Today Kim and I spent a couple of hours walking around the Ancient Agora, translated as "market," but really much more. It was the center of commerce but there were temples to the gods, libraries and houses. If you're really into this, the link has a map that you can click to see stuff.

These figures coming out of the rock reminded me of Michelangelo's "prisoners" in Florence, done for the Pope's crypt. These are much bigger but not as masterful.

The "wall" on the left once housed statues representing the 10 tribes of Athens.

Sitting on a hill above the agora is the temple of Hephaistos or Thiseio. It's the best preserved of all the stuff in the agora.

Interestingly you can see the columns are not completely straight. I assume tremors over time have knocked some of the pieces out of alignment. There are also some major "chunks" knocked out. I can't imagine what they did to these things over time.

The columns are really quite impressive, and when you think this work was done about 500 B.C., it really makes you wonder.

This is the view of the agora from the temple. The building off in the distance is the Stoa of Attalos, recreated in 1956 of an actual building that size!

Another view from the temple. The Parthenon is visible at the top of the mountain above.

The marker says "geometric cemetery." Is this where shapes go when they die?

All this antiquity just lying around. A bunch of stuff is just piled up. If it were in a Muncie museum it would be a centerpiece. Here it's just stuff you walk past on the way to other old stuff.

I'll save my other agora pictures for tomorrow.

Today's news story: the plight of immigrants. A story today tells of the hundreds of thousands of Roma (gypsies) living is squalor. People are fleeing lives in Iran, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and other places where the conditions are horrid. Greece is the entry point for Europe.