Ancient Greece Odyssey: Part Two

Our first day with the rest of the tour group!

After the usual hotel breakfast buffet consisting mostly of crackers and several kinds of feta cheese, a bus whisked us to the foot of the Acropolis at 9:30, saving another long hike. We had our exercise, however, making a rapid forced march up the winding Greek path and Roman steps to the Acropolis.

From there the city stretched out below, with another fine view of the Temple of Hephaistos and Agora and the modern city beyond. Drawing near the top of the slope, we hurried past an empty cage of white scaffolding high above us on our right, carefully painted to match the local marble. It marked the ghost of the Nike Temple, then removed for restoration. On our left (see photo) loomed the columns of the north wing of the Propylaia that housed an art gallery in antiquity. Then we passed through the great Propylaia gateway and caught our first glimpse of the Parthenon.

The bedrock of the Acropolis was slick underfoot, streaked limestone smoothed by centuries of pedestrian police. Ahead was the west end of the Parthenon; at left the Erechtheion with its famous karyatid porch. Scaffolding was everywhere, as were gleaming blocks of fresh marble being cut to fill gaps in the latest round of repair.

The Parthenon was massive, powerful, yet as familiar as my hand. There it stood high over Athens in the blue sky, sun, and open air. The wind was gentle, yet its soft breath added a sense of timeless presence and the natural world. Birds added a lively presence to silent stone: pigeons, doves, magpies, sparrows and swallows.

The old marble is faint gold. How many have walked there? I nearly shed my shoes again, but we had to keep moving. Our guide, Anna, provided a quick orientation to the Acropolis: the sack by the Persians, the Periclean building program (Parthenon's dates: 448-447 BCE), the Parthenon's use and the damage it suffered in recent millennia. She described its gold and ivory statue of Athena facing east towards sunrise, the back room serving as treasury, the famous carved pediments depicting the birth of Athena and the contest between her and Poseidon, and the modern reconstruction program using the same quarry. The fresh blocks are white, but in a few decades will oxidize to a pale pinkish-gold.

We moved to the small Acropolis Museum, half-buried in the hill just east of the Parthenon (to be replaced by a new Acropolis Museum in June '09).

Now brace yourself, because I'm going to sneak in a little Art History 101! It will help you get more out of my photographs.

Many of these pictures show Archaic Greek sculpture from the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, just before the flowering of what we think of as classical art. Archaic statues are stiff yet regal figures with enigmatic smiles, almond-shaped eyes and hair like Egyptian wigs. The "kouroi", youths with arms at their sides and one foot forward, may have been inspired by Egyptian art -- the ancient world also had its tourists! Later, Classical Greek sculpture evolved into a blend of realistic anatomy, idealized beauty and attention to the swing and rhythm of limbs.

The Acropolis Museum's rare stash of Archaic art is the remains of temples razed by the Persians. These relics were too sacred to throw away, too damaged to keep on display. So they were buried on the Acropolis during Pericles' rebuilding program.

Flash photography is forbidden in Greek museums, so I had to rely on none-too-steady hands.

Left: Fragments of an Archaic winged Gorgon (Medusa), probably perched atop the pediment -- the gabled end -- of the old Athena temple destroyed by the Persians. Acropolis Mus. 701, c. 575-550 BCE.

Right: High Archaic sphinx, c. 560-550 BCE. Acropolis 630.

Left: Moschophoros, the Calf-bearer. The ancient Greeks set up portraits of themselves near temples as pious offerings and, of course, as a form of self-promotion in a public place. Here a nobleman, Rhonbos, brings a calf as a sacrificial offering. Acropolis 624, c. 560 BCE.

Right: Acropolis 670, c. 520-500 BCE. A beautiful kore -- "maiden" -- holding out an offering. In the Archaic period, girls who died young are often represented as the maiden goddess Persephone, who in Greek mythology was abducted by Hades the god of the underworld. These statues are both an offering to the goddess and a public memorial. According to the Perseus website, this kore may have been made by the sculptor of the Archaic Athena I showed in Part I, also in this museum.

Left: the "Peplos Kore", named for the kind of gown she wears. According to the Perseus digital library, her sheath-like peplos resembles that worn by Archaic statues of Artemis. She originally held out an offering such as a fruit or flower, but the attached forearm is lost. High Archaic, c. 530 BCE, Acropolis 679.

Right: Kritios Boy, named after the sculptor who signed his name on the statue. It's a famous and surprisingly small statue of a kouros (youth) that demonstrates the transition in art styles from Late Archaic (stiff, stylized) to Early Classical (realistic, although idealized). 480 BCE, Acropolis 698.

Now it's time for the famous Parthenon Frieze--or at least, the few pieces of it still left in Greece! Most of the blocks are in the British Museum, the Elgin Marbles,and debate is still raging about when or if the British should return them (they were purchased from the Greek government, but at the time Greece was ruled by the Turks).

The Parthenon Frieze originally circled the top of the Parthenon temple's outer wall behind the columns. The frieze is carved in shallow relief with bronze added for details (melted down long ago). It shows a city festival in Athena's honor: people bringing offerings, warriors engaging in chariot and horse races to simulate battle maneuvers. The man with the shield is hopping into a chariot.





Next is a small early classical Athena -- I wish she hadn't lost her head! Holes were for bronze (or gold?) snakes, and she probably held a spear. A stylized head of Medusa adorns her breastplate. This symbol, called a "Gorgonian", is supposed to scare off enemies just as a jack-o-lantern scares off evil spirits. Made by the sculpture Euenor, c. 480 BCE, Acropolis 140.

 

At right, one of the Erechtheion's karyatids. My diary says, "massive and enigmatic, they seem to have a share of Athena's power." The light at the top of her column is a reflection.

Finally, we were given all of 15 minutes to explore the Acropolis on our own before racing back down the hill to meet the bus. I do not know how I managed to do as much as I did in that brief time!

I raced through the Acropolis Museum again, snapping photos of all the objects pictured above. Our first time through we had been led quickly and informatively by our knowledgeable guide, Anna, so there had been no time for photos.

On this second pass I stumbled across a surprisingly small treasure I had missed the first time through. Traffic flow through the museum meant that unless one turned around after passing through a doorway, one would never glimpse the Mourning Athena relief set into the wall beside the door-frame. It glowed a soft gold in the shadows and was smaller than I had expected: only a foot wide.

At the west end of the Erechtheion I found Athena's sacred olive, said to be sprung from the original tree.



The Greeks prized Athena's gift of the olive dearly, for olives were the source of lamp oil and a major staple of their diet.

Olive saplings grow for decades before they bear fruit, so losing one is quite costly. One of the dramatic moments of the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta was when the Spartans burned the olive groves around the city in sight of farmers taking refuge within Athens' walls at the command of its leader, Pericles. It was an early test of siege warfare and a testament to his charisma that he dissuaded them from rushing out to their deaths.

I also recall a lengthy court speech by the orator Lysias defending a man accused of digging up an olive stump, which was a capital crime! Apparently olives have been known to sprout from old roots.

So much for history. I savored a final sight of the Parthenon peeking through olive branches and dark leaves.



Looking back, I'm amazed I wasn't frustrated by the fleeting time we had to spend in that sacred space.

Twenty years ago, a school group's bad planning meant that my first visit to the British Museum was curtailed to 27 minutes. For years I suffered a sort of tourism interruptus from that tantalizing glimpse -- just enough time to pay homage to the Rosetta Stone, Elgin Marbles, and mummy gallery. Yet my visit to the Acropolis was different. I knew the site so well that it felt like a brief stop at an old friend's house.

I raced back through the Acropolis Museum, snapped that picture of the theater and several beauty shots of the Parthenon, and circled the Erechtheion in just twelve minutes, despite pausing to kick off my shoes and stand on the true bedrock for a moment! As I hurried down the hill, I barely had time to note the sights we'd passed on the switchback Roman road up to the Propylaia. Here and there under bushes and trees next to the curbs were stray dogs dozing, not forlorn or bony, but well-fed and treated as communal pets by the locals. There were also a few Greek soldiers in colorful traditional garb with kilts and tassels -- no time for photos, alas!

My legs were aching by the time I reached the bus, but I wasn't the last one down. At last the herd was gathered, and we rumbled down the Pnyx hill on a hill on a cobblestone street for a quick tour of the city.

After a quick bus tour of the city, past the Corinthian temple of Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, and the stadium of the first modern Olympics, we arrived at the National Museum, Athens' largest collection of ancient art.

The rooms are arranged in chronological order, and contain a hit parade of art history students' "must know" artifacts.

The first room covers the Mycenaean period, remembered centuries later in myths, cults, and Homeric epic. This was the time of the Trojan War. The Mycenaean period for classical Greeks was like the age of King Arthur for us, a time of great kings and legendary warriors.

Many of the objects in this room were discovered by the famous early archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), whose exuberant earth-moving habits were more of a treasure hunt than proper excavation. Convinced Homer's Troy was more than just a myth, he was catapulted to fame by his discovery of the legendary city. He went on to locate several other sites mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey, including Mycenae and Pylos.

From shaft graves in Mycenae, Schliemann dug up fine metalwork including gold and silver chased daggers, beautiful cups, and golden death masks including one he romantically named the "Mask of Agammemnon" (right, Athens National Museum 624). Wishful thinking on Schliemann's part, since the shaft graves date back to the 16th century BCE, about three centuries before the Trojan War.

Nevertheless, these artifacts give us a better idea what those remote times were like. They remind us that later portraits of Achilles and Odysseus wearing classical Greek armor are anachronisms just like medieval portraits of Julius Caesar wearing a doublet and hose.

Here are a small ivory portrait of a warrior (Athens NM 2468), an ivory boar's tusk helmet (left, Athens NM 6568), and a charming vase showing warriors trooping off to battle with a wife waving farewell (Athens NM 1426). Art like this helps us see how the ancient Greeks saw their own world.

We're so used to the ancient world depicted by Hollywood (or Xena's Kiwiwood), on the one hand, and classical art, on the other, that Mycenaean and archaic Greek art sometimes looks very strange to us. This isn't what most of us think of when we read about the heroes and warriors in the Iliad and Odyssey, is it? Is it just me, or do the soldiers look like Olive Oyl clones?

The distinction between scholar and treasure hunter was blurry in Schliemann's day. He and his crews hacked through walls and tombs looking for gold and spectacular finds. Goblets fit for a king's table (above) emerged from one of Mycenae's shaft graves inside the walls of the citadel.



The twin golden Vapheio cups, found in a royal tomb in a neighboring kingdom of the same period, are especially important, because they show how the art of an older civilization, the Minoans, was adopted by the Mycenaeans who conquered them. Dated to the 16th century BCE, they depict men roping bulls, perhaps for sport. The one on the taller pedestal is Minoan, the other Mycenaean, and you can see here how Mycenaean artists imitated the earlier civilization's art. There are a few differences: slightly cruder work, greater emphasis on the bull's struggles (people make much of warlike Mycenaeans contrasted with international trade-minded Minoans, although that's a gross oversimplification), and less emphasis on wild nature.

So-called "Cycladic art" is another famous style of art from the earliest days of the Mediterranean, predating even the Minoans. The style is named after the Cyclades Islands where many such figures were found.

The discovery of these gracefully simple figures with their smooth and geometric forms inspired artists like Picasso, who marvelled at how different it was from later, classical Greek art.

Cycladic sculptures tend to look small in photos because their stubby shapes resemble clay figures despite being carved of marble. In fact, some sare several feet tall. Replicas stand starkly in the shop windows of Athens and many other cities. It seems that they have become fashionable again about 4000 years after they were last in vogue.

These charming fellows are easy to miss, since the Cycladic art is tucked away in a smaller, darker room off to the right of the large Mycenaean/Minoan gallery.

Next were the classical and Hellenistic art galleries. I could have spent days here. A few examples:

Bronze Zeus of Artemesion
(Taking aim with a thunderbolt)
Classical Period, c. 460 BCE

This imposing statue, like most bronze sculptures, was recovered from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean. Bronzes are very rare, since metal is usually melted down and recycled. Many sculptures are actually later copies, often by Roman artists. Added treestumps and supports are a clue that a sculpture is probably a marble copy of an earlier metal statue.

At right is another famous bronze, the Marathon Boy c. 340 BCE, fished out of the Bay of Marathon. It bridges the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods when idealized, well-proportioned beauty and more formal poses gave way to sinuous S-curves and full use of three-dimensional space. (Unfortunately my full-figure photo of him was blurred; that "no flash photography" rule was tough on my archaic digital camera!)

At left is a typical Athenian grave stele (gravestone), common marble monuments from the late 5th century BCE. They portray the dead person saying goodbye to the family (sometimes including household slaves). These are touching snapshots of ordinary people, in contrast to imposing statues of gods and goddesses. There's no realistic wrinkles or flab in classical sculpture, however: figures are beautiful and ideally proportioned, as opposed to the greater variety of the Hellenistic Age.

To the right, an exquisite marble monumental head of the goddess Athena. It's definitely classical, but I haven't yet found any information on it. She would have worn a helmet. Perhaps a copy of the massive cult statue of the Parthenon?

Below, the head and shoulders of a marble Roman copy of the Diadoumenos, or "ribbon-binder", an athlete crowning himself after a victory. The original bronze (c. 420 BCE) was by Polykleitos, the classical Greek sculpture who invented the chiasmic pose with weight shifted onto one leg, the other bent and relaxed. Sculptors have been copying that pose ever since, the visual equivalent of a cliché. You've probably seen statues on the front of banks, art museums, or military monuments doing the Polykleitos dance!

Heads full of famous art, we were bussed back to the hotel for a late lunch. But food could wait -- Athens' archaelogical sites and museums closed at 2:30! I had seen something tucked against the lower slopes of the Acropolis that I did not want to miss.

I raced through Athens' narrow streets to the Acropolis on foot, bidding the Agora a promise to come back someday and explore. I reached the Theater of Dionysos ten minutes before closing!

Climbing the theater's steps, I sat down on ancient bleachers to catch my breath. The Acropolis loomed behind. Swallows danced above. Poppies and yellow flowers sprouted through cracks in stone. I gazed out at the remains of the stage and backdrop, and imagined the ancient dramas played out in the space before me.

In my mind I recited names of famous plays that had been performed here: Agammemnon, Eumenides, Oedipus, Antigone, Prometheus Bound, The Clouds. Each had been written to be performed just once for Athens' annual festival and drama competition in Dionysos' honor. The flowering of Greek drama was short-lived, just a handful of decades in the 5th century BCE. We are lucky that a few of the most famous scripts were preserved.

I scurried out with the last visitors and retraced my steps, passing the Roman Odeion, the Agora, and the Temple of Hephaistos one more time. I cut through the beautiful flowering groves on the Hill of Mars and landed back in the modern century. Wandering the streets and alleys, I indulged in a little shopping, enjoying the bad and better copies of Greek art that canny shopkeepers have been peddling since ancient times. I selected a small Attic red-figure vase with a good Athena inside and a miniature of the Versailles Artemis. Finally, I ate a late lunch in an open square where the Native American musicians from Taos were performing again.

I stumbled back to the hotel in time for Chris' 5 o' clock lecture on Demeter and Persephone.

Backstage wall of music hall,
Odeion of Herodes Atticus,
funded in memory of his wife Regilla 162 CE

And that's it for Athens! Next, join me as I visit Eleusis, sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in Ancient Greece Odyssey: Part Three!

Complete Index of Ancient Greece Odysey:

• Part One: Arrival
  
• Part Two: Acropolis and Athens Museums
  
• Part Three: Eleusis, Demeter and Persephone
  
• Part Four: Delphi and the Oracle of Apollo
  
• Part Five: Mycenae, Tiryns, Nauplion
  
• Ancient Greece Odyssey Updates Blog