Eritrea - An Epic Scavenger Hunt

Ever since "the Mavromati incident" on our first trip, I have taken to cross-referencing each site both with my Mythological Atlas of Greece, Google maps and/or Waze, and most importantly, Google satellite view.  The first indicates that there is something, and gives a pretty good location relative to roads and other monuments which existed at the time of publication around 2002.  The second confirmation location relative to now existing roads and monuments for navigation.  And the last I used to just use as a further confirmation of location, especially when the site is not immediately adjacent to a road, but now I also use it to determine the extent of the site.  

On Google maps, an archaeological site of any era (e.g., Greek, Roman, Byzantine) has a special symbol like a rook chess piece.  If one were to search for Eritrea, Greece, at 200m - 1", you might see something like this:

Three markers--West Gate, Archeologikos Choros Eritrias (the transliterated Greek for archaeological site) and some mystery location in the foothills, as well as the Ancient Theater Eritria (temporarily closed).  But what about that mystery symbol?  If I zoom to the next magnification level (100m = 1"), that mystery symbol becomes a Sanctuary of Demeter (Thesmophorion), but wait, now there are 5 more sites?  Gimnasio, Sebasteion (Temple of Augustus), Temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, Sanctuary of Artemis, and a new mystery symbol.  ugh.  

So, at 20m = ½", I have to roll over the map in order to see everything, and STILL I know I am missing things.  

Now the theatre also has a temple, and we can see that the West Gate is in the archaeological site, which is much more than a mere gate.  And there are Roman baths, although I am not interested on those.

That second mystery marker is a House of Mosaic.  But there is also now a Craftwork Quarter and a new mystery marker next to the Altar of Herakles.

South of the temple of Apollo Daphenophoros, there is now an Ancient Agora and a Tholos, at the very least...

And there is also a significant Acropolis.

Ok, so what started out loosely as 3 "sites" has now multiplied to over a dozen.  Fortunately, they are all really close to each other, with the exception of the Sanctuaries and the Acropolis, where Google maps does not yet indicate elevation, but since Acropolis means "high city", you have to expect it is up, and not just north.

There are other variables to consider beyond confirming location and scope of the site--hours of admission, which, as I've already discussed at Nirou Chani, while posted, may not be accurate, and accessibility.  And by accessibility, I am not talking about our US definition of that but literally whether there is any kind of a path which may indicate where/how to get to something.

So, we drove into Eritrea, and having initially missed the entrance for the archeological site, went to the theatre.  Despite the fact that a theatre may be "closed", since they are so big, it is pretty easy to see what is going on:

Obviously, a theatre.  And obviously, it is closed because it is undergoing some restoration.  No problem.  I only had to climb on the concrete wall and lean over the fence to get these shots.  I'll also note that I could have very easily scaled the fence and gone into the site, but at least in Euboea there is a notice posted in both Greek and English warning about "any damage to the enclosure" is subject to a fine and a minimum of two years imprisonment for violations.  Legally speaking, there is obviously a difference between "damage to property (the enclosure)" and "trespassing", but I'm not able to argue that in Greek, yet.

However, there was also a temple--the temple to Diolysos and the altar within the theatre site.  Ok, a little harder to get decent pictures, but there also isn't much to the temple other than the bare foundation.  I might have enjoyed analyzing the cavity beneath the floor, but as the site in this area had not been maintained, I'd only be looking at weeds growing out of the center, and I could see that plainly from this perspective.  Pushing on.

We when went to the "main" archaeological site.  This was fantastic and disappointing in equal parts.  So many times, we come upon a site--lots of walls and sometimes clearly defined doorways, but often walls are missing, or there is an opening which may appear to be a door.  Well, here, for at least two full houses, we have not just a floor plan, but a rendering of the vertical elements!!!  I spent an hour walking through these houses like a first-time home buyer trying to figure out the flow from a hallway to a room to a banquet area. That was the fantastic part.  The disappointing part was the rest of the site--2 more houses and even the West Gate, which were hard to decipher because of all the weeds.  I know I shouldn't complain--I find it challenging to motivate myself to weed around my house, but seriously, I've seen sites in Thrake where they just used a blowtorch and burned the weeds.  It's not like the stone will burn, and anything relevant which was combustible has long since deteriorated....  I'd almost be willing to pay to help burn the weeds.  So, here are some photos of House II with elevation and others of what we have come to expect when we go to a site.

Map of the site.  RENDERING OF HOUSE II!!!

View of Room n (peristyle) from NE corner.  You can also see the plumbing lines in the ground.

Room l (courtyard) looking into Rooms a, a-1 and a-2.  Of course if we didn't already know that "a" was the kitchen and "a-2" was identified as a bathroom, we joked that this could be an office...or a nursery...  Cue the laugh track.

Room d (living room) into Rooms e and f (banquet rooms).  

We went through House IV with similar attention to walking through the space as if the walls and doors still existed.  House IV was noted to have been inhabited by a wine merchant, so the house had to account for delivery and storage of goods, and the expansion of the house, presumably because business was good.  

Of course, the rest of the site looked like this:

Ruins among the weeds.

Crazy overlapping layers of construction.

West Gate

But if I saw nothing else at Eritrea, House II and IV made this entire day worthwhile.  I now ned to revisit my pictures of Zakros and eventually, Malia.

In rapid succession, then, we saw:

Temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, which was so heavily influenced by concrete, it was hard to tell what was reconstruction of an original and what was just added for some unknown reason.

The Hellenistic Baths.  If you've been paying attention, you will note that this was never shown on the map, even at 20m resolution, but it is located at the very southern part of the map which has the temple to Apollo.  You can even see the ruins in the picture in a weirdly polygonal shaped area bounded by a curved road.  This site was also locked, but you could walk around it completely.

Tholos.  I did my level best to take a decent picture, but as you can see, there is a house impinging on the tholos, and it looks like something out of a horror movie.  Also, the whole site is fenced and locked, or I would have tried from the other direction.  

This is the tholos in all its glory.

Modern day agora is a park with a wide pedestrian walkway bisecting in two directions making it into quadrants.  

Naos tis Isidos or Greek temple of Isis.  There are surprisingly a few temples to Egyptian deities, one in Glypha that we ignored because it was in the middle of a field and it was pouring, and one in Marathon.  Also, this was yet another site that I found when was navigating us around the city, along with a Palaestra, across the street which was behind a locked gate as well as an overgrown field.  We didn't even both to try to get pictures there.  By this time, we were annoyed that nothing was open and/or maintained to any reasonable level.  If you are going to gate it off, then maintain it.  Otherwise, the flora will take over and eventually take it back.  Stepping off my soapbox.

This was listed as the "Craftwork Quarter" on the map, and I fully expected to see small workrooms where pottery or textiles were produced.  Instead, we were confronted with a yet another locked site, a slab of concrete and couple of undecipherable random walls.  

This sign at the site was particularly helpful.

Turns out this area was actually the North Quarter "East Sector" and was notable for a road which ran to the West Gate.  

Then the Gimnasio, which was kind of interesting, except it was locked.  There were a few signs inside the site which we could see from outside the fence.  And one particularly amusing sign on one side of the fence which indicated note to take photographs.  Too late, not that with all the weeds, any photograph would spoil the surprise.

Altar of Herakles.  Now, seriously, this was about the worst site I've seen.  It's listed on Google maps as the Altar of Herakles", but the signs at the site say "The North Quarter of the City:  The Panathenaic Amphorae Quarter".  There noted to be, among the houses, a "roadside shrine to Hercules[sic.]" which was the circle structure in the photo.  Given the proportion of altar/shrine to other structures which are houses, truly, was the most important thing here the altar?  I will also note that the other "North Quarter" is about 50m NE of here, so where does the "north quarter" really lie?

Another really helpful sign.

Across the street from the altar/shrine, we dabbled with a little Roman history.  Not because we would ever be inclined, but because in order to get to our last destination in this area, we literally had to pass by these two places.  

Roman baths.  Check.

The Sebasteion (Temple of Augustus).  Oh sure, there is a small temple building on the foundation from the Hellennistic period, but this is about a road wide enough for two Roman chariots.  Can't you just see the drag racing?

And finally, the House of Mosaics.  After all the bait and switch and overgrown sites, we truly didn't know what to expect here.  The commensurate House of Frescoes in Knossos has been raided all all its art, which is now at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, and where applicable, reproductions have been installed.  So this could go several different ways.  

Gorgon head mosaic.

Fresco of heroes battling demons, and foreground of griffons and other mythical beasts.  The truly amazing thing about the artistry of these mosaics is that even with the repeated and book-matched animals, there are subtle variations in the face (eyes, ears, hair) which make they unique.  It was reminiscent of the Caryatids, which were individually designed to be unique, especially with their braids.

Ironically, or perhaps it was Fate, we finally found the site map for Eritrea with at least their list of sites of archaeological significance.  

We had missed the fountain (which was noted to be temporarily closed) and the eastern gymnasium.  We still had the two Sanctuaries and the Acropolis to do, so we headed back to the foothills and drove the car as far at the road existed.  Unfortunately, the weeds really were going to be the last straw for us. 

The yellow stuff is some species of Mediterranean grass which is currently about 18-24"' in height and has 3' long spiked barbs which attach to clothing and pierce skin.  Given the height, it also obscures the even thornier thistles and the "spare parts".  As we could see this stuff was growing well up into the foothill, we decided that hiking through it was decidedly unsafe.  There was no visible path, either from ground level or Google maps, and no signs.

Still, we ended our visit to Eritrea on a high note, and I am still processing the details from those two houses.  It may be a while before we return and tackle the acropolis and the sanctuaries to Athena (yes another marker on the acropolis popped up), Demeter and Artemis, but this gives us a new goal.