July 21 Corinth

 

Yesterday we visited the ancient town of Corinth where St Paul lived and preached. On the way we had a quick photo stop at the Corinth Canal and also to the ruins of the old port on the Aegean side of Corinth from where sailors would haul their boats across the narrow neck of land to the Ionian sea; the canal cut off almost 250 km of sailing. Would that we could have dived into that water it was blisteringly hot.

Cute sign. Evidently the wild boars come down out of the surrounding
mountains and have been seen on the road.

Above us helicopters were carrying water to the bush fires in the area.

Corinth canal built as a joint venture between Greece and Hungary 1881 to 1893. Just over 6 km (20 odd metres wide) the Canal reduced the distance between the ports of the Aegean and the Ionian by 131 nautical mile (almost 250km).

The ruins of the old port in the Aegean where the sailors hauled their boats ashore and dragged them overland to the Ionian Sea (the slaves did the work!)

We reached the ruins of the old city of Corinth and staggered between patches of shade to see the remains of the ancient agora and other crumbled reminders of a very distant past.

Standing stark against the burnt blue sky, is what remains of the C6th BC temple of Apollo

The fountain of Glauke

I found this intriguing hole in a plinth looking through at the end of a column - the worn insides of the marble? column look like the trabeculae of bones. Fascinating

I found the fragments of these sculptures quite beautiful -
Demeter and her daughter, Kore or Persephone. 

A figurine of dancers arranged around a flutist

Outside the city walls of Corinth, a sanctuary was found with votive offerings. This was my favourite, a figurine of dancers arranged around a flutist. It reminded me of a work by Camille Claudel which I think was called ‘Chinese Whispers’. They say that the sanctuary might have been dedicated to the faunlike god Pan and the Nymphs, who danced with him in the wild. But it is also likely that at this sanctuary, young women offered their gifts before marriage. Whatever it was the votives were delightful.

Central panel from tessellated floor of a Roman Villa circa C2-3 AD

The detail in these marbles leave me speechless. As an amateur clay sculptor I can only marvel at the skill shown here - these are in stone, soft as they say it might be!