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September17,2007

"persephone's plight part 2" music: honking of Greek cars in light of the election exit polls
mood: tired and happy that he called

after that "tragedy" on Friday, we drove back to Athens, exhausted and aggravated. on saturday morning, we set off again in Persephone, driving up to Marathon to see the Tumulus of the Athenians. the tomb/mound supposedly marked the area where many of the 192 Athenians fell at the Battle of Marathon in 490B.C. (according to Herodotus). while the idea of seeing the ancient battlefield seemed really cool, it was a bit anti-climatic when we arrived at the site and saw the mound and surrounding land. originally, i had imagined a vast open field, with the mound rising conspicuously over the area. i thought it would be really amazing to see the size of the field and perhaps attain a better image of the battle. however, the actual battlefield we saw was littered with small trees and a few towering cypresses, which diminished the appearance of the mound by covering parts of it.

after a short visit at the battlefield of Marathon, we drove along the recommended route to see the Museum of Marathon, which housed various artifacts excavated from the mound, remnants of Herodes of Atticus's estate, statues and parts recovered from the Ancient Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods (random site located by the sea which we never found; it was built during the Roman times when worship of Isis and Osiris was a cultic fad), pottery and ritual artifacts from the Cave of Pan, and actual remnants of the Trophy of Marathon. while there wasn't much left of the towering column, which supposedly had Nike crowning the top to commemorate the miraculous victory at Marathon against the Persians, the lighting in the museum was incredible. the natural sunlight brightened the room beautifully, which is something i have never seen before at other museums. we decided not to drive up to the official "Trophy of Marathon" site because according to the map guides, the official site is only a replica of the original one, which would have been much more anti-climatic to have seen. plus, it was farther northeast and slightly out of the way. the Egyptian statues were also interesting to see, but the it was clear that they were created by the same artist, who seemed to have a strange perception of human feet, because each statue had toes long enough to resemble short fingers.

the Museum of Marathon was a great treat, because right next to the building, there was another building built right over the archaeological site of some ancient Helladic tombs. while the tombs were unidentified, the grave site was very unique in its arrangement of burial and stones. again, the presentation of this site was one of the best i had ever seen, because it allowed for the visitor to walk around the site without having to walk over or touch the graves. the wooden ramp led up to a higher elevation for the visitor to look down at the graves and see the site from a semi-bird's eye view. perhaps the best part was that the entire place was empty except for us, which made our visit much more pleasant.

we then walked around the museum site and took a path that led us to the Tumulus of the Plataeans, who fell with the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon. since there were fewer of them who fought alongside the Athenians, the mound was smaller, but equally interesting because as Pausanias noted, it was marked by a circle of stones. we were really happy to have found the site because due to the rather isolated location of the museum and Plataean mound, many visitors to Marathon probably skip over this site. the other interesting, and most distinguishing feature of this mound was that there was a carved out entrance into the tomb. unfortunately, a modern-painted door was chained at the entrance, which also made the discovery a bit disappointing since it would have made our Marathon adventure much more interesting. plus, we didn't know enough about the Plataean Tumulus to explain the existence of this entrance, so it would have been a great archaeological experience to have crawled into the tomb and had a look around. wishful thinking.

after completing our archaeological agenda, we hit the Marathon Beach and had a light lunch at a taverna by the sea. we were literally seated on the beach, with the beautiful Mediterranean beckoning us to swim. the taverna had a funny name, literally "the fish" in Greek. we spent the rest of our afternoon at that beach, some of us swimming, and some of us reading, and i wandered off to the rocks where the boats were docked and looked out towards the sun like i always do, because the sea isn't right for me unless i'm in the direction of the sun setting in the west. i guess it's because i grew up by the Pacific where sunsets are always over the ocean, and the colors are a never-ending phenomena for me.

thus ended persephone's plight.

next weekend, kalambaka/meteora perhaps?