The Greek Antiquities: Part II

The Greek Antiquities: Part II - Agora

Thursday, September 08, 2016

Athens, Attica, Greece

We followed more signs and found a path to the Agora

Area south of ancient Agora - Athens Greece

. We spent some
time exploring the ruins before we actually entered the site where our
tickets were examined. There was the excellent Museum of the Ancient
Agora, housed in the Stoa of Attalos,
with lots of busts - some of a later period than Classical Greek, but
very finely done so that each bust had a distinct appearance and
personality. I was quite entranced by all the sculpture. The faces had
so much personality! We circled around on the perimeter of the site
but gave up on one path and headed back to the central road and looped
around and saw a bunch of broken architectural pieces in piles. Even
though there were models of the Agora and you could see from them how
extensive it was, the ruins didn't conjure up a image of Classical
Athens for me. Maybe it is because I missed a lot of information since
reading the signs is difficult because of my sight issues. Somehow Kara
and I also didn't get the full impact of the philosophers' schools
which is one of my less hazy recollections of ancient Athens.

We
were headed for the Kerameiko cemetery when Kara realized that the
temple we thought was part of Kerameiko was really part of the Agora
complex. So we asked and were able to go back and see it. The Temple
to Hephaestus was a more complete structure and was tucked into a wooded
area on a hill. It was quite impressive but once we walked around it
and looked more carefully at the interior friezes there wasn't much more
to see. We then retraced our steps once again to go to the Kerameiko
Cemetery.

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