Athens and Santorini
(If you click on the smaller images, full-size pictures will display)
Peregrinations about the places in the land of the Odyssey accompany some of the photos

Hadrian's Library (created by Roman Emperor Hadrian in CE 132)

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Aegean Sea (an embayment in the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Turkey). It was first known in Greek as the "chief sea" (αρχιπέλαγος)--this is where we get our word for archipelago, which now refers to any small-island grouping. The Venetians are believed to be responsible for the popularisation of the term--they formally ruled many of the Greek islands. Within the Aegean Sea are the Aegean Islands, divided into seven groups. The island of Santorini (where I voyaged) is part of the Cyclades group and is located north of Crete.

Impressive bronze statue of either Zeus or Poseidon (ca. 460 BCE), found at the bottom of the sea in north Euboea (the second-largest Greek island, in area and population, after Crete). Now inside the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, it is a sculpture in the Severe Style ("notable for exquisite rendering of motion and anatomy") of the Classical Period (source of quote is the museum's website--I love the description, as it precisely captures what's transfixing about this statue: the motion and perfect body).

Temple of Zeus

Behind me at the Temple of Zeus are Roman baths and the remains of ordinary houses.

Courtyard at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens

Aphrodite at the Ancient Greek Agora Museum

Parthenon under renovation

Ferry on the Aegean Sea from Piraeus to Thera--shot taken through a dirty, plastic window

Ongoing excavations at the ancient city of Akrotiri--first discovered in 1967. The archaeologist who first came upon Akrotiri died during a routine dig, when one of the roofs collapsed on him. He was buried in the city in the 1970's and was recently exhumed and reburied nearby, I believe.

Purple flowers (probably on Jacaranda mimosifolia trees, which are native to South America but grow well where there is no frost) --one of the only sightly aspects of "September 3rd," the street I walked along my first morning in Athens. It was about a 45-minute walk from my room in the Viktoria neighbourhood to the Acropolis.

Middle of the Ancient Greek Agora at dusk.

Φηρά (Firá) is the capital of the Cyclades Island of Santorini. The city is famous for its white-washed houses on the edge of a 1312-feet high caldera. Firá is an alternate pronunciation of the ancient name of the island, "Thíra."

The "Boxing Boys"--a fresco from Akrotriri kept at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. I saw it before going to Akrotiri and know which house it was in in the ancient city. Akrotiri was a Minoan Bronze-Age settlement destroyed by the Theran eruption about 1627 BCE. Like Pompeii it was entombed in volcanic ash, and many frescoes, such as this one, along with other forms of art and objects, were well-preserved. (Akrotiri was much older than Pompeii at the time of eruption. Pompeii, an ancient- Roman town near Naples, was covered in 4 to 6 m of ash and pumice by Mount Vesuvius in CE 79--contrast this with the mid-2nd millennial BCE encasement of Akrotiri.) Akrotiri wasn't discovered until 1967. Some historians speculate that it may have been the inspiration for Plato's fictional island of Atlantis. Plato wrote more than a 1000 years after Akrotiri was abandoned from a volcanic event so large (one of the largest in recorded history) part of the island did collapse into the sea. Imagine for a second where Santorini is: It's positioned in the middle of the sea--already--between the mainland of Greece and Crete in the south. I can imagine growing up in a culture hearing about the city that submerged. In Plato's dialogue on the hubris of nations that mentions Atlantis, Atlantis is held up over against the ideal Athenian society. Akrotiri had become commercial and rich in trade before the eruption. Perhaps by the time its memory telephoned into Plato's mind, its fiction was a bit like Las Vegas.

The Ancient Athenian (Greek) Agora symbolises the birthplace of democratic ideals. It was a central public gathering place for commerce and residence. It is situated northwest of the Acropolis, the city's citadel. We get our word for being anxious in public spaces, "agoraphobia," from ἀγορά.

Like Sedona, Arizona, only redder and with water, this is Santorini's Red Beach. The colour is due to the iron-rich rocks formed from the volcanic eruption. In contrast, Sedona's more orange "red rock" is a result of a unique layer of sandstone found only in Sedona. It's much older than the volcanic lava debris of Santorini, given that Sedona's sandstone was deposited somewhere between 299 Mya and 252 Mya.

Personification of the Iliad--one of the oldest works in Western literature, dating in writing to the 8th century BCE, and set during the Trojan War. It's a Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter (a form of meter, which has six "feet." Each foot has a long and two short syllables (a pattern known as a "dactyl"), but there are exceptions, such as the "spondee" (two long syllables) instead of a dactyl.

Near my villa in Karterados on Santorini, a shot from a nameless street about 45-minutes walk from Fira.

Second-century statue of the personification of the Odyssey--traditionally ascribed to Homer and the second-oldest work in Western literature. The oldest is typically considered to be the Iliad (photo to the left). The Odyssey is the Iliad's sequel.

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Legend has it that Aphrodite was birthed out of the sea. Gazing out at these soft waters, it is not hard to image how the ancient mind conceived of her sensuous body emerging like a rolling island in the distance. Aphrodite features in a feud that results in the Trojan War and plays a major role in the Iliad.

I love this statute of Aphrodite--her posture, hips, breasts, stomach, and draping dress.

Socrates was indicted for impiety in 399 BCE here in the Ancient Greek Agora.

Erechtheion with inverted colours. The Erechtheion (built between 421 and 406 BCE) was dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon.