I have little to say about this place. Iolkos was the home of Jason according to legend. There is a Mycenaean citadel there but I actually managed to miss it. We only stopped here because it was more or less on the way. Unfortunately due to the strikes we were unable to get in. The entire site was fenced off. So I, uh, hopped the fence. I'm a little embarrassed about that but I was really fed up with governmental stupidity by this point. They just aren't capable of running these priceless sites by themselves. The popular and rich ones or the ones located by prosperous towns are the only exceptions. It makes me sympathize with the British when they roamed through these lands taking all the priceless artifacts back to display in London. We kept joking that the British members of the group were sizing up the sites to see what artifacts to take when they entire country inevitably dissolved in riots.
The first thing that I should say is that this is Dimini, not Iolkos. Dimini is an Iron Age site dating back hundreds of years before Iolkos. For some reason when the Mycenaeans built their city they did it lower down on the hill. That seems a dumb move to me but whatever.
This is the highest hill around. Why didn't they build their site up there? Altitude gives you protection
and visibility. So why didn't they do it? I have to wonder if these guys were trying to hide in the valleys.
This is all I saw of Iolkos. Once I realized what it was I was tempted to go back but I really didn't want anyone to see me fence hopping. It was a pretty isolated area but we were right next to a city so there were houses around and I could easily have been spotted had I gone down there.
No comments:
Post a Comment