landingtree (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
landingtree) wrote2018-11-29 06:59 pm
landingtree) wrote2018-11-29 06:59 pm
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Persephone has left the underworld so we can be chilly again
The word 'mystery' derives from the Greek 'mysteria', which meant 'rites' until the Eleusinian Mysteries became as proverbially secret as they did. We still don't know what happened at Eleusis, really. Otherwise highly informative writers stop when they get to the Mysteries and say "I intended to record what I witnessed, but it has been forbidden me in a dream." Specialists in Greek death (i.e. Diana) gnash their teeth. Something about the afterlife was promised to initiates, possibly. There was a great dark hall, and the unmasking of a goddess in fire, probably. The story of Demeter, Kore/Persephone, and Plouton/Hades was the framework, but gods were worshipped there who appear nowhere else. Eleusis is a tangle of stone on two levels, fortification walls (it being the most westerly deme of Attika, close to sometime enemies like Corinth) and the support structures and many generations of a temple which had to accomodate a substantially-increasing population as the centuries passed. When we were there three enthusiastic dogs were running around on it. After we applauded the one of us giving her presentation, a dog standing in the middle of our group added a single definite bark. (This makes a change from most of our sites, where there have been cats, often contriving to be the same colour as the marble they're standing on, and sometimes chasing butterflies).
After that we went to the Keremaikos, the best-excavated Greek cemetary, in use since the third millennium BC, foundation of our ability to accurately date great swathes of Greek pottery, potters' quarter ('ceramic'), site of the largest and most famous gate into Athens, Diana's favourite place in Greece, and with enough remaining bits of city wall that we could spend occasional moments sheltered from the freezing wind. It's good I'm writing down some of these fascinating complexities, because my main actual memory from the Keremaikos is, 'So cold, so very cold, can we get out of this wind soon, hands too stiff to write notes, making implied complaints about the heat was bloody stupid, why didn't I wear twice this much merino and a woolly hat, there is an interesting grave stele and I wish I wanted to go looking in the marshy stream for turtles but also it is cold...'
This evening: dinner at local restaurant, mousaka and a free shot of ouzo (mixed blessing) and brief terrible fun dancing to two old men on guitars. Tomorrow: Aigina. This means a ferry. This means three layers of merino and thick wool socks.
After that we went to the Keremaikos, the best-excavated Greek cemetary, in use since the third millennium BC, foundation of our ability to accurately date great swathes of Greek pottery, potters' quarter ('ceramic'), site of the largest and most famous gate into Athens, Diana's favourite place in Greece, and with enough remaining bits of city wall that we could spend occasional moments sheltered from the freezing wind. It's good I'm writing down some of these fascinating complexities, because my main actual memory from the Keremaikos is, 'So cold, so very cold, can we get out of this wind soon, hands too stiff to write notes, making implied complaints about the heat was bloody stupid, why didn't I wear twice this much merino and a woolly hat, there is an interesting grave stele and I wish I wanted to go looking in the marshy stream for turtles but also it is cold...'
This evening: dinner at local restaurant, mousaka and a free shot of ouzo (mixed blessing) and brief terrible fun dancing to two old men on guitars. Tomorrow: Aigina. This means a ferry. This means three layers of merino and thick wool socks.