Welcome to Tiny Epics.
Today we're in Athens taking a stroll through the peaceful site of Kerameikos,
located just within walking distance of the Parthenon.
Kerameikoss comes from the word Keramos, a greek word that refers to the clay used to make pottery.
And it's where we get the word ceramic from.
Back in the ancient world, this neighborhood of Athens is where the potters had their workshops
and where they produced some of the finest pottery the world has ever seen.
Take for instance this ceremonial bowl
created by an unknown artist right here in Athens some 2,500 years ago.
Just look at the exquisite care the artist took in depicting the god Apollo.
He wears his signature laurel wreath and pours a libation offering while playing his lyre,
the instrument his half-brother Hermes created from the shell of a tortoise.
You don't have to look very far for evidence that ancient potters worked here.
It's right under your feet!
Just look down and you'll find that the ground is strewn with countless pottery fragments.
A very tragic discovery was made in the area a little while back,
when a plague pit and approximately 1,000 tombs were discovered by chance
when construction for the nearby Metro station was underway.
The Greek archaeologist who excavated the site has dated the grave to between 430 and 426 BC.
This is right at the time of the devastating Plague of Athens.
The ancient historian Thucydides described the panic caused by this plague
which struck the besieged city in 430 BC.
The epidemic lasted for two years and killed an estimated one-third of the population.
He wrote that bodies were abandoned in temples and streets to be subsequently collected and hastily buried.
Another major discovery happened here 20 years ago when an over 6 1/2 foot tall kouros was discovered.
The term kouros refers to a free-standing sculpture that first appeared in the archaic period,
and they represent nude male youths.
In ancient Greek, kouros (κοῦρος) simply means youth or boy, especially one of noble rank.
The one found here at Kerameikos is the larger twin of the one now kept in NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Both were created by the same anonymous sculptor and date to roughly 600 BC.
A sphinx, two lions, and other impressive findings were unearthed as well.
The outer areas of the site have been home to a necropolis (city of the dead) since about 1200 BC.
In the later archaic period, increasingly large and complex grave mounds and monuments were built
along a road known as the Sacred Way,
so-called because it was the path taken by initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Their mysterious worship was centered around Demeter,
goddess of the harvest and mother to Persephone.
As the ancient story goes, the mother and daughter were inseparable
until Persephone's abduction by Hades, god of the Underworld.
Demeter was so distraught at the loss of her precious child that her domain, the Earth, grew utterly barren
just like her grief stricken heart.
And so the people suffered and starved as a result.
It's said that Demeter's search eventually led her to the palace at Eleusis,
where she came disguised as an old woman.
She was welcomed there by the king and his family with so much kindness
that her heart began to open up again
and she decided to help humanity learn how to plant, grow, and harvest grain.
In time, Persephone would return to the surface for part of the year,
Demeter would become joyful, and the barren fields renewed themselves with abundant crops again.
This was a way for ancient Greeks to poetically explain the change in seasons,
of how winter seems to magically give way to spring.
I find it very fitting that today a pomegranate's been layed as an offering in this tree,
the seeds of which were said to be consumed by Persephone in the Underworld,
causing her to be trapped there for a portion of the year,
And so the Sacred Way, an 11 mile walk that begins here in Kerameikos,
seems to have been connected both with terrible loss and grief,
but more importantly with hope and regeneration.
But what exactly went on within the Eleusinian Mysteries remains a mystery,
as Demeter's followers kept her rights a complete secret.
So no one alive today really knows for sure what exactly was involved in the various rituals,
except perhaps for the various cats and tortoises who wander the place.
But I don't think they're going to give up the secret either.
One last thing i want to share with you is an excerpt from Henry Miller's 'The Colossus of Maroussi',
where he writes about the Sacred Way from Kerameikos to Eleusis.
He wrote:
One should not race along the Sacred Way
in a motor car — it is sacrilege.
One should walk, walk as the men of old walked,
and allow one's whole being
to become flooded with light.
This is not a Christian highway:
it was made by the feet of devout pagans on their way to initiation at Eleusis.
There is no suffering, no martyrdom, no flagellation of the flesh connected with this processional artery.
Everything here speaks now, as it did centuries ago, of illumination, of blinding, joyous illumination.
This concludes our walk through Kerameikos.
I really hope you enjoyed coming along with me.
This video is part of an ongoing travel series from my recent adventures in Greece.
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Ευχαριστώ πολύ!
Thanks so much for watching. Take care and stay epic!