Sept 2- 17 tour of Greece and Turkey,What we learned

When we signed up for a physically strenuous trip to antiquity with much walking, 12 days of life on a ship and many lectures and other learning opportunities, we were not sure what we were getting into. This being our first such trip with this organization (See: http://www.roadscholar.org/n/program/summary.aspx?ID=1-52DOJX&MC= ), which was recommended by  a good  friend Byron who goes with them every year.

The Road Scholar group was about 35 and one leader, a Greek lady who is well informed, a great leader and a good guide. 

(For more info on Greek culture see : http://www.culture.gr/culture/eindex.jsp )

Our Ship - not too big!

The ship Voyages to Antiquity, registered in Malta, owned by Brits, manned predominantly by Indonesians and Philipinoes, Captained by an Austrian had around 350 people on board. We were the only two people of Indian origin, we met also a ShriLankan who was educated in Carlton College here in Minnesota and working in Singapore. There were two or three ladies of Chinese origin, the rest were mostly American, a few Brits and Aussies. At dinner we had occasion to eat with different people, including Brits and Canadians. When I asked a Brit about what is allowed in polite conversations regarding the instructions I got when we came over to US, not discuss politics or religion, stick to weather and sports; one Brit said the club he belongs to forbid discussing politics on the premises.

Good size ship, not too big, good food with much vegetarian options, and a great library. 13 or so lectures and an instruction on a Greek dance were offered on board. Many of us could not understand a word of an English lady's presentation, heavy accent and academic type sentence structure. A Prof. from Carlton College gave a few very interesting lectures on antiquity including legal issues of buying and selling antiques. (US do not have any controlled antiques by definition, Chinese articles made after 1200 or so are not antiques.) 

Except for one day when one of us had to take medication for sea-sickness, the sailing was smooth.

Land 

Geological history of the area is interesting. Greece and Greek Islands are a continuation of the Alps Mountains parts of which sank into the sea. The Islands do look like mountain peaks jutting out of the sea, don't they?

                     Greek landscape - peaks sticking out of the sea, this one 2000 Meter above sea level!

The Black Sea was formed by sea rushing into through the Bosporus. The interesting thing about Bosporus is that water flows both ways at the same time, the saltier and hence heavier water from the Mediterranean flows towards at the bottom level while less saltier water flows from Back Sea the other way.  The ancient mariners used this for navigating the Bosporus.

The People & Their Immigration and Wars

The earliest civilization started in the island of Crete, the Minoan, named after their king/leader called Minos. (Does their closeness to Egypt has anything for this?) The Mycenaean in the mainland followed. Agriculture and population pressure wanted them to find new lands. The Oracle of Delphi instructed them to colonize areas near the ocean, wise advice to a sea-faring people. So Greek colonized all around the Mediterranean and the Black sea, all these happened about more than 3000 years ago, or so they say. Most cities around these oceans were Greek Colonies. So if you made a country based on language, say around 3000 years ago, that will cover the coasts of Mediterranean and Black seas. Of course the idea of nation-state is a very modern invention (and do we see some issues with that these days, already?)

Ionia was the name for the west coast of Turkey and the islands nearby where Greek people had colonized. From this came names like "Yawana" in Sanskrit, "Unaani" in Hindi etc. and also the name for Greece in Turkish language "Unaanistaan".

The Trojan war, made famous by Homer,  was fought in 12th or 13th century BC. We were taught the reason was for a beautiful girl, Helen. But now they say the real stake was the control of access to Bosporus, for trade routes to the Black Sea (Who will fight a 9 or 10 year battle just for girl?!)

The Persians whom the Greeks defeated at sea was contemptuous of Greek since Greece have to discuss everything among themselves before making a decision; the Persians did not suffer from such practices. But Greeks were better on the sea and even today shipping is big business for them.

Alexander's conquest will put and end to democracy and then the Rome conquest will assimilate Greek into the Roman empire. Romans wanted to adopt their religion may another angle. The Greek stored all their state wealth in the temples. So why not join the party and control the treasures without antagonizing the population?

Roman emperor Constantine had a love for Greece (oh, yes he had a Greek lover too). and wanted to move the capital East and built Byzantium (Constantinople or Istanbul)  in 324 AD. The  people around that city used Greece and that became the language of the state and was separated from Rome.  Their the Emperor was also the head of the church.  Byzantium flourished for centuries. The Romans became envious, the Pope devised a devious way to attack the Eastern Church and what was called as Crusades was let loose, looting and raping, Christians against Christians (forget about saving the Holy land from infidels, that  we were told was just a pretext just like Helen was a pretext for the Trojan war.) Last Crusade destroyed Constantinople, now it became easy picking for the Turkic tribes which were expanding from the East.

Ottoman Empire (Turkic was considered derogatory by the people till Mustapha Kemal Attaturk made it the name of the country, the people and told them to be proud of it, it was told.) flourished for a few centuries. 

Now time is 18th century the Europe is on ascendancy. The Italians attack Athens to free it from the Turks. They fire a cannon which will destroy the Parthenon and other great structures around it, all used by Turks to store ammunition. So the Europeans destroy the Parthenon to save it from the infidels.

20th Century visits more war on the region. Under Churchill's leadership British and other forces attacks Gallipoli and suffers worst defeat and Churchill loses his job as head of Admiralty. Mustapha Kemal Attaturk fights and frees the country of Turkey from the Emperor as well as the West, adopts Western ways for the country, including modifying the language by adopting Roman script and purging the language of  many Persian and Arabic words. 1.5 Million Christians, many of them Turkish speaking people from around the Black Sea were relocated to Greece and around 1/2 million Muslims to Turkey. Churches in Turkey and Mosques in Greece become museums.

With under 11 million people in Greece there are about a million people of Greek ancestry in US. Turkey has a population of 77 million has a size of Texas. The Turkish guide kept reminding us that the country is secular even-though the population is over 98% Muslim.

Archaeology and Antiques

From time immemorial looting of the defeated peoples best treasures is in the human nature. Some earliest example we saw was the obelisks in Hippodrome in Istanbul brought their from Egypt by Byzantine Emperors. 

A recreation of the triangle space at Parthenon

 

A damaged Parthenon under some renovation

Acropolis, the defensible fort on top of the mountain at many Greek Cities, this one in Athens.

Acropolis Museum built over ruins. The building is on columns and archaeological work goes on under it.

Our Guide Georgia explaining the Elgin Marbles at the Acropolis Museum

The British took parts of Parthenon (Elgin Marbles one can see today in the British Museum).

 An American businessman of German parents (Heinrich Schliemann) wanted to prove the story of Iliad to be true. Having a sixth sense he finds Agamemnon's tomb (later dating tells us now that it was of one of his ancestors) and also the site of Troy (and even Helen's jewelry). They later decides that the location is correct but he did not dig far enough to reach the Troy of Trojan war. 

"Agamemnon's Death Mask" 

Lions Gate of Mycenaea, home of Agamemnon (Yes, there were lions in Europe at one time) 

A Brit, Sir Arthur Evans bought the location in the island of Crete and dug to find the Minoan Capital of Knossos. 

Knossos - the ancient Minoan capital re-created by Sir Evans (modern archeologists don't do this type of renovation anymore) and a beautiful fresco.

By now, archaeology has become respectable discipline. Now whole of Greece is one big Archaeological site!  American School of Archaeology is the major player there.

In Turkey while photographing a region for building a dam the photographer stumble into a site and in 1950's they start excavating Aphrodiasis, a big find, well preserved and much bigger than Pompii.

                                       Aphrodiasis the newly discovered site in Turkey

Art

The Greek learned sculpture from Egyptians. The people were straight and stable. They developed what is known as "rich art" where they could make complex forms and still balance them on a pedestal. Greeks always did "photo-shopping" to make the subjects look good, unlike Romans who insisted on good likeness of the subject. The Romans mass produced statues. They will make bodies and a hole for the head. The heads were produced to order to resemble the subject.

Later the Christians in the Byzantine era takes art in a different direction. They thought 3-D distracts people from spirituality. So they develop the iconography of images of Christ, saints and angels (only) for churches with gold leafs embedded in glass and so on and so forth.

Progression from almost Egyptian to "rich" where movement is allowed to Byzantine iconography.

Istanbul

A rich city beautifully located on the shores of the Bosporus, 1/2 in Europe and 1/2 in Asia.  Before 1923 the city was full of Jews and Armenians who run the businesses and Greek who did much of crafts and very cosmopolitan. Heard that Jews are slowly coming back.

The mosques are magnificent. The architect of the great blue mosque (blue, for the color of tiles they used inside, not the external color) was the same one who did Taj Mahal, per the guide. 

Interior of Blue Mosque. Beautiful calligraphy too, not shown, causes some one to say "Koran was said in Arabia, read in Egypt and written in Turkey"

Hamam is the Turkish name for their baths (reminded me of the namesake of the soap in India)

                                                             A Hamam -- Turkish Bath

The Holly Mountain - Mount Athos

Sailing back from Istanbul we sailed past Mt. Athos. Here there are many monasteries and is almost like a separate state within Greece .(Oh by the way Greece is a Roman name and the country name is really Hellenic Republic. ) No females are allowed there and one need special permission to enter. It is governed by an appointee of the Greek government but all laws are made by the monasteries themselves. The spiritual head is the Patriarch of Istanbul. There are monks from countries, (Russia, Romania, Serbia etc.) many speaking their own language. They do use the Julian Calendar.  Recently a wave of highly  educated monks have joined and they are digitizing many documents that go back to 5th century.

                                            One of many monasteries clinging to the mountain on Mt. Athos.

Some scenes:

Parthenon Under Construction

One of many open air theaters with great acoustics

 

We used walking sticks to help us climb some hills.

Such details on marble, simply amazing! Note the snake in the hand of the healer. The modern western medicine uses the same symbol

A few more shots of the "most photographed church in the world"

A Roman WC with water to remove the shit. Note the channel in front for water to wash hand.

A rug. There are more knots per inch than pixels on an HD TV

Beautiful sunsets and sun rises, we manged to see a few.

View of Bosporus from the Topkapi Palace 

"Coffee Duniya" or "Coffee World" 

One of many such views 

Two temples for Saint Sophia, goddess of learning (Think of word philosophy and why not of Saraswati?

Lord Byron, a martyr in Greek struggle for Independence depicted as Muse writing poetry in his heart! (In a park in Athens)

Blue ocean, and blue skies and almost always land in sight.

Perseverance! and love of travel..

Georgia our Greek leader and guide and Esra our Turkish guide in Istanbul . Such guides make the trip fun!

Old buildings in Istanbul, only very few left

Yes, we did some shopping too! How could you come home without some Turkish Delights?

I was taught in 8th grade geography that Southern California has "Mediterranean Weather". Having never gone out of Kerala this were just some words for me. As usual I learned it by rote so I can get good grades in the exam. Finally after 57 years or so, now I have a sense of what is meant by "Mediterranean Weather"

Learned a lot about ancient history.  The stories we heard reminds one that we never learn from history.