May 15, 2005
May 15 Photos: Ben
The group walks up to the museum at Volos, one of the best museums we have seen. Note the Ionic columns at the top of the stairs.
One of the highlights of the museum, the collection of Hellenistic painted grave stelai from Demetrias. Like the “Wizard of Oz” in 1939, these stelai wow you with their color.
Up close and personal: Katherine gets a good look at a stele. If only she could get this close to the geometric pots she needs for her ISP!
A close-up of a painted stele and all its colors. This stele stood over the grave of a man named “Menelaos,” as the top line of the stele indicates.
Open casket funeral? Not exactly, but Jackie examines a reconstruction of a Middle Bronze Age cist grave in the museum.
A reconstruction of a built cist grave from the Late Bronze Age (14th century BC). Note the burial goods surrounding the body.
While at first glance these figurines might look like Neolithic action figures, we think they were used for religious activity of some sort, not as ancient GI-Joes. The museum has one of the largest collections of such figurines.
Home, sweet megaron. This Middle Neolithic house (ca. 6500 B.C.) at Sesklo takes a megaroid shape.
A Late Neolithic door pivot. It remains to be seen whether or not modern equivalents can last a few thousand years like this one, but I doubt it. For scale, the pen is approximately 14 centimeters.
A view of ancient and modern Greece: Katherine and Caleb stand in at the edge of Neolithic ruins at Sesklo and survey the rolling hills of olive groves below.
The group walks to the central court at the top of the Neolithic settlement at Dimini.
Not your average tholos tomb: the group explores a tholos at Dimini, and Laura examines the unusual wall built into the side of the chamber. Since the bottom of the chamber consists of tough bedrock, the ancient Greeks built this structure in place of the cist that would normally be cut into the ground.
Peter gets excited over the Late Neolithic kiln at Dimini. With its state of preservation, who could blame him?
Our guest lecturer, Dimitria Rousioti discusses the plan of the Mycenaean period settlement at Dimini.
A typical Sunday lunch in Thessaly: pork, veal, chicken and plenty of bread.
After the satisfying lunch, the group had time for coffee and milkshakes on the beach before the drive to Kalambaka.