ANCIENT ATHENS

Perhaps the most memorable impression we have of Athens is of its longevity.  Remembering my long-ago history, philosophy, and literature classes, I recall that Athens is known as the cradle of Western civilization and thought.  This was the home of Aristotle and Socrates and of Homer, author of Iliad and Odyssey.  It is the birthplace of democracy, the original site of the Olympics, and the locale of the stories about the Greek gods Athena, Zeus, and Poseidon, among others.  I have only a very peripheral passing memory of all those stories from Greek mythology.

We learned on our tour today that each Greek town has an acropolis, traditionally the highest point in the town where defense fortifications could be built.  Temples were built within those walls as places to worship the Greek gods.  We got a little closer to the Athens Acropolis today but will have to save actually exploring the buildings on the hill until we return at the end of our cruise.  This photo clearly shows the fortifications built on his rocky hill.  

At the base of the Acropolis is the Acropolis Museum, which is built over the ruins of an early Christian settlement.  (For those who recall their New Testament Biblical history, Greece was where much of the early evangelizing of the apostles and Paul took place, so this settlement would only have been about two thousand years old.) 

We visited the National Archaeological Museum.  For me, the most impressive aspect of this museum was learning just how ancient Greek culture is.  Exhibit after exhibit noted that the artifacts displayed were from the seventeenth century before Christ or the sixteenth or the eleventh or the tenth century BC.  These things were created between fifteen and twenty THOUSAND years ago!  Here is a sampling of what we saw:

Gold death masks were created as memorials to the dead.  The early Greeks (Myceneans), who lived between the sixteenth and eleventh centuries BC, were warriors who amassed a collection of gold.  What better way to use it than to make these masks?  This one is the “Agamemnon mask,” but carbon-dating research indicates that it is centuries older than it would have been had it been Agamemnon's.  Nevertheless, the name has stuck.

This warrior's helmet is made of a leather cap with wild boar teeth sewn on for protection.

The vase collection and the bathtub are dated from the tenth century BC or sooner.

And finally, I share this tribute to Scott and his engineering friends. I happened upon this plaque celebrating an ancient geared device built in the first century BC as a way to forecast weather and predict astrological event. 

The photos are difficult to see, but perhaps you can make out the bronze gears shown here in profile.  The Greeks were amazing engineers as well as mathematicians.