{"id":3645,"date":"2011-09-10T22:22:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T02:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3645"},"modified":"2018-08-04T22:13:43","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T02:13:43","slug":"friday-september-10-2011-mycenae-nafplios-corinth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3645","title":{"rendered":"Friday, September 10, 2011 \u2014 Mycenae, Nafplios, Corinth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>We chose to vis\u00adit Myce\u00adnae dur\u00ading our lim\u00adit\u00aded time on the main\u00adland. As the Myce\u00adnaeans were the suc\u00adces\u00adsors (and per\u00adhaps con\u00adquerors) of the Minoans, their most impres\u00adsive ruins of were a fit\u00adting choice. They are dra\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly locat\u00aded on a steep hill, flanked by a deep canyon, from which you can see the entire\u00adty of the Argol\u00adid plain, and even a fleet approach\u00ading by sea would have been vis\u00adi\u00adble. The \u201ccyclo\u00adpean\u201d walls are extreme\u00adly impres\u00adsive, many of the blocks weigh\u00ading over twen\u00adty tons. I thought the famous \u201cGate of the Lions\u201d would be one of those icon\u00adic images that dis\u00adap\u00adpoints in real life, but it lives up to its rep\u00adu\u00adta\u00adtion. It was vis\u00adi\u00adble in his\u00adtoric times with\u00adout exca\u00adva\u00adtion. The exca\u00adva\u00adtions and very cau\u00adtious recon\u00adstruc\u00adtions by Greek archae\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgists have not involved the laisse-majest\u00e9 prac\u00adticed by Evans at Knos\u00adsos. What you see is large\u00adly the citadel as it was in Late Hel\u00adladic IIIa (cir\u00adca 1250\u20131200 BC<\/span>), open to the pub\u00adlic with only enough recon\u00adstruc\u00adtion, path\u00adways, fenc\u00ading and edu\u00adca\u00adtion\u00adal plaquing to make it com\u00adpre\u00adhen\u00adsi\u00adble to the pub\u00adlic and yet keep it from being destroyed by visitors.<\/p>\n

Tucked away below the citadel is an extreme\u00adly good muse\u00adum, with a very high stan\u00addard of pre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion. No hokum, every\u00adthing very pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adal. Minoan fans like myself tend to assume that Myce\u00adnaean art was a clum\u00adsy deriv\u00ada\u00adtive of their pre\u00adde\u00adces\u00adsors\u2019 work, but I could not walk away from that muse\u00adum with\u00adout acknowl\u00adedg\u00ading that these dudes were far from mere war-lov\u00ading brutes. Some of the arti\u00adfacts met stan\u00addards of beau\u00adty and crafts\u00adman\u00adship as high as any\u00adthing Minoan.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the chat\u00adter\u00ading tourists, we were car\u00adried away by the \u201csense-of-won\u00adder\u201d feel\u00ading of encoun\u00adter\u00ading a lost world, and we spent a con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00adable time pok\u00ading through every cor\u00adner of the site. A dra\u00admat\u00adic, and unan\u00adtic\u00adi\u00adpat\u00aded event for us was descend\u00ading into the fortress\u2019s cis\u00adtern. This fea\u00adture does not seem to be pub\u00adli\u00adcized, and there is no light\u00ading, but noth\u00ading pre\u00advents vis\u00adi\u00adtors from climb\u00ading down into it if they hap\u00adpen to have a flash\u00adlight, which, of course, we did. It\u2019s won\u00adder\u00adful\u00adly creepy, descend\u00ading a steep gra\u00addi\u00adent of one hun\u00addred rather slip\u00adpery steps, 18 meters down into liv\u00ading rock. When we reached the bot\u00adtom, we extin\u00adguished the light, leav\u00ading that total dark\u00adness that gen\u00ader\u00adates phosphenes in your eye\u00adballs. The rock walls were suit\u00adably dank.<\/p>\n

We saved the tho\u00adlos tombs til last. The nine tholoi are near, but not with\u00adin the fortress. They are sad\u00addled with rather embarass\u00ading fan\u00adci\u00adful names: Trea\u00adsury of Atreus, Tomb of Clytemnes\u00adtra, etc . They resem\u00adble the tho\u00adlos tombs of Crete in only the most gen\u00ader\u00adal fash\u00adion. Mycen\u00adian tholoi were meant to impress. The inte\u00adri\u00ador, cor\u00adbelled vaults give a cathe\u00addral-like feel\u00ading, and the exte\u00adri\u00ador ash\u00adlar mason\u00adry is fine\u00adly worked.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

After Myce\u00adnae, we indulged in a spon\u00adta\u00adneous excur\u00adsion to the port of Naf\u00adplio [\u039d\u03b1\u03cd\u03c0\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf], which was ancient Nau\u00adplia. On the way, we passed the ruins of Tyrins, but could not stop. Naf\u00adplio is dom\u00adi\u00adnat\u00aded by a Venet\u00adian cas\u00adtle, Palami\u00addi, built on a 200m hill. There are addi\u00adtion\u00adal Byzan\u00adtine, Frank\u00adish, and Turk\u00adish for\u00adti\u00adfi\u00adca\u00adtions scat\u00adtered about. The old quar\u00adter of the town looks more Ital\u00adian than Greek, and is gussied up for the tourist trade.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Return\u00ading to Athens via Corinth, we stopped to look at a non-ancient site that impressed us: The Corinth Canal. This fine piece of Late Vic\u00adto\u00adri\u00adan civ\u00adil engi\u00adneer\u00ading, over\u00adseen by two Hun\u00adgar\u00adi\u00adans, con\u00adnects the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean, and makes the Pelo\u00adpon\u00adnesos penin\u00adsu\u00adla into an island. It defies the prophe\u00adcy of the philoso\u00adpher Apol\u00adlo\u00adnius of Tyana that ill would befall any\u00adone who pro\u00adposed to con\u00adstruct it. Julius Cae\u00adsar and Caligu\u00adla had such plans, which came to noth\u00ading. The canal fol\u00adlows the path begun by Nero, who dis\u00adpatched 6000 Jew\u00adish pris\u00adon\u00aders to do the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We chose to vis\u00adit Myce\u00adnae dur\u00ading our lim\u00adit\u00aded time on the main\u00adland. As the Myce\u00adnaeans were the suc\u00adces\u00adsors (and per\u00adhaps con\u00adquerors) of the Minoans, their most impres\u00adsive ruins of were a fit\u00adting choice. They are dra\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly locat\u00aded on a steep hill, flanked \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ap-blog-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3645"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4103,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645\/revisions\/4103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}