May 18, 2010

Ancient Delos! The entire island is an archeological site. No one lives here now except the archeologists.	This was an awesome tour. Our guide was excellent, easy to listen to, and skilled at holding us spellbound.
The rectangular stone on the ground here were actually at the top of the columns, but it is not possible to safely reconstruct it, so they left them on the ground.	These first few pictures show what remains of a wide main road that lead directly to the main temple. The columns (stumps) along the side show that there was once a portico to protect people from the sun as they stood in line to get in to the temple.
	Our guide helped us read an inscription along the portico. If you were rich and wanted to show off, you paid for a statue or the portico and had your name put on it
Here is Paul	Here is the remains of the entrance to the main temple. Note how worn the steps are from people entering the temple.
See how one column off to the right seems to have a head? On that column, there would hang a sign that indicated the entrance fee to be paid.
At one point, someone in our tour group sat on some rocks to rest, and a guy ran up and yelled at our guide. Turns out that the head archeologist, some French guy, was on site and would be there soon and would not be happy to see people sitting on the ruins.	This is a huge base for a huge status that was cut up and stolen!
Here is out guide, who wanted to be called Adonis. His business card said his name was really Antonis.	The yellow building off to the right was a cafe and bathroom. The line for the ladies room was so long, Karen went to the men's room. The coffee was just okay.
There were a few really helpful signs that showed what things looked like in ancient times.
	Originally, there were 19 lions guarding the Sacred Lake. Only four lion remain out here. A few more are inside the museum. One is in Venice! Venetian sailors were notorious for stealing lion statues from all over the world. The one in Venice guards the armory, but has the head of a dog because the lions head was lost during transport.
Adonis explained how the statues were transported to the island: they were floated over, using balloons and special boats.
We really liked the lions
More lions
Here is a statue of Artemis, goddess of hunting. Artemis and her twin Apollo were said to have been born on Delos.
	Here is another one of those entrance fee statues. The block dot mid way up is where the wooden sign would be attached to indicate the fee
	Heads Galore!
	Hee hee hee
Now we have gone up the hill, into the richer part of town	This is a well inside a house. There is still water in this well today.
Adonis described how archeologist merely took away all the collapsed rubble and dirt, to reveal all these walls and buildings and streets intact. Nothing here has been rebuilt or restored or surmised. It was simply uncovered.
This is an example of early metal work. This piece of metal helps stabilize the stones.
	A lovely mosaic!
	Karen fell in love with these columns and took a bunch of pictures. The sky was so blue.
This staircase going up to the second floor of this house -- it has been reconstructed.  And roped off.	One way to indicate who owned a house: have statues made of yourself and inscribed with your names by your front door.
Too bad their heads are gone

 Go Home