June 8 2017
Today started like any other day on the trip. We all got up and packed to catch the bus to Delphi today but we had an unfortunate mishap. The bus broke down about 100m away from our hotel and we had to wait two hours until a new one came. After that however it was a great day.
We first went to Marathon and saw the burial mound for the 192 Athenians that fought and died against the Persians. This tumulus is important because it was unusual for the Athenians to bury their died in a different spot besides their home. This was done to commemorate the great victory against the Persians and Great King Darius I, who was the king of Persia at the time. Something else significant about Marathon was that it was the home of Herodes Atticus, who was a distinguished and rich Greek sophist and aristocrat who served as a Roman senator. His estate still exists at Marathon for people to see.
Then we quickly traveled to the museum of Marathon that holds a lot of pottery, red figure, jewelry and tributes that were found in the Cave of Pan. What was also found was a inscribed stele with the rules of the worship of the god Pan. Another amazing thing about this museum and Marathon was that they had Egyptian statues in the museum. The Romans created an Egyptian sanctuary and the balneum, which held four statues of the Egyptian gods. The balneum was a bath house and the four gods were Isis, Osiris, Serapis and a marble sphinx. It was built in the second century CE and possibly by Herodes Atticus.
Afterwards we went to Rhamnous, which is the location of the temple of Nemesis and the temple of Themis. This site is important because of its unique design of the two temples that were only built 10 to 15 years apart. The temple of Themis was build just before the temple of Nemesis and is very different from the temple of Nemesis. It does not have any evidence of columns attached or around the temple, not even in front of the pronaos. However about a decade later they built a temple to Nemesis after defeating the Persians. It was created out of marble and had Doric columns that were unfinished, suggesting the temple was never completed. They are two very differently built temples that are right beside each other.
Finally, we arrived in Thebes at the museum where we learned about Thebes and the history and culture of the place. The museum was amazing and was very informative of the history. It had amazing artifacts and sculptures. It was one of my favorite museums so far on the trip. It had many of the items I am interested in like weapons and armour. They had this magnificent Bronze style helmet that was of the Corinthian type. However the city state that created the helmet is still unknown. It has owl shaped eyes with a piece coming down in front of the nose. The museum also has many more helmets, shields, spears and swords from all different time periods of Greece.
At the end of the day we finally arrived in Delphi at our hotel. We had all seen a lot today and experienced a long but amazing day. I personally learned a lot that I did not know prior to this trip. I look forward to the next days of it and can’t wait to see, experience and learn more about ancient and present Greece from these experiences.
