Vergina
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There are just three royal tombs: the untouched one identified as Philip's, where a woman, possibly one of his wives was also buried, in an antechamber. The one called "the Prince's tomb" (possibly Alexander's son, Alexander IV, who died young), and the so-called "box-shaped grave", where the bones of a man, a woman and a newborn child were found in the plundered chamber. This is the one with the wall-painting I had come to see, a lifesized "Rape of Persephone". There's one more monument, down here in the dark, a massive thing called a Heroon, the shrine of a hero awarded divine status. Presumably Heracles, the legendary ancestor of this royal line.
Wonderful things, wonderful things , as Carter said: and though not on the same scale, more impressive to me than Tutankhamun, because this is a window into a deep past I thought I'd never see, and of a culture closer to home.
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The video presentation at the end of the tour (not that anyone was guiding us: we were very early, the hall under the tumulus was empty) is a work of art in itself: an account of Manolis and the discovery, and a meditation on the meaning of these secular icons I had just been venerating. Death and memory and forgetting are intimately linked forces. We bury the dead with honour because we love them and fear them; and then later, patiently and lovingly, we dig them up again because we need them. . .
You will find a spring on the left of the halls of Hades, and beside it a white cypress growing. Do not even go near this spring. And you will find another, from the Lake of Memory, flowing forth with cold water. In front of it are guards. You must say, 'I am the child of Gê (Earth) and of starry Ouranos (Heaven); this you yourselves also know. I am dry with thirst and am perishing. Come, give me at once cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.' And they themselves will give you to drink from the divine spring, and then thereafter you will reign with the other heroes From the Orphics, Petelia text, fourth-third century BCE
I'm not really up on Orphic mysteries, but I suppose the first spring is the waters of Lethe & of forgetting.
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The tour buses were arriving as we left.
The next day we took a minor road trip, to ramble around the baked remains of ancient Pella, where Aristotle taught the young Alexander, and see a different range of finds, prosperous everyday luxuries, the people's treasures. Signs are that a very ambitious archaeological reconstruction was planned for this site, but it's all frozen in place now. Sparrows chatter, the shrikes lie in wait for them, blue borage flowers cluster over fallen stone. Closed for refurbishment. And then Edessa, up on the escarpment, the town with the waterfalls running through it. We had a good time there, a very nice lunch at the restaurant under the plane trees, in the sound of the roaring water. It was after dark when we got back to the guesthouse Euridiki. The dogs hurried to check us out: decided we were okay, and licked my hands. We went to Elia's Corner for a tsipouro mezzes supper(a generous tumbler of clear grape brandy, flavoured with anise at your choice, and accompanied by hearty nibbles), and watched the night-time town en fete for the eve of St Paraskevi. Very popular around here, she's depicted with her eyes on a plate (my greek teacher says) because she grants enlightenment; her name means "Friday"*. Later, I lay awake for a long time and listened to the dogs of the plain barking to each other, near and far, around and around; into the endless distance.
*Obscure footnote, I'm certain that this woman called Friday, because she was born on a Friday, (apparently a real and formidable person, even allowing for the fact she probably couldn't do magic and one hopes she didn't have to survive gruesome torture quite so often as reported); whose eyes seemed to follow us around the whole time we were in Greece, is one and the same as the Catholic church's St Lucy, who also lived in the 1st century CE, and also carries her eyes about on a plate, "about whom little is known".
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Dave on :
>> don't post this - small typo I believe in penultimate para "she's depicted with her eyes of a plate " - maybe "on a plate" ????
Gwyneth Jones on :