Vathy

We made the long trek to Vathy in order to visit a Cycladic archaeological site dating to the 3rd millennium BC.  Our host, and guide, was Professor Andreas Vlachopoulos from the University of Ioannina.  He is pictured in the fourth photo of this post. As you can see, he is a very expressive individual, and like many Greeks he speaks with his hands.  We found him to be an informative and gracious host.

He met us in the local taverna, and while we sipped Fanta he showed us maps of the site and explained to us about the features that we would be seeing.  The site was located opposite the taverna on the other side of the lagoon, about a half mile away.  We set out on the goat path to the site around noon, in the heat of the day.

The site is located on a small peninsula, it looks over a very narrow waterway (50 meters) that separates a protected lagoon from the open sea.  The ruins of a tower and some fortifications, constructed of dolomite limestone, are evident while walking the site.  The second photo shows our party scrambling around the area of the tower.

The site has a considerable amount of rock art, the most notable motifs are spirals, boats and daggers. Vlachopoulos informed us that the spiral design is commonly found throughout the Aegean Sea.

For me, the most interesting feature of the site was an ancient boat launch, or ramp, that had been painstakingly carved out of the existing limestone.  The picture of the launch is the third photo of this post.

Professor Vlachopoulos and his team have also unearthed some infant pot burials. Since we excavate pot burials from the world's largest infant cemetery, just on the other side of the island, we were very interested to see the context of the burials.  Their pot burials were found very close to the sea, the last two photos show two areas where burials were unearthed.  Our burials are located high up on a slope just outside of the Chora.

The pot burials found at Vathy date much earlier than ours, showing that this practice has carried over for thousands of years.

Our trip to Vathy was a success, we enjoyed our personalized tour of the site as well as our tasty lunch in the taverna.  Someday I hope to return.

More soon.