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From June 23rd on, I won't be around RAT much, if at all; I'll be in Greece digging at Mt. Lykaion in the Peloponnesos with the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project. The site is a mountain-top sanctuary of Zeus (to whom human sacrifices were supposed to have been made!), with a lower site including a temple of Pan and the only visible hippodrome in the Greek world. Werewolves, too.
On August 9th, I fly from Athens to London, and the following ten days or so will be split between that city and France, exact division yet to be determined.
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cool! Lets us know if you have found something!
gr,
Jeroen Pelgrom
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I would rather have fire storms of atmospheres than this cruel descent from a thousand years of dreams.
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If you find time in Athens lets go for a couple of beers.
Kind regards
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bring us back some goodies :twisted:
Andy Volpe
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sweet dude thats awsome. dont get bit! hehehe take tons of pictures for us!
Tiberius Claudius Lupus
Chuck Russell
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Quote:cool!
I think not. Temps in Greece are 29.5 on average, with daytime peaks reaching nearly 40 degrees C. :?
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Very cool, you lucky dog!
And the Greeks performed human sacrifice?  hock: I find it hard to believe my ancestors would stoop so low! :roll: :lol:
WOW, just looked at the map, and it is not far from where my grandfather originated from. Kalidonia! Or Kalidona, will need to look on the map again :oops:
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
[b]Legio XIIII GMV. (Q. Magivs)RMRS Remember Atuatuca! Vengence will be ours!
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Quote:I think not. Temps in Greece are 29.5 on average, with daytime peaks reaching nearly 40 degrees C.
On the top of the mountain it can be quite cool overnight and in the mornings.
Quote:And the Greeks performed human sacrifice? Shocked I find it hard to believe my ancestors would stoop so low!
Neither could the author of the Pseudo-Platonic Minos (315c): "And not merely is it foreign peoples who use different laws from ours, but our neighbors in Lykaia and the descendants of Athamas -- you know their sacrifices, Greeks though they be."
And Porphyry summarizing Theophrastus (Abst. 2.27), "From then until now, it is not only in Arcadia at the Lykaia and in Carthage for Kronos that everyone engages in public human sacrifice, but periodically, in remembrance of the custom, they stain altars with the blood of their own kind, even though holiness, among them, excludes from the rites by lustral water and by proclamation anyone responsible for the blood of a friend."
Quote:WOW, just looked at the map, and it is not far from where my grandfather originated from. Kalidonia! Or Kalidona, will need to look on the map again
Home of the famous Calydonian Boar?
And now I'm off to the airport!
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Green with envy :lol: 8)
Never heard that before Dan. I only recall it is spelled with a K..... :roll:
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
[b]Legio XIIII GMV. (Q. Magivs)RMRS Remember Atuatuca! Vengence will be ours!
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Have a blast Dan! Keep us all updated on your trip!
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Two months and a day later... I'm back in Philadelphia after an exhausting but exciting six weeks at Mt. Lykaion.
I was working with the topographical survey team at the top of the mountain on the ash altar. You can see us in the background of this picture (that's me sitting):
![[Image: week2_fig4.jpg]](http://mountlykaion.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/week2_fig4.jpg)
When there wasn't much for us to do, we assisted the excavators with screening and excavating. The altar was certainly an exciting place to be digging. We turned up probably tens of thousands of bone fragments from the sacrifices (on preliminary observations, sheep, goat, bovine, pig, plus some bird bones). There was also a tiny lead kouros-figurine, tiny embossed bronze sheets, and a miniature bronze tripod. We found a well-preserved iron object, possibly a javelin point or part of a spit (I'll post a picture at some point soon, once I've organized my photos...). Those were the flashy items, but probably the most important were some humble, ugly-looking potsherds dating to the Early Helladic period, maybe EH III (2300-2100 BC). Previously, the earliest known activity at the site were miniature bronzes similar to examples from Olympia dating to the 8th century BC. We also found a Late Minoan I B lentoid seal with a bull on it.
There were also trenches at the lower site, further down the mountain, where are located a hippodrome, stoa, bath, and 'xenon'. The stoa, previously thought on not very firm grounds to date to the 4th century BC, shows activity at least from the 6th century and possibly earlier.
You can read the 'official' blog online at
http://mountlykaion.wordpress.com/
Some of the photo captions are mixed up, but it should be otherwise legible.
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Ash altar.. you're sure you did not leave something behind? It seems half of Greece is on fire! :wink:
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Quote:Ash altar.. you're sure you did not leave something behind? It seems half of Greece is on fire!
Well, we left plenty behind, we'll be back next year, but all of our ash is two thousand years old or more! There were many days when the horizon was darkened or made invisible by the smoke from the fires, and on a couple of occasions the entire mountain-top (with us on it) was engulfed in clouds, fortunately not very smoky.
Indeed, I read yesterday that the fires were within two kilometers of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae/Vassai near Andritsaina, which is not very far at all from Mt. Lykaion. We hiked from Lykaion to Bassae in about two hours one Sunday about five weeks ago.
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