Heraion of Argos

Not to be confused with the Heraion of Korinthos, which is also an amazing site, but this one just kept on giving.

When you first walk up, it doesn't seem like much.  Well, perhaps that is the wrong way to phrase it.  When you first walk up, you are confronted with two options, a gentle sloping path to the left or a steep incline to the right following a significant wall.  By this point, Randall and I have adopted a policy of "climb up first" to get to the highest parts of the site, which allows us to put the site into perspective.

Don't get distracted at the first level.

Are those bi-level walls and a column?  Stay focused.  There is still more path going up.  We have to climb down eventually.  We will get to it.  At the next level, I steal a couple of quick pictures which don't even begin to do justice to the site, so I will probably delete them.

Finally, we get to the third (top) level.  Clearly, there was an immense building here and the floor stones, probably of the sub-level, are still in place as well as parts of the walls.

But the most important thing we saw from this level was this:

 Temple of Hera, altar at top left, bottom left is possible housing/storerooms

Temple of Hera, altar at top left, bottom is a stoa with spaced columns.  Middle we think was the flooring of the temple--they weren't as thick as the wall blocks, but seemed to be wide enough slabs to span the understructure. 

I just couldn't stop saying, "wow".  And there was nothing stopping us from interacting with these ruins!!!

The stoa is still hard to parse from this level, but one can actually imagine walking into a merchant's stall here, but I kept getting distracted by THIS:

This is a sub-level of the temple, which flooring is held up by a series of stout columns.  Dirt has accreted into the area, but for scale, I actually allowed Randall to take a photograph at a point where I could find the original limestone flooring.

 
From this level then, we could see below in two directions:

We suspect something having to do with water given the channel to the left from the building.  

Another stoa, in even better condition!

As we continued our descent, a little further around the corner, and we could now see what was behind the near wall.

And now, from ground level, we can identify what we are walking through.

Back at the lower stoa, I could have spent hours marveling at the columns and walls, separating deliberate carving from erosion.

 Corner of the stoa with fallen column and spare limestone parts stacked on the lower marble walls.  Note how the limestone affects the color of the marble!

These columns would have been 5m tall, not including the capital, and there was still the epistyle and frieze to add more height.

But ultimately this is one of my favorite pictures:

I know it doesn't look like much, but these are the stairs ascending not just to the stoa, but from the middle right probably ascending to the temple level, and remember that that block of rocks top middle is the altar.  This was grand procession.  

Unfortunately, by this time it was 2:45pm, and the site closes at 3:00pm, so after only 1.5 hours, we had to leave. 

Oh, and did I mention the snails that live on this hill???  Hundreds of them!