Greece
Day Two: Delphi
Too much to write about this place and I’m already a day behind my itinerary, so you’ll have to wait until the travelogue for any detailed account.
There is just one thing to note though – I shamefully beat my photography record set by Ephesus last March by around 200 photos! Today I took just over 700 photos!
Still, you can be assured once again that my travelogues contain the most extensive set of photos of any archaeology site available on the internet, and that’s the whole point of doing all of this work!
More to follow, I’ll keep you posted. I was travelling south tomorrow morning but may well now take a detour to Thermopylae for yet another famous battleground….
The absolutely massive Temple of Apollo, inside which the Oracle gave her readings.
Stunning view from above the theatre
The stadium, high above the sanctuary
The Tholus at the Athena temple complex
Greece
I’m currently on an archaeological tour of Greece, starting at Marathon (seemed like an appropriate place) – the town which gives the 26-mile race its name.
But it wasn’t the town itself that gave the race its name, it was an event that happened after the battle that occurred here in 490 BC.
This Ionic column stands alone in an enclosed area near marshland – the site of the famous battle in which an Athenian army of just 10,000 men crushed the mighty Persian army of 25,000 by an outflanking manoeuvre that caused utter chaos amongst their ranks. The Persians were caught so cold and unaware, by the end of the battle 6,400 of them lay dead, compared with just 192 Greeks. The Persians fled back towards their ships, and the column sits on the spot where their crushing defeat was made absolute.
This column is a replica of the original, the remnants of which are now situated in the museum in the modern, and somewhat lifeless, town of Marathon.
Right on the battle ground is the tumulus where the 192 Athenians are buried. Today I had an unbelievable experience there. I reached a spot where my whole body started tingling, my hairs stood on end and goose bumps appeared all over my arms. It was a very powerful experience. The photo shown below – just in front of the burial mound and between the two trees on the right – is where this experience occurred. I have been to many weird places and had many unusual experiences, but this ranks pretty high, such was the powerful emotions and feelings I had encountered today. It was an experience I shall never forget.
Ionic column at Marathon. The Persians were fleeing back towards their ships when they were caught up in the marshland near Schinias. No doubt the subsequent slaying of the Persian men brought about the defining moment in the battle and thus the spot where the column still stands today.
This tumulus on the battlefield is where the 192 Athenians are buried. Today, 2,500 years later, it stands as a sombre monument to one of Europe’s most defining moments.
This spot in front of the camera, between the two trees on the right, is where I had an “electrifying” experience. Whatever occurred on that particular spot is still being felt through the millennia. There were several other spots where I had similar experiences, but none were as powerful as the one on that spot. The tumulus is directly behind.
United States
It’s back to my favourite native American again – Kennewick Man.
I’m actually starting to feel sorry for this guy now. Despite the fame, these ridiculous arguments should have been resolved in some way or another a long time ago.
I think he just wants to go back to sleep now.
http://crosscut.com/2015/09/kennewick-man-a-never-ending-nightmare-for-tribes/
Turkey
It’s another new travelogue from myself, this time the disappointing visit to Manavgat, located forty-five miles east of Antalya.
My latest travelogue – Aspendos, with its stunning theatre – is now ready to view. Enjoy the read!
Egypt
Stunning artefacts shown in the gallery in this article come from lost Egyptian cities that were buried under the sea for more than a thousand years.
Around 250 artefacts have been recovered from the sea bed and belonged to cities that existed in the 8th Century AD, but they weren’t found until the year 2000 near Alexandria by French archaeologist Franck Goddio.
The artefacts are currently being shown in an exhibition in Paris.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/08/arts/egypt-thonis-heracleion-exhibition/index.html?eref=edition
Bulgaria
Three thousand coins have been found in a pot in a Roman site known as Serdica, in modern-day Sofia. But the hoard is rather unusual – the coins do not all date from the same time and appear to have been a collection.
The coins date from 69-192 AD and appear to include each of the coins made from each era, making the location seem like the headquarters of the Royal Mint!
Greece
A massive underwater city has been found off the Peloponnese coast in southern Greece.
The city was first spotted in 2014 but divers have only properly surveyed the site, taken samples and mapped the area over the last two months.
Dating to at least 2500 BC, well into the Bronze Age, the city is absolutely huge for its day, stretching over at least 12 acres. That’s the size of about ten football pitches. The site was heavily fortified with an outer wall and predates the earliest mainland Greek culture of the Mycenaeans by a thousand years.
So far 6,000 objects have been found and the site has been dubbed an “archaeologists paradise”.
The importance of this site hasn’t been realised yet, because there is no doubt the history books will be changed.
http://www.history.com/news/massive-bronze-age-city-discovered-underwater-in-greece
Russia
The incredibly beautiful artefacts found in a Sarmatian burial in Southern Russia belonged to an elderly woman who was most likely buried with her husband.
The Sarmatian people were nomadic and moved to the Ural mountains from the Iranian area more than 2,000 years ago.
While the burial of the man was looted and almost destroyed, the woman’s remains were left intact, most likely because his grave shielded hers from the looters. The grave itself has been described as ‘priceless’, and not just for the gold objects that have been uncovered.
The Sarmatians were fire worshippers and a warrior caste who seem to have spent their time fighting. Sounds like my childhood! Along with the gold objects were more than 100 arrowheads. The woman’s teeth suggest she lived until a ripe old age and her bones suggest she survived many battles.
They were also supposedly the inspiration behind the Greek myth of the Amazons.
Greece
A lost Mycenaean palace is thought to have been found near ancient Sparta in southern Greece.
The bronze age palace, burnt down in the 1300s BC and containing many rooms, also has several tablets that suggest a lost period of history, and may shed light on the lineage from the Minoan civilisation which originated on the island of Crete.
The Mycenaean culture disappeared in 1200 BC, and this discovery may give some clues to its demise.
No palace or such building has previously been found on the Spartan plain, and therefore this palace may be the link between those two cultures. The Mycenaeans were the predecessors of the Spartans, so this palace may suggest the primary roots of the Spartan culture, which rose to prominence about two hundred years later in 1000 BC. The Spartans evolved from a mix of several local tribes, first invaded by Macedonian tribes from the north and incorporating Spartan tribes which eventually became the dominant culture when Mycenae fell.
The palace, however, is probably proof that the Mycenaeans were using the Spartan plain several hundred years before the rise of the Spartans, and this could provide an important, and previously unknown, part of missing history.
I will be heading to Greece at the end of the month for my next Archaeology tour and I may well be visiting this site if I can find it! Watch this space…
http://news.yahoo.com/lost-palace-sparta-possibly-uncovered-140506834.html
**STOP PRESS**
England
I don’t normally post twice in the same day, but news has just been released of the completion of the five-year ground mapping project of the area around Stonehenge. The results are nothing more than astonishing.
The site of Durrington Walls, less than two miles from Stonehenge, has been known about for a long time, but what has come to light is that at least a part of the site was surrounded by huge standing stones. Around a hundred have been located beneath the ground, most of them lying down and covered with earth.
The site is five times larger than the entire area of Stonehenge, making it the largest Neolithic monument ever found in Britain.
There is no doubt that this structure, dating to 4,500 years ago, was a part of the wider Stonehenge area and now needs to be taken into consideration when trying to decipher the meaning of the world’s most famous stone circle. What it basically means is all the theories of Stonehenge can finally be put to bed and the thinking behind the intention of the site needs to start again. Stonehenge, it seems, was just a small part of a much larger structure, and it appears that all the theories put forward so far have been in vain. It’s a bit like trying to figure out what a clock is used for but only having the alarm bell to decipher its use.
There is no doubt, however, that there is a lot more still to be found, and it will probably be another generation or two before we know the full extent of the site and, thus, any real answers to its purpose.
Russia
The Shigir Idol, found over a hundred years ago and first dated to 7500 BC, is now thought to be 11,000 years old.
The new date of 9000 BC has been obtained using a mass spectrometer. Radiocarbon dating is notoriously inaccurate the older an item is, and certainly dendrochronology was out of the question for this particular piece of stunning artwork.
The Shigir Idol is the oldest wooden sculpture in the world. It’s haunting appearance and height of 17 feet must have left anyone who encountered it both in fear and in awe. I think it still looks pretty spooky today, and even more so with a lot of fears and myths removed from our consciousness.
A new travelogue from Super Steve!
This time, the aesthetically pleasing journey from the twin sites of Xanthos-Letoon to the city of Antalya
https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/travelogue/12-xanthos-letoon-to-antalya/
