanka as the capitals of various kings moved over the centuries.

It was moved to Kandy in about 1600. While the capital in Kandy proved resistant to the various European invasions, Britain conquered Kandy in 1815 and took the tooth. It was returned to Kandy in 1828. (This whole episode is covered differently in almost every source.)

Today, the temple is a significant pilgrimage site for Buddhists worldwide, as well as locals and tourists.

You may have noticed the multicolor flag above. That's the Buddhist flag. It was created in 1884 to symbolize the colors that were supposed to have radiated from the Buddha on his death.

There are large crowds at this temple. They help with crowd management by providing separate entrances for locals and foreigners. The foreigners have to pay a small fee, which always seems reasonable to me. As with most sacred places in Asia you need to remove your shoes to enter. But here, all the grounds are considered sacred, not just the main temple. The foreigners have a separate shoe check-in, with a token given for their shoes.

Entering the building, the foreigners go up this staircase in a large hall.

There music is being played.

In the background is a staircase up to the hall where the relic is kept.

There, the crowd is divided into those who want to approach the relic and those who just want to make an offering or, like the foreigners, observe.

The primary offering is trays of flowers. They are very strict about no plastic in the temple, so the trays are cardboard.

Beyond the main hall of the temple there are other places with images of the Buddha that gather offerings.

Other restrictions for those visiting the temple are to wear white or light-colored clothing. I had read this and had a white polo shirt in my bag. Clearly, many other tourists had not gotten the message. Another request was to not take photos of ourselves with our backs to sacred images. That makes sense as it disrespects the images and thus the religion. That was also ignored.

There were several locations where photos were not allowed; while disappointing, it's common. One reason is that in crowded locations, people will hold up the flow trying to get the perfect photo without other people in it. I can definitely understand that.

For those of us from cold climates, the idea of an open-air assembly hall seems strange, but it makes perfect sense in this climate.

So here is a photo outside the World Buddhist Museum.

There is a lot of discussion about the "Tooth." Is it the actual tooth or a replacement after a British bishop ground the original to dust? Or was it simply lost in over 2,000 years of changes? It doesn't matter. It provides a focus for people to focus their worship.

Several major religions start with a teacher who has a simple message. But over time, that message gets buried under layers of stories and fables originally created to make the religion more approachable. I find myself trying to look beyond the stories and fables to the original teachings. In my mind, the Buddhist religion has done a better job of staying close to the original teachings, and I really respect that.

With that, I end this visit to this important Buddhist shrine.

[dknuth]

Ella to Kandy

The train from Ella to Kandy is famous for its scenery. It's certainly not a fast train; it staggers down the tracks in a way that makes walking hard. But the train is clean, modern, and in excellent condition.

The Ella train station was just a half-kilometer from my hotel, so it was an easy walk. Not knowing how everything was going to work, I was up early. That was lucky because they mentioned they only take cash when I checked out—that wasn't mentioned when I booked or checked in! I had enough money to pay, but just barely.

So, I made a detour to an ATM for some cash. I was lucky again because that ATM took foreign cards, worked, and had cash; none of those were guaranteed.

As with most of Sri Lanka, the train stations were uniformly clean and in excellent condition, which differs from India's stations.

The train has extra first-class cars and pauses at scenic spots, so it is very successfully marketed to tourists.

The scenery is mountainous at the beginning.

There were also numerous waterfalls.

The route had many cuts through the mountains, and modern rock bolt techniques stabilized some of the slopes.

There were towns and individual houses all along the way. They were uniformly neat and clean. Other than in the touristy town of Ella, that has been consistent.

As we climbed from 3500 ft to over 5000, we were in tea country. The hillsides were covered with rows of tea bushes. It was quite beautiful.

I was surprised when we started heading back down. Kandy is only at 1500 feet. So the countryside looked more tropical again.

[dknuth]

Ella

The next stop on the Tour of Sri Lanka was Ella. Ella is on the south edge of the central highlands. As we drove there it was flat farmland and then there was a line of hills in the distance.

It remains flat to the base of those hills and then goes steeply up over 1,000 feet. The road winds up the steep hills. Before we got to Ella, we stopped at the Ravana Waterfall.

I note the universal futility of signs telling people not to do things. That yellow rectangle in the center says not to climb on rocks.

Ella was a small town, not even a wide spot in the road because there would have been no room for a wide spot. It sits in and around ravines on the mountainside. So there is one through street and small side streets, mostly going straight up.

That's the street to my hotel, which the taxi driver would not go up, hiring a tuk-tuk to take me the last few hundred meters.

The view from the room was great, at least when I arrived.

But after I walked back down the hill for lunch, it started raining.

The view was like this when I walked back up in the rain.

Then, like this.

The town has become a real tourist center, primarily for folks younger than me.

The steep hills mean a lot of hotels are up steep hills, mine was over 130' up the hill.

While times have changed that old hippie style is still alive.

Tomorrow, I take the train to Kandy, the biggest highland city. The train is not the fastest way there, but it is supposed to be the most scenic.

[dknuth]

Tangalle

I've been taking it easy in Tangalle. In part because it's pretty hot in the sun and away from the shore.

I walked downtown to find an ATM. Most of the restaurants here are small and don't take credit cards, and I suspect the rest of the trip will be the same. I looked at my future stays, and it appears there should be more ATMs nearby, so I don't think I will need to worry about cash.

As I was walking through town, the local schools got out. There is a large girls' school, and many girls are standing along the road waiting for buses.

The evening view of the shore from my balcony is nice.

Several national parks are within an hour or so of here. I was scheduled to visit Lunugamvehera National Park this morning, but the roads there are flooded, so I went to Udawalawe National Park instead. One advantage of Lunugamvehera is that it is supposed to be less crowded. That was definitely not the case with Udawalawe.

Seeing this long line of tourist trucks ahead of us was disheartening. But I soon saw the problem. This group of elephants were calmly standing in the road blocking all traffic.

It took quite a while for them to decide to mosey off into the woods.

One thing I have liked about safaris is the chance to see birds. My detail vision is poor, and I'm red-colorblind, so most of the time, birds are just spots flying through the sky. Previously, I had brought my super-zoom camera, which is great for wildlife, but I decided not to carry it for a month for a 3-hour excursion. So my photos here are not the best, but the longer telephoto of the new iPhone helped.

The red-wattle lapwings got close enough.

As did this Kingfisher and this green bee-eater.

And this Red Jungle Fowl. My guide was careful to say it wasn't a chicken, but clearly, chickens are descended from them. As a note, the Red Jungle Fowl is the national bird of Sri Lanka.

There are peacocks all over.

A couple were displaying as we went past.

The peahens tended to be in the woods, where they were more challenging to see, but I assume they were there.

On the tollway down here, there was a huge sign warning drivers of peacocks on the road.

Other traffic jams were caused by huge troops of macaque monkeys.

These are just a few of the troop; I estimate there were over 100.

One crocodile was in the distance, so it was a poor photo.

More elephants, including these two males, were doing a slow face-off on the road. We eventually just turned around.

We ended with a large herd of Sri Lankan Axis deer.

I was surprised that they were all spotted, like an American fawn.

The safari was not as exciting as an African one, but interesting. After the first group of elephants blocking the road, the vehicles dispersed in various directions, so congestion was not an issue.

Tomorrow, I have another driver taking me up into the central highlands. My first stop there will be in Ella.