Lycosura - Free entrance for the devoted and determined

I don't mean to suggest by my title that anything I did was untoward.  Here is the sign upon which I based all my decisions when exploring this site:

Now, the first thing to note about this site is that it is divided into two parts.  Here is a map of the site from Wikipedia, which pretty accurately shows the area:

Of course, we've marked this up with a bit more detail to reflect what is actually there, but before I get to that, let's return to that Free Entrance.  Here's the entrance to the "Area of Hydraulic Structures":

That was fairly straightforward, and allowed us to see the water areas--a spring, possibly a nymphaeum, and some remains of Roman baths.

Spring/Nymphaeum - do you see the stairs on the back wall?!

Possible Roman baths

Other big but unidentified ruins

But that wasn't the draw of Lycosura.  There was a full Temple to Despoina (daughter of Poseidon or Zeus and Demeter) and her mystery cult, which we now discovered was on the other side of that gate.  Now, to me, that gate was about as interesting as mounting and dismounting the biggest carousel horses at Disneyworld, for which I have had a lot of practice.  So, let's go back to our revised map.  You may now notice an unlabeled a box with 4 red dots describing a further box around it.  The inner box was the small archaeological museum, presumably which also had free entrance, but we didn't care.  What is important is that apparently Greece has had problems with thefts of antiquities from museums, which accounts for some of our "minders" previously, and so while the sites may be left unattended, the Greeks seem to take care of their museums, great and small.  Now, it is a little known fact that Randall has an interest in Russian motion detectors (see below), and how they have a laser eye which tracks to other motion detectors forming a boundary.  Of course, they put these well away from the gate and other things like trees and bushes which might have branches which would blow into the laser line.  

So, here are some of the highlights of the North side of the archaeological site:

The Temple of Despoina and theatre-like area (not an actual theatre, and we have not been able to determine why the steps are there since they are too close to the temple otherwise.) 

Temple taken from theatre-area.  Stoa colonnade in the background.  But note that side door from the temple and those stairs?!!!

Stoa colonnade on right, which extends approx. 100'

Column drum with writing.  No idea what it says.  That would require a rubbing.  There were three other stones which also had writing, although not as visible.

Unfortunately, the Megaron is mostly buried beneath weeds, moss and new growth trees, which I discovered unnecessarily and inadvertently.  Otherwise, the site is ripe for excavation and reconstruction.