Some thoughts on the death of David Bowie

I am not a Bowie super fan, nor did I have any great belief that Bowie would not eventually die, as we all must, but...

My first conscious contact with Bowie was in 1990 or 1991, in a room in Newlands, with Tom G* and Stuart S*. I have no real idea now why I was there (I did not often visit Newlands), not even sure who’s room it was, Tom’s or Stuart’s, and I think it very likely TB was there with me. At some point the intro to Space Oddity began playing, on a turntable, as a dig. Fun was being poked by our host at one of the “spacemen” present (and there were plenty).

And then, about twelve years later, I met Korinna, and we would travel around in my heroic Cinquecento and the CD player would play a Best of Bowie CD on an almost continuous loop and I got to realise how Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge would have been nothing without Bowie, and got to know Bowie’s work in its own right. And I liked it.

And not only that, but it became very much connected with the early days of my time with Korinna, as it was an almost continuous soundtrack to all our on-road and off-road adventures (and there were plenty of adventures, and there was plenty of exploration).

So, farewell: Thanks for being the background music to some very happy moments in my life with K.

The cinquo, exploring

Jus' sayin'...

Once upon a time, there was an issue so important and so burning that you could not go to the baker without getting an earful. Of course, there were no referendums then.

Πάντα γὰρ τὰ κατὰ τὴν πόλιν τῶν τοιούτων πεπλήρωται, οἱ στενωποὶ, αἱ ἀγοραὶ, αἱ πλατεῖαι, τὰ ἄμφοδα· οἱ τῶν ἱματίων κάπηλοι, οἱ ταῖς τραπέζαις ἐφεστηκότες, οἱ τὰ ἐδώδιμα ἡμῖν ἀπεμπολοῦντες. Ἐὰν περὶ τῶν ὀβολῶν ἐρωτήσῃς, ὁ δέ σοι περὶ γεννητοῦ καὶ ἀγεννήτου ἐφιλοσόφησε· κἂν περὶ τιμήματος ἄρτου πύθοιο, Μείζων ὁ Πατὴρ, ἀποκρίνεται, καὶ ὁ καὶ ὁ Υἱὸς ὑποχείριος. Εἰ δὲ, Τὸ λουτρὸν ἐπιτήδειόν ἐστιν, εἴποις, ὁ δὲ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων τὸν Υἱὸν εἶναι διωρίσατο.

As rendered by Kallistos Ware:

The whole city is full of it, the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers: they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask “Is my bath ready?” the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing.

#GReferendum #Yes #NAI #Ναι #WhatHaveTheRomansDoneForUs 

Some anniversaries

This year, two very significant anniversaries will come and pass.

On 11 July, I will close my twentieth year working for the same employer.
I doubt I will be able to work for another employer for so long, even if I started tomorrow.

On 15 August, I will have quit smoking for ten years, after 17.5 pack-years. I discovered the concept of pack years today and made an excel table, because that’s the sort of guy I am.
Nowhere on the internet says anything about what I win for my 17.5 pack years, although I am willing to bet that it includes the words cancer or pulmonary (or both).

Two questions

Last time I saw the doc, he asked me a question (no, not that one, a new one), and of course I answered yes, but I am not sure that my affirmative response was completely based on empirical knowledge of the validity of the affirmation being made. That’s one question. The other question is one I have been asking myself a little lately, it is connected and again, I have no real idea what the answer is, but at the same time no real wish to find out.

Which is odd. Because you would expect people to want to know, if there were a real need, for example, whether they are capable of running or not. That was question one. The doc asked me, “Can you run?”, presumably as a test of how things are with balance and coordination. I said yes without thinking. And then when I did think, I thought, well, can I? Can I, really? And the answer is, “I don’t actually know”. I haven’t tried, really tried, for a while and I think this is because although I have had reason to do so, I have not wanted to find out what the real answer is.

Perhaps I should try. Just to clear things up.

But then, what if, in trying I realise I cannot? What does that mean for the future?

So that’s question one. Question two is a very similar question and one which I have been asking myself before the doc asked me his own question. I am pretty sure that the answer to this second question would be “no”, but for the same reasons as given above I have not really tried (and the opportunity has not really presented itself). Question two is, do I reckon that I could ride a bike today? Just the idea makes me a little cautious. I’d love to try, but somewhere safe and soft. Because I am really not sure I’ll be able to stay on.

It’s not going to be something I will miss, if I cannot, although it would have been nice to go out cycling all together, with the girls (if we could afford bikes). I think I have moved on from the bunnyhops and no hands cycling in the early nineties, but I know I have at some point been a mean cyclist. So checkbox checked.

Anyway – there’s my two questions which have been in my mind since June or earlier. And while I know that coming down is much harder, I know that in August, I could still climb up to LO1 (600m altitude difference in 3km horizontal, albeit with a ‘light’ pack) without too much trouble, these two questions are there in my mind, every time I trip over my feet or lose my balance momentarily on flat ground. I ask myself. And life goes on.

EOT, Don't call me stupid!

OK - so let me get this straight...

The creator of the digital media says it is being used without permission, and the guy who cut it with a cleaver and inserted it into a video presenting it as his own work says that EOT has the rights to everything he gave them...

Let's put this in perspective. Let's say I film some footage and put PSY's "Gangham Style" on top, without asking the curiously dressed Korean or his recording company if I may do so, and then I sell the result to EOT, telling them they have the full rights. Then when the DMCA compaint (or whatever) comes, is it right for EOT to hide behind their contract with the production company and continue to claim that they have the rights to the quirky song?

I don't think so... I think EOT is a stupid stupid stupid tentacle of the bloated state that serves to give bloated salaries to imbecillic nepotistically-placed slackers. They should man-up and admit that they are fucking wrong and pay someone serious to make a serious spot.

Oh and they should stop insulting our intelligence already. Idiots.

From today's article in the Kathimerini:

ΜΥΘΟΣ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΣ: «ΥΠΑΡΧΟΥΝ ΣΤΟ ΦΙΛΜ ΚΛΕΜΜΕΝΑ ΠΛΑΝΑ.»

Ανακρίβεια. Ο ΕΟΤ κατά την πάγια πρακτική και εμπειρία ετών, έχει προμηθευτεί όλα τα πλάνα που βρίσκονται στην διάθεση του, επί της βάσεως συμβάσεων με τους προμηθευτές του, και με την ρητή προϋπόθεση ότι είναι ελεύθερα δικαιωμάτων για κάθε χρήση.

Αυτό ισχύει και για τα συγκεκριμένα πλάνα από το επετειακό video, δημιουργίας του κ. Stian Redkal, όπου ο σκηνοθέτης του video κ. Αντώνης Κιούκας έχει διαβεβαιώσει εγγράφως τον ΕΟΤ ότι τα πλάνα αυτά "είναι ελεύθερα δικαιωμάτων προβολής για τον ΕΟΤ".

Το ίδιο ισχύει και το πλάνο με το «Μεσαιωνικό Πατητήρι». Η πηγή των πλάνων αυτών, αναφέρεται και στα credits του video στο κανάλι του ΕΟΤ στο YOUTUBE.

Σε κάθε περίπτωση, στον ΕΟΤ, βάσει συμβάσεως, παραχωρείται από κάθε εταιρεία παραγωγής το σύνολο των πνευματικών και συγγενικών δικαιωμάτων του υλικού (οπτικού–εικαστικού μέρους του μοντάζ, πλάνα δηλαδή μαζί με τον φυσικό τους ήχο, τόσο μεμονωμένα όσο και σε μονταρισμένες ενότητες) για απεριόριστες χρήσεις, σε κάθε μέσο, και απεριόριστη χρονική διάρκεια, με την άδεια να τροποποιηθεί το μοντάζ στη συνέχεια από άλλον δημιουργό.

SORBET Note

Not really a blog post - Just want somewhere to park this that is easily accessible:

SORBET Note

Orange     1000:75:75 by vol
Strawberry  11:2:2 by weight
Watermelon  10:1:1 by vol
Lemon         3:1:1 by vol
lemonade 25:3:3 by vol
melon         40:3:3 by vol

How many are there?

While researching something last weekend (I was looking to find how many museums there are in Greece, about 140, it turns out), I had a rather fine Google search autocomplete experience.

From this, we can ascertain that the most pressing question in Greece in recent times (concerning counting things) is how many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles there are. You and I know there to be four, we may even know their names, but more Greek internet users feel a need to Google this query than any other query involving numbers.

Second place goes to how much road tax will be levied. Obviously, this is a great concern, given the spiralling costs of legally owning and running a car in Greece, even if you are the former transport minister and like to run your car without plates and uninsured.

Third place, goes to the church: How many gospels are there? We may conclude that while the ninja turtles are a significant part of our culture, we should allow some space to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Is it a coincidence that both the gospels and the turtles are four in number? C’mon, hands up who else would love to see Raf, Leo, Don and Mike take their proper places in the lunettes under the domes of churches? Should I be taking more care given that another blogger recently received ten months for making fun of an Athonite monk? I don’t know, I don’t care, but in a country more interested in the progeny of Eastman and Laird than in the evangelists, ten months for a humorous blog sounds steep.

Fourth place, back to our cars… how much will road tax be in 2014? Intriguing insight into the Google algorithm: are we being denied glimpses of road tax in 2013, 2012, etc.?

And in the fifth place spot, we have an amazingly topical question: how many bad loans are there? or what is the value of bad loans? By extension from the remaining searches, perhaps the Greek users of Google Search are secretly hoping to receive the answer “four” – one for each of the gospels, or one for each of the Teenage Mutant Turtles, who presumably are the ones who have created this mess to start with.

Back to Kato Zakros...

Cast your minds back to 1994 – here’s what I was doing in mid to late August – I was doing a slow and leisurely road trip by KTEL (with JWH) round Crete. It was then that I first heard of the “Gorge of the Dead” above Zakros – 19 years ago, just less than half my life ago. I have been back to Zakros, but with less KTEL timetabling hilarity in 2000, again that “Gorge of the Dead” whispering to me to explore it. Of course in 2000, I also saw the Ha gorge entrance, but this is a whole new chapter, one of the precursor stories to how I ended up becoming a caver.

On the one hand, it’s a pity that it isn't an exact 20 years since I first went to Kato Zakros, on the other, it is a pity that it took me so fucking long to get to the position where I could consider walking the gorge…

National Archaeological Museum of Athens, what a nasty thing to say...

I went back to the National Archaeological Museum on Saturday 13 July. The kids love it and we went to all sections open to the public (apart from the bronze collection), twice.

I was trying to see the museum through the eyes of the tourists writing for the Virtual Tourist website, and especially as regards the staff. The staff in Greek museums are notoriously awful, but this maxim is more rooted in anecdotal evidence than any empirical data. I have my own tale of thoughtful and service-oriented staff (years ago, I managed to have the pot rooms opened for a private viewing of the Pitsa tablets just by asking nicely), so I am not going to say that they are all bad.

Some comments from virtual tourist: Some of these are two-star reviews, some three-star reviews.


Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
Paid 21 euros for three people. At 2.50pm we were rudely shooed out the door. The museum closed at 3pm
My comment: Aside from the fact that most get kicked out a full 20 minutes sooner, I just want to focus on the “rudely” point – we will be reading this sort of thing a lot below.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
The entire staff is VERY unpleasant: no adjustment, no friendliness (no hello or goodbye, no smile, unable to point out the toilet ...) I am very passionate about the history of art and I visited many museums in Europe and I've never seen that anywhere else! People expected to monitor different rooms are dressed like they’re going to the beach, they stand no matter how (sometimes sprawled on their seats) they make phonecalls (!) laugh hard (!) mock visitors (!) have long conversations making fun of the visitors who are minding their own business, but what annoyed me the most is that two male guards followed me 2 or 3 rooms bestowing lecherous glances and smirks on me (I'm a 27 year old woman and there were few visitors).
My comment: The review is actually titled, “Superb collection / horrible staff!” Let’s add horrible to rude (and probably ought to add ‘creepy’ too). Perhaps over the top, but smoke/fire… Also let’s hang on to the dressed for the beach description (we’ll see some similar stuff below).

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
Unfortunately the exhibits are poorly presented and the staff look like they've just walked in from the street. They're shocking.
My comment: Ho hum. Let’s add “shocking” then. The funny thing is, that most of the staff do actually look like they’ve been dragged in off the street. Wouldn’t call it shocking, but it’s not a good impression.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
This museum, though it had great substance in it, was in the ghetto and I was scared to leave my bag in the front. No uniforms for the staff which look like out of work volunteers.
My comment: Aha – so what the review above does not say is that they look like they’ve come of the street and this street is ghetto street (I have not linked to all the reviews talking about the drug dealers / users in the streets around the museum, but they are there – both the reviews and the druggies).

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
However, the most famous [galleries, with] the sculptures, were closed for some reason. Looking at the map of the museum at the entrance, it seemed to be the bulk of the museum. No idea why they were closed off. I asked one employee and all she said was "It's closed exhibition".
My comment: OK so, moving on now from how they look, dress and stalk, let’s have a look at how they deal with visitors’ questions. To the question “why is this closed” the guard answers, “it’s closed”. Genius.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
In addition, the staff were extremely irritating. Whether they were chatting hard in groups or standing over your head to see if you were doing something wrong. In some rooms where you could photograph the objects, you may not take pictures of descriptions, or your fellow travelers. Bizarre. The guards follow you about in an extremely annoying way. Very uncomfortable.
My comment: OK – so photography in museums aside, the guards were chatting away in groups or intimidating the visitors. More on this later.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
I visited the National Museum and have not seen something like this in my life and I have seen many sites and museums: poor education and lack of respect for the tourists from the employees of the Museum. They are most unfriendly people. They don’t know how to say things nicely, but do so screaming.
My comment: Unfriendly, lack of respect for the tourist. Shouting at the tourist... not much I can say about this.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
I feel like my experience was ruined because of a grumpy old Greek man that yelled at us for taking pictures with the sculptures. Even though photography is allowed, he told us that if we wanted to pose with the artwork, we should just go to a photo studio. This museum needs to train it's employees on how to treat their guests.
My comment: Couldn’t have put it better myself. I am not commenting on the ‘unjust law’, but on the way it is enforced.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
What we did not know was it only opened till 3pm, and they started to kick you out 20 min before, the staff also chatted too loud, a leisurely operated museum.
My comment: Leisurely, unless you dare to take a photo... then you get the screaming and the shouting.

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
I agree with my fellow-travellers below that the staff is terrible. Did not agree to take my coat in the cloakroom, were rude etc.
My comment: Back to “rude”

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
I travelled from Ireland to come and research this stunning collection. Breathtaking but two tips, go first thing at 9.30 to avoid the crowds, and expect the staff, who almost outnumber visitors, to have either an arrogant or apathetic attitude - 80% horrid staff. 
My comment: Title of the review is “Excellent museum despite the arrogant staff” – are we beginning to see a pattern here?

Review source: click for full Tripadvisor review
The staff in the rooms seem to be rather too full of their own self importance and indeed one of them told my husband to delete a picture he had taken of our daughter beside one of the exhibits as she was posing like the statue. He told my husband she could have her picture taken with it if she stood with her arms by her side!
My comment: Again the photography rule, but “full of their own self-importance” says a lot, no?



So, rounding all this up, I would like to add my own three tales with guards, totally anecdotally - keeping in mind that many are great and actually interested in their work and don’t dress like they’ve been dragged in off the street.

In the sculpture rooms, just before the horse and jockey, the guard was sat on a bench for the best part of two hours chatting with a woman who could have been his sister or mother (both the guard and his interlocutor were both at that age where either could be likely). They both looked dishevelled and he took no interest in his room while chatting. This reminded me of the dragged off the street comments.

In the second room with the archaic sculpture, I noticed one of the lights was not working. I pointed this out to the guard and we had a nice surreal discussion. It went a little like this:

- that light seems to be not working
(I was pointing at this light):

One of these kids is doing his own thing...

- you’ll have to ask at the information desk about that
- err, no. The light is not working, I don’t need to ask about it, look (I point)
- if it is not intended to be off, the technical department will sort it out
- does it look like it is meant to be off?
(the guard was in a room where the exhibits looked like this):

Kore in the dark, well-lit kouros

- the technical department is responsible for lighting
- and how will they find out if no one tells them?


As an experiment, I am not going to tell anyone just to see when (if ever) it will be fixed.

[edit: on Saturday 7 September the blown bulb had been fixed - so something is working…]

My final anecdotal piece of the day involves a game of ping-pong played by the guards in the vase room. I was looking for the Dipylon inscription (only the oldest evidence for the Greek alphabet currently in Greece – so not really an obscure thing – link to Greek wiki, link to English wiki). I told them I was looking for the pot with the really old inscription, and one guard bounced me into the next room, then the other bounced me back into the first room, the first guard displaying total ignorance of vase shapes in the process.

Disappointing, though my fault in part for not recalling that it's called the Dipylon Oenochoe. It would be interesting to try the experiment again using the actual name of the thing. Anyone want to put money down on whether they will take me to it?

So – what is the MiniCult going to do about the appalling state of its human resources? Sweet bugger-all, no doubt.


Oh, and a cute video from the visit:

A different take on the shit-eaters at DOATAP

So, I was working hard reading about delusions as defined by the new DSM today when I cam across this description of the DOATAP problem. I find it a very clear and level-headed description of something I have trouble thinking about without foaming at the mouth. Well done Elly, for managing to write so much about this system without once using a rude word. Seriously.

Sifting through scanned negatives from 2006, coming soon: Kastoria churches

I’ve spent the best part of today (after drilling holes in the bathroom for a new towel rack) trying to sort out some old photos from Kastoria in 2006... taken on film (obviously, given that I was still 2 years away from the beginning of my transition to digital).

Kastoria was like a middle Byzantine playground! Amazing small-scale religious architecture and the promise of some decent frescoes when doors were not locked – like a mini-Ochrid.

I have spent the morning going through two rolls of film, trying to match church names to images for uploading to Flickr (coming soon). 

Some of the images to be sorted and sent to Flickr

Given that I could only remember two of the churches, and one of these not by name, this was a non-trivial detective task. The main thing in my favour was that I had only the one camera with me, and therefore only one roll of film being exposed at one time. The other thing in my favour was that I was carrying my new Garmin GPS and creating a track of our walk.

Screengrab from Google Earth

So I fire up OziExplorer to re-trace my track and get an idea of the route I took chronologically (and so I could export the .trk file to a kml file Google Earth can understand) and I fire up Google Earth to get an idea of where the track is on the satellite image.

Getting jiggy with it

And lo and behold, I get the route and the little jiggy bits point out where I stopped walking and stood and walked around.

The areas marked “a” (with deliberate flame-bait use of Comic Sans font) are the jiggy-bits showing I wandered around and stopped rather than continued to move (making it likely that a photo was taken there). The area marked “b” with vertical dotted line shows a different effect – the dotted vertical is drawn to bring attention to the impossible path beginning and ending at the entrance to the church. This is where I entered the church and lost signal. The sharp line is where the GPS tries to get a firmer fix on my position. 

Path anomalies

 So – we now know I stopped walking in front of square building and entered the odd pyramid cake building, but we are no closer to an id. I then make a guess on the basis of different materials used to roof these buildings that these two are churches (and specifically the churches of St. George and St. Stephen – taking that from Barber’s map on pages 590 and 591 of the 1981 version of Greece’s Blue-Guide, reprinted 5^th Edition of 1990, a gift from Charlie).

Some of these kids are doing their own thing...

 Not all buildings with the duller tiles can be churches, but all churches have the duller tiles.

Armed with this knowledge – that St. George (more about this church when I get it up on Flickr) is that one, and knowing which one St. George is in the images, I can then follow my route backwards and forwards from there to identify all remaining images (if only as ‘unknown church on Ag. Anargyron street).

The last piece in the chain of this detective story is the identification of the other buildings – and here at the last moment, I remembered Wikimapia. Firing up a new browser window, I got names for all but one of the buildings I had shot and got the final one from the Blue Guide (although I am curious why wikimapia does not tag it. 

Extract from Wikimapia 

So there we have it – actual photos coming soon.

Youtube monetisation #fail

So, I am taking the plunge and calling myself a Youtube partner and I am allowing Youtube to place advertisements next to my content and maybe, I’ll get a cheque in the post some-day. Like, does anyone actually know anyone who got money out of Google? Anyway, so I clicked the checkbox to monetise this vid:
 
And I get a snotty message on my channel saying I don’t have commercial use rights to this video of a dragonfly.

Explain in the text box below how you own commercial use rights to your content. You are welcome to use the suggested information as a starting point. However, it is up to you to provide all necessary details. Please note that YouTube may need to ask you for additional information.

Well, I told them: "I made this video. It is shot on my Nikon D3100, with a Nikkor Q 135mm lens sitting on a selection of teleconverters and extension tubes. The audio is crickets chirping (real live crickets, not recorded crickets), waves crashing about 50 yards away and my own voice. The video shows a real live free-living dragon fly (created by God if you believe in that sort of thing, but I don't think he holds enforceable copyright seeing as he's been dead at least since Nietzsche). I guess his shadow still looms.

Like, dudes, WTF?

I have no idea why you are not allowing this to be monetised. I probably have images of the set-up of the camera to send you if you still don't believe I made it myself. I consider this non-approval a little crazy and look forward to a swift resolution."

So let’s see how they react. If you like the vid and it isn’t too shaky for you, click through to youtube and watch it HD, then click on the ads, why not?

Athena Alea at Tegea, in Arcadia, September 2011

The final stop on the September 2011 Peloponnesian Road Trip was at the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, in Arcadia.

The remains of Skopas' doric temple to Athena Alea

Much of the temple has been incorporated into the village church and other buildings and there is nothing that would have been visible above ground were it not for the excavation. What is visible is actually the Hellenistic era Doric-order temple undertaken by Skopas (of “Dancing Maenad” fame) after the classical temple had burned down.

For the rest of the road trip, click:

2011 Peloponnesian road trip

Pellana, LH Chamber Tomb cemetery, September 2011

Off the road to Arcadia, north of Sparta lies the village of Pellana. A dot on today’s map, but for the excavations which have brought to light heavy bronze-age occupation and a rather fine set of chamber tombs built into a hill. These chamber tombs somewhere at some time by someone were called Tholos Tombs and most of the references to the cemetery on the internet refer to Tholos Tombs of Pellana, (so that must be right, yeah?)

Unfortunately, no.

The Tholos Tomb form, θολωτός τάφος, is a very specific funerary structure with a built chamber.

Entrance signpost

Just because the shape of the burial chamber mimics the Tholos form, it does not make the tombs in this cemetery Tholos Tombs, regardless of what the excavators and local ephorate would have you believe or what the expatriate community in the states would have you believe. This link directs to one such expatriate site which is scarily wrong in almost everything it presents as fact – perhaps interesting for those modern day analysts of urban folklore (or even the texts of Pausanias and Herodotus), in that it tells the story the writer has believed and which readers will find plausible in the absence of conflicting, more authoritative information but which is based on second and third hand “facts” from local people who are more concerned with impressing the visitor with their superlatives than proving factual information.

So, setting aside all the crazy where was ancient Lakedaimon and this was Menelaos’ palace stuff, let’s get on to discuss the cemetery itself.

As you can see from the image above, the cemetery is signposted and fenced in standard fashion, with the cheeky hole (πονηρή τρυπούλα) to the right of the main entrance (if I am not mistaken). Following the ridge to the right takes the visitor above the main tombs, the largest one of which has been covered with a rather funny octagonal pagoda structure.

Octagonal pagoda, over the Large, so called Royal Tomb, at the Pellana LH chamber tomb cemetery

The tombs were excavated in the period from 1926 to the late eighties. All had been plundered in antiquity and many had fallen in subsequent to this. The standard practice, as shown in the image below, seems to have been the interment in unlined pits in the floor of the chamber.

One of the tombs, from above, showing burial pits

The large grave, image below also had pits in the chamber floor. It has a diameter of about 10m, making it one of the largest known LH chamber tombs.

The large, so called Royal Tomb, at Pellana 

I rather like the way the bedrock from which the tomb was excavated shows the geological bedding in this photo:

Bedrock stripes on the dromos of the large Chamber Tomb

We did not follow-through with a visit to the Palace, mainly due to time constraints. Ariadne was sleeping and we decided to press on to Alea... It should be noted that at the time of our visit, no doubt because of the preparations for the new Tripolis/Sparta road the road system in the area was very difficult to navigate with roads stopping without warning and much doubling back on ourselves.

For the rest of the road trip, click:

2011 Peloponnesian road trip

Amyclae, from the fence, September 2011

A little further on from Vapheio is the sanctuary of Amyclae. On the same trip, we visited the site and drove round the fencing which is in a much better condition, no doubt because of the small church in the site itself.

Amyclae, on Flickr

The tiny church was built with and on top of the ruins of the temple of Apollo at Amyclae, which was built on and quite possibly with the ruins of the tumulus of Hyakinthos, a pre-Greek deity (yeah, whatever, tell it to the hand) celebrated on-site before the city was subjugated by Sparta, only a few Km away. The old cult of Hyakinthos was swallowed into the cult of Apollo (now Apollo-Hyakinthos).

For the rest of the road trip, click:

2011 Peloponnesian road trip

Vapheio Tholos Tomb, September 2011

The tholos tomb at Vapheio in Laconia was famously excavated in 1889 by Christos Tsountas, pioneer Greek archaeologist of prehistory. The tomb is huge, only slightly smaller than the so-called Treasuries of Atreus and Minyas. Even at the time of excavation, it was in far worse shape than most tombs of this type, but still gave up two glorious gold cups with beautiful carved scenes depicting bulls in relief. Cups of this shape are now called Vapheio Cups. 

I first visited the tomb in the mid-nineties although I don’t think I walked down to the entrance then. We visited again on the way back from Mani in September 2011 and while Corinna fed Nausika, I took Ariadne to her first Tholos Tomb...

The tomb, from above and the south

The site is in pretty rough shape, despite a nicely paved walkway going most of the distance from the road to the tomb. The fence is in the standard Greek archaeological site fencing condition – or perhaps slightly worse, with the “cheeky little hole” (by which I mean to render «πονηρή τρυπούλα») being large and just next to the padlocked fence.

Shambolic fencing that even a two year old can circumvent...

The fence closes off the tomb at the end of the dromos, which is more than 30m long, leading up towards the stomion.

Dromos

The stomion is in a pretty bad shape as well – it is thought that the blocks from the tomb have been incorporated into structures in the nearby sanctuary of Apollo Hyakinthos at Kleonae, so it is no surprise that very little remains above the third or fourth course.

Stomion in bad shape...

The wooden planks put up, I don’t know when, are not surviving too well and it all looks like the tomb is going to have to fight to make it to the 125th anniversary of the excavation in any shape worth writing home about.

For the rest of the road trip, click:

2011 Peloponnesian road trip

Armenoi, Minoan Chamber tomb site, September 2011

Outside the village of Armenoi in the Rethymnon prefecture of Crete there is a huge cemetery of LMIII chamber tombs. The site today is well shaded and there are more than 100 tombs which have been excavated and are open to the public. A nice spot for a wander.

All together in the shade at Armenoi

The highlight of the site is the large chamber tomb, probably royal:

The dromos of the large tomb

Inside the large tomb

Inside the large chamber tomb

I first heard of the site during the Minoans and Mycenaeans Flavours of their Time exhibition in the late 1990’s, because the skeletal remains were analysed for Nitrogen isotopes to see if the researchers could tell the source of the protein in the diet of the interred. If I remember correctly, there was a difference in the male and female skeletons, with men eating meat and women receiving most of their protein from the sea. 

 Well worth a visit. 

Chania Archaeological Museum, Crete, September 2011

The Archaeological Museum in Chania was founded in 1962, after the building it is in had served as a store house, a cinema and a mosque (dedicated to Yussuf Pasha) during various times in the island's history. The building was originally built as the church of St. Francis of the Franciscan monastery most likely established in the C13th and displays rare Mediterranean Gothic features.

We visited in September 2011, on the back of the 14th National Speleological Meeting… excerpts from my diary follow:

After so many years, I get to go to the Chania Museum. The visit was made in far from ideal conditions – not enough time and both girls with us. The museum itself is built / housed in the old Franciscan church a the centre of an old Franciscan monastery dating to the 13th Century, if I am not mistaken.

Unfortunately, the guards were not so well informed as to what is original and what is restoration, which is a pity as I am not sure I have seen better gothic ribbed vaulting in Greece.

General view of the nave / main hall

Gothic arches in the museum

Ablution fountain in the garden

The tourists from Northern Europe have no idea of the rarity or peculiarity of this and indeed of all gothic features. The museum itself has finds from all over western Crete, famously from the palace at Kydonia itself and from various other locations. It also houses the Mitsotakis collection, which is basically huge and spans all eras of Greek history. Especially notable is a bronze bowl, bearing an inscription in Linear A – apparently the only surviving bronze object to have been thus inscribed. The LED lights positioned to highlight the inscription were not working, so I did not actually see it well enough to photograph.

The bronze bowl, suffering from the LED malfunction

Bronze adorants from the Mitsotakis collection

Unfortunately, beyond the Mitsotakis collection, very little else is published and therefore very little else is permitted to be photographed. The bull offerings from a rural sanctuary in the Chania prefecture are actually unpublished and not allowed to be photographed, and yet it is in such small letters that unless the guard is actually next to you it is very difficult to know that you have gone astray. 

oops!

For me, and no doubt for many Minoan fans, the highlight of the museum is on the left about a third of the way in – a sealing impression, in clay, showing the so called Lord of Kydonia – an amazingly crafted scene, which may indeed represent the town of Chania, some three and a half thousand years ago…

The Lord of Kydonia

 and explanation:

Back to the Acropolis Museum, December 2012

So last week I went back to the museum... and it’s time for something positive, this being the season of goodwill and all.

I remember my three major complaints being the photography ban, the lack of printed and explanatory information and the lack of children oriented materials.

No photography sign, outside the New Acropolis Museum

Main entrance hall of the New Acropolis Museum, with prominent no photography reminder

Well, having gone on Saturday 15 December (a normal, pay to enter day) with the girls, we had the museum essentially to ourselves – up in the Parthenon gallery we walked round the whole thing twice, only seeing other people towards the end of our tour. An experience both satisfying and slightly worrying at the same time.

All the Hellenistic and Roman era to ourselves...

The major changes I noticed from the summer of 2009:

1. The Kritios Boy seems to have been raised on his pedestal to a much higher level. Can’t imagine why, but, there you have it. Blonde Boy also seems to have a new perch...

Kritios boy, on a new perch (2012) - compare with the image below (2009)

2. There is now material for kids to read or have read to them, in big letters, bright colours and targeted at them. So – yes, the museum is currently better for kids than it was three years ago. Can it be better yet? I think so, but this is a good first step.

3. (I took about 50 photos and hardly anyone minded, shhh…)

4. In 2009, I had a very specific complaint about the lack of “how” – well, in the archaic sculpture room, there is now a very nice display of marble-working tools along with an example of how each one left its mark on the marble. There was a similar display about the various minerals used to colour the marble, where they came from and how they were prepared to be applied.

Tools of marbleworking and the marks they make

So – the museum is getting better. I am more enthusiastic, and I can’t wait to go back. Oh, and as a coda: Ariadne, at 45 months old told me the next day that the sixth Caryatid should come back from London to be with her sisters. It’s not right that she’s far away from them. I had explained that the pedestal is empty because one of the girls has gone to London to another museum, in a totally non-judgmental and neutral way.

 

Tripolis Archaeological Museum, September 2011

The archaeological museum of Tripolis is housed in a wonderful neo-classical building with a wonderfully damp and drippy basement, which is a pity as the wall-mounted exhibits have suffered as a result.

Probably in an effort to avoid photographs of exploding drippy basement wall plaster, or else because some researcher has not been properly arsed to publish his or her material, photography in the museum is banned and as a result the guards, two older ladies not so well informed about what they are watching over but certainly well enough informed of the ban will follow and hound any prospective photographer ensuring that this ban of dubious legality is not circumvented. I mention dubious legality as according to law it should be possible to photograph the exhibits free of charge for personal use in the museums of Greece. See my posts on Naxos and the New Acropolis Museum...

Anyway – so there we were in September last year on a great Peloponnesian north/south roadtrip with an overnight in Tripolis. The museum was just across the street from the hotel, and I took Ariadne and went.

Ariadne enjoys the garden of the Tripolis museum…
Once you get over the bad state of the museum itself and the museological side of things, there are a few gems housed within. On the left on the ground floor, the finds from the LHIIIC Palaiochora chamber cemetery, pretty much exclusively ceramic but certainly worth a visit. In the basement, the sculptures from the villa of Heroides Atticus are also very much worth a visit, despite whatever feelings one may have about Roman-era 'art'. Most of the rest of the museum actually reinforces whatever feelings you may have of Roman-era 'art'. Well, it did for me…

For the rest of the road trip, click:

2011 Peloponnesian road trip

Isthmia museum, July 2011

The museum at Isthmia is really very much off the beaten track and this is a pity as it houses some amazing finds in materials not normally encountered when making any sort of must-see tour of the Peloponnese or indeed mainland Greece. It is modern, well laid out and with plenty of well-written texts.

A view of the main hall of the Isthmia museum

The religious site at Isthmia was of course dedicated to Posidon, the god of the sea and not without some reason. The site straddles and controls the paths from the south to the isthmus and along with Corinth itself two and a half hours to the west it effectively controls all access to the Peloponnese. The southern edge of the isthmus is just 15 minutes’ walk away while the harbour of Kenchreae is one hour to the south.

Excavations were conducted from 1952 onwards. It is one of the locations of the four great Panhellenic Games (Delphi, excavated by the French and Olympia by the Germans were both excavated before the end of the 19th Century, Nemea and Isthmia were both excavated in the last half of the 20th Century by the American School). The finds of the excavations from the fifties and subsequent re-examinations form the main part of the museum’s exhibition, although the finds from sites such as Kenchreae and Almyrae are no less interesting and the finds from Kenchreae are what give the museum its unique nature in terms of the materials on show.

Terracotta finds originally from the archaic temple of Poseidon, dated to the 7th CBC and found in the Large Circular Pit which lies to the west of the Palaimonion and south of the Temple precinct.

This Large Circular Pit contained many other finds. The pit was used to bury fragmentary and broken terracotta and stone artefacts and serves as a sort of Perserschutt pit for Isthmia. One of the larger finds is the Poros Kouros, below.

Fragmentary statue in the shape of a Kouros, youth

The kouros part was found at Isthmia in October 1959 by members of the University of Chicago digging at the site under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies. The piece was found at a depth of 18.70 m. in the Large Circular Pit.

The fragmentary nature of the find and the fact that the pit contained all sorts of finds spanning many centuries has allowed classical scholars free reign to try to date the statue on stylistic grounds alone. This, coupled with the relative paucity of Kouros finds in the Peloponnese, the soft material used (and the constraints this imposes on diagnostic indicators) makes it an interesting case.

Next up, back to the Bronze Age:

Mycenaean Psi-figurines

The ubiquity of the Psi and Phi figurines in Late Helladic contexts is one of those reassuring things. We are so used to them that that if there were none, you would be curious to know why. Other people do a much better job of discussing and describing these so I will not repeat what better researchers have already said. The specific figurines are part of the exhibition focusing on the chamber-tomb Cemetery of Almyri, near Isthmia. More precisely, Kato Almyri, Rachi Bechri. There are twenty odd tombs excavated at this site, yielding some pretty standard looking ceramics and the psi and phi figurines. The floor plans of the tombs look interesting enough and maybe I’ll make a trip sometime in the future – although given how long it has been since I first tried to get into this museum and how many years passed until I made it there when it was open to the public, I doubt such a visit would be any time soon.

Moving on to Kenchreae, the star of the show…

Kenchreae is one of the harbours around the Isthmus of Corinth. For some it is famous for the haircut of St. Paul (dude, srsly?), for others it is known for the amazing underwater excavations of the American school in the sixties. The reason for underwater excavations is the earthquake which struck in 375 and caused the land to sink a few feet, thereby burying buildings in the water of the harbour. How’s that for a funky terminus ante quem? Underwater excavations usually means that we get a whole bunch of stuff turning up which would normally have rotted away. When it sits underwater, there is a great chance that a site’s perishable materials will be buried in anoxic mud and will not rot, but remain for the archaeologist to find. And so we have it… the so called temple of Isis, looking remarkably like a village church in floorplan, revealed a whole lot of funky finds in materials we don’t normally encounter.

Wooden furniture find from the so-called Temple of Isis

The furniture is a great discovery as not only will it allow the interested visitor to have a good look at ancient joinery, but also to see the ivory inlays and sculpted decorations which would have adorned the furniture itself. The piece above shows some very finely wrought, presumably burned decoration in the wood itself.

Ivory plaques for decoration of wooden furniture

Speaking of inlays and decorative bits, the ivories above depict cupids doing everyday tasks. To me the worksmanship and subject look very much like later medieval ivories with almost identical theme. This is the sort of thing that if I had seen it without the context, I would have dated totally wrong... as such it is very much good fun.

One final but uber-funky wooden find from the so-called Temple of Isis is these wooden doors:

Wooden Doors off the so called Temple of Isis, Kenchreae

These are by far the largest of the wooden finds currently on show at the Isthmia museum. To me, they look not very much different to provincial or naïve doormaking of far more recent times. We don’t often get a lot of wood surviving in Greece so this is all good stuff.

Another great find from the so-called Temple of Isis were the packing crates with the glass panels depicting scenes from a seaside city... These were stacked in groups around the walls of the main area of the temple, presumably either for installation or for transhipment elsewhere and most likely originated from an Alexandrian workshop. They date to the period immediately before the earthquake that led to their burial and subsequent preservation.

Corner of one of the plates

There were originally about 120 glass plates which would have covered an area of about 150sq.m. The plates were either completely decorative, depicted life-sized figures of priests or philosophers or were part of a cityscape panorama showing a seaside town. The whole work is an amazing look at an art form for which we have very little (if any) other information and an impressive decorative programme spanning many meters of wall space.

Scenes from the seaside town panoramas

The panels were stacked face to face, and the faces were the parts most susceptible to the corrosion of the sea, frequently resulting in the fusing of the two panels face to face. Most of the finds on display are actually the back side, rather than the front side which would have been on show, and this should be kept in mind. Because of the difficulties of desalination and the fragile nature of the finds, they are now stored in climate controlled rooms in the museum basement.

To sum up – if you have not been to the Isthmia museum – definitely make a point of taking a three minute detour and go!