Friday, October 30, 2009

Ancient Corinth


I went to Corinth on Friday October 23rd. We left early riding with Jan (my teacher and school director) up to Corinth in her little car. It was a scenic ride up, the road followed the coast and the little houses spattered along the road.

The stopped at the canal, it was beautiful. The water we a pure blue. It was so pretty, so many years the canal had been created by the water that passed through.
When we drove up to the school that Jan's husband Guy worked at, the first thing I saw was the Templ of Apollo. It is located in the far corner of Ancient Corinth.
The I turned to the right and there stood acrocorinth. It was beautiful from below, and is known for its beauty from above. Unfortunately it was closed by the time we were done with the tour of Ancient Corinth and lunch.
This is a picture of Guy. He was an epic tour guide. He is a professor at the Graduate School in Corinth, and was amazing. I cant think of other words to describe him other than a history god! In this picture he is showing us where hinges are in the rock. In the Ancient times the preists and preistesses would climb into this hiding place in the agora. When people came by they would ask the gods questions, the preist would pour wine down a spout if the answer was yes, and water if no.
The whole time he was talking to us, we were behind the ropes that keep the tourists off the anceint site. I was in a state of pure joy. But when he took us to the workshops behind the site, that is when I thought i might have a heart attack! We got to go back into the storerooms and touch all the artifacts that had been found earlier in the summer. We watched a guy fit peices of pottery together. Guy told us that you can learn a lot about the culture from the garbage that they find - like what the ate, how the lived, what the customs were.

He ended by taking us to the cemetary. He told us that you learn more about civilaztion from a cemetary than you do any houses or palaces. You can find out, the age and gender of the person. If they had any ailments, like cancer, arthritis, poor dental hygiene or serious injury.

Going to Corinth and having the ultimate tour with Guy has been by far my favorite part of the entire trip. It makes me want to go to graduate school when I graduate - but I have a long time before I make that decision. : )

No comments:

Post a Comment