March 20

We left the hotel with bags packed at 8:30 and hopped on the bus to drive to Nemea. After an hour long drive, we made it to the site. Here was one of the four main sites of the Pan-Hellenic games, the others being at Delphi, Olympia, and Corinth. In ancient times, this site was only used for the games. There was no settlement here until the early Christians inhabited the area in the 5th century. Taking us around the site was the former director of the archaeological program here, and the former director of the American School of Archaeology (he was the director when Krentz attended in the 80s). He did a great job showing us around and explaining what they know about how the games worked. He was a funny character. He had a protruding stomach with grape juice stains, large, thick glasses, and has been married three times (this last bit of information came from Krentz). His latest book is actually a children’s book about the Olympics.
When Steve was showing us around the site, he filled us in on the current reconstruction projects. He took us to the Temple of Zeus and had us each stand where all the columns once stood so that we could understand the interior layout. When Rob asked him what his opinions were regarding the permitting of tourists to walk on the temple, he replied that these temples were built to be walked on and he wants that function to carry on into the present. Steve wants people to appreciate the temple as it once stood, to get a feel for the size of the building by walking on it, and a feel for the interior space by experiencing it with the reconstructed columns. Steve’s goal seems to be to restore the temple to the original design so as to pay homage to the building’s original look. The restored building will no longer serve the same religious purpose, but through the restoration project, it will get its old look back.
I particularly enjoyed learning about how the temple was being reconstructed and the pains they were taking to make the restorations as close to the original as possible. They quarried the same limestone and used the same techniques, but with some advances (titanium pegs instead of wood – though Steve, not surprisingly, wanted the wood). Through mimicking the designs, they are learning more about the purpose behind the temple’s designs. It amazes me that the temple was able to withstand earthquakes because the engineers designed the columns to be flexible. What makes me sad is learning that temples were destroyed purposefully, even if for religious purposes. I’d almost rather have the temple fall though a natural disaster than to have it taken apart purposefully.
Next, we went to the shrine to Helen and Menelaus at Menelaion (I wonder why his name is the one used for the shrine, and not both). This shrine is just 2 km outside of Sparta. The mountains here are unreal. They are beautifully capped in snow like confectioner’s sugar, but looking up at them from the valley they seem to be angrily thrusting from the ground. Wildflowers decorated the hillside where the shrine is now in ruins. It was one of those times where all you wanted to do was frolic and take pictures. We did pay a little attention to Krentz, but there really isn’t much known about the shrine here, and the archaic inscription which attributed the structure to Helen and Menelaus comes about 800 years after its construction in the 15th century BCE. There is also a house a little ways away which may be a predecessor to the palaces at Tyrns and Mycenae as this one also dates to the 15th century BCE.
We are spending tonight and tomorrow night in Sparta, which is Spiros’ hometown! The hotel is nice and I scoped out where the closest super market was on the drive in. Once I had settled into the room and determined that the internet worked and was free (this is one feature separates the good hotels from the excellent ones – I’d rather have no shower curtain than have to pay for internet or have it not even be an option), I trekked out to buy some produce. At 6:30 we had a discussion on the play Agamemnon. This time only half of us met so that we could fit better in one area and hear each other much easier. It thought it was a good discussion, particularly since I had already studied this play in Humanities last year and, therefore, I knew what I was talking about. The discussion lasted till 7:30 when Krentz had to leave us to go have dinner with Spiros at his home. Krentz said he was a little nervous because he had already used up all questions he knew how to ask in Greek when they had dinner together last night.
I spent the evening doing laundry, eating a delicious salad that I chopped up with my pocket knife, and watching The Office. The episodes download automatically to my iTunes every Friday so I am still current on all the goings on in Scranton, PA. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, so we will be visiting the museums in town. It’s not my favorite thing to do, but hopefully the olive oil museum will be interesting.