dknuth

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Ancient Stagira

I'd never heard of Stagira, and probably neither have you. But it is the birthplace of Aristotle. It was founded in 655 BC, occupied by Xerxes in 480, later joined the Delian League of Athens and later tried to leave it, was attacked by Athens as a result then sided with Sparta against Athens. In 348 B.C. Phillip II of Macedonia occupied the city and destroyed it.

The town sits on two hills on a peninsula.

There are, of course, city walls. In two different styles of masonry.

The ruins have the remains of a small agora.

And some residential areas.

Later Phillip was trying to enlist Aristotle to tutor his son, Alexander, and one of Aristotle's conditions was that he rebuilt Stagira, which he did, and moved the original inhabitants back.

After retirement, Aristotle moved back to Stagira and was buried there under a heroon. (A hero's monument.) Based on ancient descriptions we believe this half-circle wall was part of the foundation of the heroon.

It was interesting to see one of the great Greek philosophers coming from such a small city.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Phillippi

Our next site was Phillippi an important site for multiple reasons. It was on a Roman road from the Adriatic across to the Aegean. Which made it a big trading location, as well as on the route that Roman legions would take.

But it was most famous in the ancient world for Saint Paul's first stop in Europe where he preached. As such it was a pilgrimage destination for early Christians.

The supposed site of the first sermons there is marked with a church and site on the river.

As a pilgrimage destination, it had a large number of Christian basilicas in the town center. In fact, they built one over the town gymnasium and baths. So basically it became a tourist town of its day.

It also is notable for a battle in 42 AD between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (of the Second Triumvirate) and the leaders of Julius Caesar's assassination, Brutus and Cassius. At that battle Antony and Octavian were the victors, essentially ending the chances of a return to a Roman Republic and cementing the Empire as the future. The defeat of Brutus and Cassius was largely due to failures in communication during the battle. Cassius mistook Brutus' soldiers for the opposing soldiers and assumed Brutus had lost and so committed suicide. After the loss of Cassius Brutus felt the battle was lost and committed suicide himself.

There is really nothing to see of the battle. In fact, the marsh that was a critical feature of the battlefield is long gone, so the site doesn't resemble the conditions at the time.

There is a small museum with typical Roman city items.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Thessanoliki

We went back into Thessanoliki for the day. We were there to see the ancient walls, which were built, destroyed, rebuilt, and modified over 2,000 years.

We stood on a high point overlooking the city and the northern wall.

These were Roman, or maybe it was Byzantine.

It was cold and windy and I had not worn enough clothes for the change in the weather. But we had the entire history of Thessanoliki from its founding to modern times. It was usually an important place, and people usually fought over it.

Then we headed to Kavala another city on the coast. Not as big or as important as Thessaloniki.

From there we took a ferry to the island of Thassos.

It's a quite mountainous island. But it had large trees for making ships, some gold and silver, and most importantly, a beautiful white marble. We drove about halfway around the island to Aliki, a former village and a location of marble quarries.

There were small Greek sanctuaries, to gods of which we are uncertain.

Further up the hill was a series of Christian basilicas lined up side by side.

But the reason all of this was here was the marble, which was quarried by hand at the shore so it could be loaded on to boats.

Then back to the main city on Thassos, also called Thassos, where we saw the remains of the ancient agora.

And stopped in the small archaeological museum. They had a huge ancient kouroi, which had cracked during carving and was abandoned.

Then it was a ferry ride and a drive back to the hotel.

[dknuth]

More Macedonia

This trip is quite different from the Crete trip. In Crete we were seeing many sites of the Minoans, an early civilization that in may ways was uniquely different. We saw the ruins of their towns, their pottery and other products and compared them to the Mycenians that came later and then the classic Greek, Roman, Ottoman, and such. The remains of these civilizations were there to see and discuss.

In Macedonia, the civilization was basically Greek. The Macedonians built their towns and temples differently, but their cities were Greek. They were not monumental builders like the Athenians, so there is little of their cities to see.

So this trip is much less visual than the Crete trip. Here we are hearing the legends and histories. So frequently I don't find much of interest to photograph. I also am less interested in myths, legends, and battles so many of the stories that are discussed are not that interesting to me. The fact that we are standing at a place where a battle was fought 2,500 years ago just doesn't thrill me.

It's become clear to me that we have seen almost everything that is uniquely visually interesting or different from what I have seen before. Many ancient towns have small archaeological museums, mostly containing pottery and broken statuary not that much different than the other museums. We keep being told, "These items show that this city was wealthy, etc." Yes, this one and the other ones we saw.

OK, you can see that I'm not that into much of this trip. The scenery is interesting, the food is good, and yes important things may have happened here. But I find that I am not taking photos because the ruins don't look any different from other Greek, Roman, or Byzantine ruins. So from this point on my coverage of this trip will be more brief.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - School of Aristotle

King Phillip II, father of Alexander, wanted a good education for his son. So he convinced Aristotle to leave Athens for a few years to tutor Alexander and his companions in the Macedonian elite.

Aristotle agreed if he could select the location for his school. The location was outside of a town, surrounded by nature. It had been a stone quarry and so there were vertical walls on one side and a stream on the other. They built basically a dorm on one side up against the stone wall and a raised platform for Aristotle to lecture from on another. The buildings were of wood, so there is not much left of the actual school to see, other than the platform and some sockets in the stone wall to support beams.

So mainly the attraction is being in a location where Aristotle taught Alexander the Great.

[dknuth]

Two More Monumental Macedonian Tombs

We had some extra time so our tour guide called the person in charge of the Archaeological Site of Mieza, which has two Macedonian tombs that are not open to the public.

The first was fairly small, as major tombs go.

But there were some paintings visible on the pediment.

And the inner tomb door was in one piece having fallen into the tomb.

The second was the largest we've seen.

It not only had paintings, but 3D reliefs. The paintings were of the gods of judgment.

The reliefs seemd to be of battle scenes.

There was originally a taller facade. But the top was too close to the ground surface and didn't survive.

While these were not the best-preserved tombs, the differences were interesting and it was great to get a private viewing.

[dknuth]

Phillip II

Today was the big day, probably the reason we were all here on this tour, the tomb of Phillip II of Macedonia. A brief review of Phillip is in order. Phillip was most famous for being the father of Alexander the Great, but he was no slouch.

Phillip was born in 383 BC, a member of the royal house of Temenids which claimed to be direct descendents of Hercules. (But any royal house worth their salt were descendents of some ancient hero/god.)

But when he became king, the kingdom of Macedonia was weak, poor, and divided with enemies on all sides. He managed to unite the Macedonians, conquer the surrounding tribes and bring the classic Greek city/states under his control. He was assasinated at the height of this power, as he was planning to take the fight to the Persians.

Phillip was in the ancient capital of Macedonia, Aegae for the wedding of hi sdaughter when he was assisinated entering the ceremony. The assisin was hunted down and killed, eliminating the possibility of questioning him and determininig the reason, or persons behind it.

Phillip was buried near the capital, but his tomb was lost until the twentieth century.

There was a large mound that covered several tombs, and one of the tombs had been robbed in antiquity, but not the royal tombs.

The tomb was discovered in 1977 by Manolis Andronikis. While there has been much debate over the authenticity of the tomb, the general consensus is that it is that of Phillip. (For what it is worth my opinion is that it is clearly his tomb. It is hard to believe that somone else in Macedonia would have this tomb.)

The front of the tomb is similar to the other Macedonian tombs we have seen.

The fresco on the frieze is hard to see but the reconstruction helps.

It is a royal hunting scene, with wild boar, lion, etc. A very manly scene appropriate for a king.

But the amazing part is inside. The tomb was never robbed, which is extremely unusual. It had two rooms, the front room had the burial of a woman with remarkable tomb goods. Phillip was in the room behind. Macedonians practiced cremation, but at a fairly low temperature, so bones were not consumed, but rather gathered after and placed in a receptacle for burial. In this tomb, Phillip's bones were placed in a gold box, with the Macedonian sun image on the top.

Above the box was a golden oak leaf wreath.

Amoung the items in the tomb were a golden arrow quiver.

A shield decorated in gold and ivory.

The silver service for the funeral banquet.

They were decorated with lion heads.

The wooden couches for the banquet. The wood had decayed, but the gold and ivory decoration remained.

His armor with gold highlights.

An amazing array of items, all seeming to point to Phillip. (It has been noted that the bronze greeves were for a person with an injured leg, which Phillip had.)

In the outer chamber was a gold box similar to Phillips containing the bones of a woman, believed to be one of the wives of Phillip, possibly the mother of Alexander. (My photo of it was not good.) In addition with two different gold wreaths.

Inside the box was a gold embroidered cloth.

All in all the tomb was agnificant and worthy of the man who had conquered all of Greece and raised and educated Alexander the Great.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Kastoria

Today was focused on Kastoria and two Greek Orthodox churches there.

The first was an older church on the hill in the upper part of town. It is small.

As you can see from the stonework it was built in two phases; the first was a very small chapel and then it was extended at a later period.

Being Greek Orthodox the interior is covered in icon images.

Including St. George, with his dragon. Kind of a small dragon, more like a large lizard.

Near this church is a museum of icon paintings. It is quite extensive and our guide spent a lot of time explaining multiple icons, the Orthodox rules for painting icons, and how the style changed over time. The church was concerned about people worshiping icons vs the saints and required icons to not be realistically painted; very flat images, unnatural skin colors and faces, etc.

I am really not interested in the icon arts and largely tuned out the discussion. And, I realize now, took no photos.

We then drove along the lakeshore to a monastery to look at the church there.

It was larger and had paintings on the outside as well as inside, which is unusual in Greece. I actually found the style of this one interesting. Not that I could figure out the reason for the bizarre landscape.

Again I tuned out most of the detailed discussion of the paintings and enjoyed the views of the lake.

On the bus ride back into town, we had a great view of Kastoria.

At one stop there was a lovely field of grasses, poppies and other flowers.

We visited a huge modern winery in the afternoon.

Most of the wines had too much minerality for me.

We arrived at our hotels in Naousa about 5 PM. We were split into two hotels as the one was too small for our group. I was assigned to a room on the third floor, which was confusing as the elevator only went to the second floor. So it was up the stairs to the third floor, which was basically the attic, where they were drying laundry. But there was one large room, mine.

Since the only windows were in the roof, I was insulated from the noise of people partying and the dogs. I certainly needed the exercise and just took the stairs for the rest of the stay, avoiding the elevator.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Royal Tombs of Aiani

While central Macedonia is on the plains, the surrounding mountains were inhabited by local tribes and kingdoms that while Macedonian, were not under the main Macedonian kingdom. These area were typical portrayed as wild barbarians. But evidence is showing that they were for from that.

Aiani was a hill town and home to rulers of a large area of these hills. The tombs of these rulers have been found and proven to be large and well-furnished. We visited the tomb complex and then the museum of the findings. From the tomb site we observed the hill of the town.

What remains of the tombs are the underground chambers: stone constructions ranging from boxes built of stone slabs to large, massive vaults. There is evidence of above-ground structures on the largest of these, but little remains of those.

The local museum contains items found in the tomb and the ruins of the town. The tombs were robbed, of course, and gold and such are gone, but ceramics were of little interest to tomb robbers.

I loved the pieces with the “winged” handles. There was also a great collection of perfume bottles.

I was not familiar with the salt cellars, but they are found in many locations and an of an interesting shape.

Some bronze items were found, but as usual not many. Bronze was too valuable.

What Phillip accomplished was to conquer and unite the upland Macedonians into his kingdom, creating a larger and stronger force with which to conquer the rest of Greece.

The rolling countryside of the area is beautiful.

Then we headed to a neolithic site that had been on poles on a local lake. The area of the site is now on land. Some items were found and the site was excavated. Post holes in the ground and bits of wooden items that had been buried in the mud as well as primitive pots were found. The is now a reproduction of what the site is believed to have looked like, and that is what we visited.

It's pretty basic and really not that interesting.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Day 3 Continued

I got very behind on posting and am trying to catch up. This is complicated by my need to go back an refresh my memory on the various places, so I may do a couple of posts a day in order to manage my time and the information.

Our last stop for the day was in ancient Dion, a major religious site at the base of Mount Olympos.

Again the Macedonians were not inclined to large temples like the Athenians, but rather smaller sanctuaries with a free-standing altar out front. So the ruins are not impressive.

The water table is very high these days and the sanctuary to Zeus is often underwater.

But this is the place where Alexander gathered his troops before setting out for Persia. He held Olympic-type games and events in the theater. Famously he sacrificed 100 bulls to Zeus and held a large feast with the results.

He had a large monument to his companions built in the adjoining town, but the Romans of course took that and then lost it. This may be the base of the monument.

There were large houses in the town during the Roman period, as evidenced by this amazing mosaic.

[dknuth]

Macedonia - Day 3

We had spent the night in Edessa, a town at the top of a cliff overlooking the plains.

We stayed in the old city in ancient hotel buildings.

The streets had more than their share of cats. This group was sitting on a wall outside our hotels. The two gray tigers had a dispute and the one stalked off.

There are streams running through the town in small canals. They come together in a complex of buildings that a century ago were factories making hemp rope, sesame paste, weavings, etc. The streams come together in a dramatic waterfall.

After another view over the plains at breakfast we headed out for more ancient Macedonia.

Our first stop was a crusader castle, Platamon, along the coast.

The site was to protect the narrow route between the sea and Mount Olympos.

The site had been occupied from ancient times, but it's the Crusader Castle that stands there now. The castle continued to be used by the Byzentines and the Ottomans and on.

[dknuth]

Macedonia

Today we left Thessaloniki and headed out onto the central Macedonian plains. Central Macedonia is a large fertile plain, with the sea on the east and an arc of mountains to the other sides. This plain was the base of the Macedonian civilization.

Our first visit was to the tomb of a wealthy Macedonian who clearly had a military role. The tomb is near the town of Agios Athanasios. It's a stone chamber with a large tumulus over it. A road led down to the front of the tomb.

The tomb is wonderfully painted, and amazingly the paintings survived. Despite all the work to build and paint the tomb, it was buried almost immediately after the funeral rites, preserving the paintings. This rare treatment means that this is the best preserved ancient Greek frescoe.

Across the top is a band with a three part scene. On the left is a group of men heading to the funeral rites.

In the center is the funeral feast, with the deceased figuratively sitting on the right side.

On the right are other soldiers.

Most interesting are the two soldiers standing guard on either side of the entrance. They are dressed in the standard attire of Macedonian soldiers of Alexander's and his father, Phillip's, time.

The blanket worn over the shoulder and pinned, hats, and boots were apparently standard and unique to Macedonia. These are also some of the best depictions of their soldiers.

The tomb itself is empty, robbed in ancient times. The deceased would have been cremated, but at a fairly low temperature such that bones would have remained for burial in the tomb. At some other tombs these bones were in clay pots or even silver boxes.

There is no name attached to the tomb so there is no way to know who it was for.

Our other stop was at the ancient city of Pella. Pella was the capital of Macedonia from the time of Archelaus, the grandfather of Alexander, and became the largest and richest city in the region. However, the Macedonians were not builders of large monumental buildings like the Athenians. So while the scale of the city is large visually the ruins are not particularly impressive.

But the inhabitants were wealthy, as is evident from the remains of a 3,000 sq. meter house with two courtyards.

While the area is impressive, today it's just that an area, with some columns. There were major mosaics in the house, but most have been removed to the museum.

The Agora is just to the north of that house and is another impressive area, covering 70,000 sq. meters or 17 acres, one of the largest in the Greek world. The shops along the outside seem to have had a large range of goods, including luxuries. The center of the Agora would have had many monuments and statues, but they are long gone, the best of them carried off by the Romans.

The palace also covered about the same area, but it is currently closed to visitors.

The Macedonians were viewed by central Greece as country bumpkins, barely civilized. The size and wealth of the city say otherwise. Of course, the conquest of the Greek mainland by the Macedonians also refuted that concept.

We also visited the Pella Museum, which has a large and varied collection of items found in the city.

There is a reconstructed wall of a house showing the height and style of the room at two stories tall.

Fine ceramics and bronzes were found.

Most impressive was the findings from a cemetary, with Macedonian armor decorated with gold.

The women's tombs also had substantial gold.

And the golden diadem was the most impressive.

[dknuth]

Macedonia

I've started another historical tour, of Macedonia this time. If you are uncertain about the location of Macedonia, it is the northern part of Greece. It's most famous for being the home of Alexander the Great.

In the ancient world the Greeks in the central part, in the City-States did not consider Macedonians as proper Greeks, but more like barbarians. They didn't have proper city-states, but rather kingdoms, they were supposed to drink their wine undiluted, ecetra.

But they were not nearly as primitive as the Greeks thought. After all Aristotle was from Macedonia. He moved to Athens at age 18 to study in Plato's Institute. But at age 40 he returned to Macedonia at the request of the king, to tutor the king, Phillip II to tutor his son, Alexander.

This tour will explore the Macedonian as well as Classic Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman sites.

The Macedonians do not appear to have been major builders of monumental structures. So I don't expect to see the kind of temple and such that I would see in Athens. So I am expecting to have to imagine more, from minimal ruins and the stories of our guides.

And yes, it was only two weeks ago that I was in Crete. I actually went home and back in those two weeks. That was not the original plan. Originally Cathie was going to join me in Crete and return home after a week there and one in Athens. But international flights, especially ones involving 3 flights on two different airlines have gotten more complicated, and too many things go wrong: late flights, missed connections, changed flights, etc. for Cathie to be comfortable doing that on her own. Staying here on my own for the two weeks was not especially desirable, and would leave Cathie along at home for 6 weeks, which I was not willing to do. So a lot of flying it was.

Tomorrow I will start on the description of the actual tour, but that's all for now.

[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.