As the first sump was still underwater, we explored and surveyed new parts of the first sidebranch. The first sidebranch was connected to the third sidebranch, after quite a few meters (400+) of new exploration. Details coming soon.
The expedition was manned by: Nikos Mitsakis, Komninos Boutaras, Stelios Zacharias and Niki Hatzilia.
09 September 2005
07 September 2005
Report on the expedition of 24 and 25 July 2005:
On Saturday the heat got to us a bit so we went for a swim first and then for a look-around in the area. Our look-around had some promising results and brought to light a number of places well worth looking into in the future.
That evening, the expedition cook ate and slept in a cheesevault near the sinkhole, something which allowed us to sleep a little beyond dawn as we weren't woken up by the heat.
The sump in the second sidebranch had emptied and was surveyed by Komninos and myself, allowing us to close a loop back at the entrance lake. The loop is about 250m long and we got a 5% declination in doing so. This will no doubt change when we confirm the survey data next week.
In the end it was one reading on the clino which was made wrong. When this was corrected the loop closure gives an error of less than 2% and these new figures were used in all surveys after 30 July.
The first sidebranch is most probably the old river bed - it has the same direction as the sink-hole's main chambers but it ends in waterlogged sections at about -40m. We started an effort to drain this sump also, using the 120m of one inch hose in an effort to allow access for non divers to the narrow fissure which Nikos had seen at the end of the sump the week before.
The first sump was passed with difficulty as it had filled again with the waters from the sumps above it, but the team of Nikos-Giota-Panos managed to make some repairs to the 1 1/4 inch hose and restart the draining. For this reason, it was not possible to dive the second sump.
The expedition was manned by: Nikos Mitsakis, Komninos Boutaras, Yiota Kafetzi, Stelios Zacharias and Panos Papasotiriou.
Results of the survey conducted on 25 July 2005:
The results are presented as projected elevations, using the vtopo programme (link in sidebar to the right).
The entrance is at point Α
The first sidebranch is points Β-Γ
The second sidebranch is points Δ-Ε
The union of the two can be seen in blue
Point Ζ (sump) remains underwater as at 25 July 2005, but efforts are being made to drain this sump also and open new routes.
That evening, the expedition cook ate and slept in a cheesevault near the sinkhole, something which allowed us to sleep a little beyond dawn as we weren't woken up by the heat.
The sump in the second sidebranch had emptied and was surveyed by Komninos and myself, allowing us to close a loop back at the entrance lake. The loop is about 250m long and we got a 5% declination in doing so. This will no doubt change when we confirm the survey data next week.
In the end it was one reading on the clino which was made wrong. When this was corrected the loop closure gives an error of less than 2% and these new figures were used in all surveys after 30 July.
The first sidebranch is most probably the old river bed - it has the same direction as the sink-hole's main chambers but it ends in waterlogged sections at about -40m. We started an effort to drain this sump also, using the 120m of one inch hose in an effort to allow access for non divers to the narrow fissure which Nikos had seen at the end of the sump the week before.
The first sump was passed with difficulty as it had filled again with the waters from the sumps above it, but the team of Nikos-Giota-Panos managed to make some repairs to the 1 1/4 inch hose and restart the draining. For this reason, it was not possible to dive the second sump.
The expedition was manned by: Nikos Mitsakis, Komninos Boutaras, Yiota Kafetzi, Stelios Zacharias and Panos Papasotiriou.
Results of the survey conducted on 25 July 2005:
The results are presented as projected elevations, using the vtopo programme (link in sidebar to the right).
The entrance is at point Α
The first sidebranch is points Β-Γ
The second sidebranch is points Δ-Ε
The union of the two can be seen in blue
Point Ζ (sump) remains underwater as at 25 July 2005, but efforts are being made to drain this sump also and open new routes.
Report on the weekend of 16 and 17 July 2005
In brief, the weekend was memorable on account of the water, the hoses and the food served at the entrance to the cave, which I unfortunately missed out on as I wasn't taking part in the mission at all.
The siphon in the second side-branch is almost empty and has already given about ten meters of new passage which lead towards the initial (walking / swimming) part of the sump in the first side-branch which had also lost a little bit of height.
It would be possible to empty the first sidebranch's sump into that of the second, and from there to empty both deeper into the cave. Another 50m of one inch hose were taken into the cave for this purpose. It is now possible to dive the sump in the first sidebranch without going through the squeeze through the gours.
The first sump had almost filled up owing to the teams efforts to empty the higher sumps and it was necessary to re-empty it: this task occupied the team on the second day of the expedition.
Finally, there was a little exploration done in the field by Panos, who was led by a local to a "bottomless" pot hole of all of 8m depth!
The following members of SELAS were present: Nikos Mitsakis, Niki Hatzilia, Yiannis Vavourakis, Marianna Manolatou and two recent graduates from our annual seminars: Panos Papasotiriou and Nektarios Servos.
The siphon in the second side-branch is almost empty and has already given about ten meters of new passage which lead towards the initial (walking / swimming) part of the sump in the first side-branch which had also lost a little bit of height.
It would be possible to empty the first sidebranch's sump into that of the second, and from there to empty both deeper into the cave. Another 50m of one inch hose were taken into the cave for this purpose. It is now possible to dive the sump in the first sidebranch without going through the squeeze through the gours.
The first sump had almost filled up owing to the teams efforts to empty the higher sumps and it was necessary to re-empty it: this task occupied the team on the second day of the expedition.
Finally, there was a little exploration done in the field by Panos, who was led by a local to a "bottomless" pot hole of all of 8m depth!
The following members of SELAS were present: Nikos Mitsakis, Niki Hatzilia, Yiannis Vavourakis, Marianna Manolatou and two recent graduates from our annual seminars: Panos Papasotiriou and Nektarios Servos.
Some info about Dersios:
Between the years 2003 and 2005, cavers of SELAS club have been extending the exploration done by French teams in the 1970's in the "Dersios" sinkhole of Arkadia. The sinkhole is at about 750m altitude and presents technical difficulties as there are many parallel passages ending in flooded sections. These have been explored by emptying the sumps or by cave-diving. The expeditions of S.EL.A.S. have doubled the depth of the explored cave (-160m) and more than tripled its length. I have been involved in the exploration since 2004.
The general lie of the land around the sinkhole (which is visible about two thirds of the way to the right just this side of the road) is captured in this picture.
The general lie of the land around the sinkhole (which is visible about two thirds of the way to the right just this side of the road) is captured in this picture.
15 July 2005
Summer at Dersios
I am not going back this weekend. I have a commitment to attend. A group are going tomorrow to dive the sump in the first side-branch and continue to empty the second side branch.
I wish I were going with them. I may have pictures of the mice for next time, though.
I wish I were going with them. I may have pictures of the mice for next time, though.
13 July 2005
Mice, mice everywhere!
Mice, mice everywhere!
So we went to Dersios at the weekend with three of the new guys. Dersios is a sinkhole in Arcadia, about 700m up and quite a way from the sea. It was explored a while back to -80 odd meters by a French team together with ESE - the Hellenic Speleological Society. Since 2003, teams from SELAS Caving Club, Greece has been exploring the cave, doubling the depth and more than tripling the surveyed length. It has been surveyed to -161m so far, but has a lot of unsurveyed (and unexplored) passages. This year we are going to try and push the exploration a little further through a combination of diving and emptying of sumps.
We arrived after much faffing at well after one pm, set up our tents and got ready to go. We were in the cave just before four - so there was another faff involved which I am not sure I remember although some of it involved being barked at by dogs while trying to talk to an old man in a shack who claimed to know of a pothole somewhere in the hills. This would be especially pleasing if it exists. I have had suspicions about the existence of something in the hills above the cave for a while, based on plotting the track of the cave under a 3D representation of the hills above. This is something for a future visit, though.
Splitting into two teams, the first went for the first sump, now empty, thanks to the efforts made last month, while the second went for the sump in the second side-branch.
Last month's efforts (!) - Photos by Maggie
Once there, we prepared the sump for emptying, gathering in last months green hoses - repairing the join between the stretch of 20m and 50m hose with a piece of inner tube, some flanges (?) and a swiss army knife. Then while Panos went into the water up to his thighs, Martin, Michael and I helped bring the hose down to the sump and pass it to Panos who sunk it in such a way as to empty it of air as it went in. Once completely submerged we capped the end of the hose with a piece of inner tube, preferring it to the heroic rubber glove used in June. The use of a non solid cap for the hose had the unexpected advantage that it allowed the caver walking the hose lower to know exactly when the hose exit was at the height of the sump surface - the glove or inner tube would be sucked into the hose when the hose end was above the sump surface and would expand out of the hose when below the sump surface.
The glove! - Photo by Maggie
The inner tube expanded to resemble a dark aubergine, the shiny black curved surface taking our attention from the pressure which was to build up, break out and cover us in bits of rubber and plenty of sump water moments later.
Success - the flow had started! It was about six or seven pm.
It was somewhere around this time that we first noticed the increased number of mice in the cave. For me at least it started as one of those periphery of vision experiences where objects jump around on the edge of my field of view somewhere between where the torch no longer lights and where the sharp image created by my spectacles merges with the blurriness. This was slightly different. The blurriness and jumping around was about 40mm long and moving independently of where I moved my head. To find a mouse down where we saw this one did not surprise me. The poor thing had obviously got lost and had somehow found its way into the cave and down the main path some 90m into the cave and 30m below ground. It scampered off and we carried on with the day's tasks. Martin and Michael left Panos and myself to finish off the plumbing and headed off towards the first sump. Panos and I brought the black hose from the original 2003 emptying of the first sump up to join it to the flow from the second branch's sump. The idea was that if we could increase the height difference, the outflowing water would have greater pressure and therefore increased speed on its way out. As it was we had a difference in height of about 5-10m, but the addition of the black hose (50m length) gave an extra -13m worth of pressure to the flow.
Although we had come prepared, we did not use the plastic hose joiners, but taking some of the already burst innertube we rigged up a join with the flanges between the two pipes. Once the water started to flow we could feel the negative pressure on the join - a sign that the suction was increased. Unfortunately we hadn't waited long enough for Martin and Michael to move away and Michael got a hose load of sump water poured on him while he was on-rope. It's a learning process all around…
Moving on, and through all the parts that had caused me trouble in the past - through the bits where you have to brace yourself against the walls with hands and knees and back and arse to avoid the water below, and on to the first sump, now empty and not too tough to negotiate a way through, and on to the new passages, which saw light for the first time in 2003. The rigging team of Komninos, Giannis, Kostas and Margarita were a way ahead of us now and we were finding everything ready in front of us down to the junction at -151m where from the height above the junction we could see the satisfying glow of the acetylene below us. I stayed there and took in some calories I the form of cashews and almonds, while Maggie took the Murphys to the bottom and back and then we all started the climb to the exit, spotting mice all the way home.
We were all out at about 0400 hrs and made pasta before going to sleep. Martin had brought a travel fridge with beers, ice and tsipouro, so we managed nicely to unwind before watching the first little hints of daybreak come to remind us that the sun wouldn't allow us to get much sleep that night. True enough, the sun had woken us all by nine, so we de-rigged the entrance and got ready for the drive down and the beach.
Now, these mice...
They come in two different types. Small and Large. The small ones are all a very light grey colour and about 40mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones are dark grey with a white belly and about 100mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones were seen to rear up onto the hind legs (not unlike a kangaroo) and jump from this position from rock to rock. Small ones just scurried.
Questions:
1. Are these one or two different species? - if one, is it kiddie mouse time, hence the different sizes and colours?
2. If these are two species, how does that work out? The cave is a very difficult niche for one species of mouse to live in, let alone two. If they were competing for the same food source, they would not be two. If they are not competing how much is there that a mouse can eat inside the cave anyway?
3. How the hell do they get around down there in the pitch black darkness?
4. The ones spotted below the first sump - how did they get there? Was it:
a) after Nikos opened the route in 2003?
b) after Nikos opened the route in June?
c) through small passages they can fit into that we cannot fit into?
d) they got swept into the cave in the great cataclysm of 1910 and have been living down there happily since?
e) other
Wouldn't it be great to take blood from a whole bunch of them and see which mice are related to which and track changes in their mtDNA and compare it to mice living outside and stuff?
That is all for some other time though.
So we went to Dersios at the weekend with three of the new guys. Dersios is a sinkhole in Arcadia, about 700m up and quite a way from the sea. It was explored a while back to -80 odd meters by a French team together with ESE - the Hellenic Speleological Society. Since 2003, teams from SELAS Caving Club, Greece has been exploring the cave, doubling the depth and more than tripling the surveyed length. It has been surveyed to -161m so far, but has a lot of unsurveyed (and unexplored) passages. This year we are going to try and push the exploration a little further through a combination of diving and emptying of sumps.
We arrived after much faffing at well after one pm, set up our tents and got ready to go. We were in the cave just before four - so there was another faff involved which I am not sure I remember although some of it involved being barked at by dogs while trying to talk to an old man in a shack who claimed to know of a pothole somewhere in the hills. This would be especially pleasing if it exists. I have had suspicions about the existence of something in the hills above the cave for a while, based on plotting the track of the cave under a 3D representation of the hills above. This is something for a future visit, though.
Splitting into two teams, the first went for the first sump, now empty, thanks to the efforts made last month, while the second went for the sump in the second side-branch.
Last month's efforts (!) - Photos by Maggie
Once there, we prepared the sump for emptying, gathering in last months green hoses - repairing the join between the stretch of 20m and 50m hose with a piece of inner tube, some flanges (?) and a swiss army knife. Then while Panos went into the water up to his thighs, Martin, Michael and I helped bring the hose down to the sump and pass it to Panos who sunk it in such a way as to empty it of air as it went in. Once completely submerged we capped the end of the hose with a piece of inner tube, preferring it to the heroic rubber glove used in June. The use of a non solid cap for the hose had the unexpected advantage that it allowed the caver walking the hose lower to know exactly when the hose exit was at the height of the sump surface - the glove or inner tube would be sucked into the hose when the hose end was above the sump surface and would expand out of the hose when below the sump surface.
The glove! - Photo by Maggie
The inner tube expanded to resemble a dark aubergine, the shiny black curved surface taking our attention from the pressure which was to build up, break out and cover us in bits of rubber and plenty of sump water moments later.
Success - the flow had started! It was about six or seven pm.
It was somewhere around this time that we first noticed the increased number of mice in the cave. For me at least it started as one of those periphery of vision experiences where objects jump around on the edge of my field of view somewhere between where the torch no longer lights and where the sharp image created by my spectacles merges with the blurriness. This was slightly different. The blurriness and jumping around was about 40mm long and moving independently of where I moved my head. To find a mouse down where we saw this one did not surprise me. The poor thing had obviously got lost and had somehow found its way into the cave and down the main path some 90m into the cave and 30m below ground. It scampered off and we carried on with the day's tasks. Martin and Michael left Panos and myself to finish off the plumbing and headed off towards the first sump. Panos and I brought the black hose from the original 2003 emptying of the first sump up to join it to the flow from the second branch's sump. The idea was that if we could increase the height difference, the outflowing water would have greater pressure and therefore increased speed on its way out. As it was we had a difference in height of about 5-10m, but the addition of the black hose (50m length) gave an extra -13m worth of pressure to the flow.
Although we had come prepared, we did not use the plastic hose joiners, but taking some of the already burst innertube we rigged up a join with the flanges between the two pipes. Once the water started to flow we could feel the negative pressure on the join - a sign that the suction was increased. Unfortunately we hadn't waited long enough for Martin and Michael to move away and Michael got a hose load of sump water poured on him while he was on-rope. It's a learning process all around…
Moving on, and through all the parts that had caused me trouble in the past - through the bits where you have to brace yourself against the walls with hands and knees and back and arse to avoid the water below, and on to the first sump, now empty and not too tough to negotiate a way through, and on to the new passages, which saw light for the first time in 2003. The rigging team of Komninos, Giannis, Kostas and Margarita were a way ahead of us now and we were finding everything ready in front of us down to the junction at -151m where from the height above the junction we could see the satisfying glow of the acetylene below us. I stayed there and took in some calories I the form of cashews and almonds, while Maggie took the Murphys to the bottom and back and then we all started the climb to the exit, spotting mice all the way home.
We were all out at about 0400 hrs and made pasta before going to sleep. Martin had brought a travel fridge with beers, ice and tsipouro, so we managed nicely to unwind before watching the first little hints of daybreak come to remind us that the sun wouldn't allow us to get much sleep that night. True enough, the sun had woken us all by nine, so we de-rigged the entrance and got ready for the drive down and the beach.
Now, these mice...
They come in two different types. Small and Large. The small ones are all a very light grey colour and about 40mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones are dark grey with a white belly and about 100mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones were seen to rear up onto the hind legs (not unlike a kangaroo) and jump from this position from rock to rock. Small ones just scurried.
Questions:
1. Are these one or two different species? - if one, is it kiddie mouse time, hence the different sizes and colours?
2. If these are two species, how does that work out? The cave is a very difficult niche for one species of mouse to live in, let alone two. If they were competing for the same food source, they would not be two. If they are not competing how much is there that a mouse can eat inside the cave anyway?
3. How the hell do they get around down there in the pitch black darkness?
4. The ones spotted below the first sump - how did they get there? Was it:
a) after Nikos opened the route in 2003?
b) after Nikos opened the route in June?
c) through small passages they can fit into that we cannot fit into?
d) they got swept into the cave in the great cataclysm of 1910 and have been living down there happily since?
e) other
Wouldn't it be great to take blood from a whole bunch of them and see which mice are related to which and track changes in their mtDNA and compare it to mice living outside and stuff?
That is all for some other time though.
08 July 2005
Coming soon
I will bring over the posts from the normal Blog and then only post here with anything speleocentric.
It may take a while to get it all organised, though.
It may take a while to get it all organised, though.
03 June 2005
27 May 2005
Your powers are weak, old man
There has been a lot of interest in climbing at the club recently - we have this climbing wall there and had a go at traversing the three meter length of it using only the blue, or only the green holds. Needless to say, I wasn't all that good and went off and downloaded a whole bunch of stuff from Eric Hörst's site. I'd come across his book in Elias' car when we were going to Propantes and it had got me thinking. Then I bump into his site after looking for how info on training for climbing.
So one of the hints he talks about for getting started is weighted (gravity+) pull ups. He then writes, like, don't do this unless you can do five sets of fifteen pull-ups with three minute rests in between… Hmm. And then he says if you cannot do five consecutive pull-ups at all, there's something else you got to start with to build up strength.
And so, gentle reader, this is where today's title comes from. I went home, sat myself under the chin-up bar determined to do the pre-requisite five consecutive pull ups so as to be able to proceed with the training plan for building to five sets of fifteen. Up went the hands, gripping the bar and up went the legs, suspending me below the bar.
OK - so I didn't really try that hard, but it was clear that I was not going to be doing five consecutive pull-ups.
This time back in 1992, when I was just getting my release papers from the Greek Army I could probably have done the five sets of fifteen without a problem. Wouldn't it be grand to be like that again? OK, so I like have some thirteen years extra wear and tear on me and of course the whole chronic illness bollocks to deal with, but wouldn't it be just great to be 60 instead of 74 Kg, and to be able to do pull ups and to wear that favourite pair of shorts again? OK, who's with me on this? Let's set targets: by the end of the year (six month target), back to 60 Kg (lowest ever since the highest was 56 Kg, but that just ain't natural) and I want to be lithe and supple again.
In April last year I would have said, "yeah, dream on, fat-boy" but now things are different.
PS - title slightly influenced by the fact that I am going tonight to see Episode III.
So one of the hints he talks about for getting started is weighted (gravity+) pull ups. He then writes, like, don't do this unless you can do five sets of fifteen pull-ups with three minute rests in between… Hmm. And then he says if you cannot do five consecutive pull-ups at all, there's something else you got to start with to build up strength.
And so, gentle reader, this is where today's title comes from. I went home, sat myself under the chin-up bar determined to do the pre-requisite five consecutive pull ups so as to be able to proceed with the training plan for building to five sets of fifteen. Up went the hands, gripping the bar and up went the legs, suspending me below the bar.
OK - so I didn't really try that hard, but it was clear that I was not going to be doing five consecutive pull-ups.
This time back in 1992, when I was just getting my release papers from the Greek Army I could probably have done the five sets of fifteen without a problem. Wouldn't it be grand to be like that again? OK, so I like have some thirteen years extra wear and tear on me and of course the whole chronic illness bollocks to deal with, but wouldn't it be just great to be 60 instead of 74 Kg, and to be able to do pull ups and to wear that favourite pair of shorts again? OK, who's with me on this? Let's set targets: by the end of the year (six month target), back to 60 Kg (lowest ever since the highest was 56 Kg, but that just ain't natural) and I want to be lithe and supple again.
In April last year I would have said, "yeah, dream on, fat-boy" but now things are different.
PS - title slightly influenced by the fact that I am going tonight to see Episode III.
25 April 2005
Seven seconds
Well, here I am, at the entrance to Propantes. A proper write up will follow once the rest of the photos are processed properly and uploaded.
It takes about seven seconds for the stone to fall the 285m of the main shaft and a full second for the sound to come back out and let us know about it.
I am really quite sore.
20 April 2005
Propantes
This weekend.
A mystical aura surrounds what was once the deepest single pitch in Greece - 285m straight down. It was since knocked out of it's spot by Provatina, but the allure is still there and this weeked, god willing, I hope to make a descent into at the very least, the first hundred meters or so.
A stone about the size of tennis ball hits the floor at about 30m/s.
Tonight we meet to plan the expedition.
A mystical aura surrounds what was once the deepest single pitch in Greece - 285m straight down. It was since knocked out of it's spot by Provatina, but the allure is still there and this weeked, god willing, I hope to make a descent into at the very least, the first hundred meters or so.
A stone about the size of tennis ball hits the floor at about 30m/s.
Tonight we meet to plan the expedition.
12 April 2005
Your fifteen minutes start NOW!
Those who can read the language might like to have a look at the article about extreme sports as a stress release in TA NEA in which I have a significant amount of the column inches. There is also my photo which needs to be clicked on to be seen properly.
06 April 2005
Sykia and Archedamos
So, we went to Sykia in the Panorama Voulas area. It's a little doline very near the road, only about 20 m deep and not too much wider. Some git had thrown a dead dog into it - but it was fresh enough not to have smelled the place out. I have a little panorama made up (again with autostitch - I e-mailed the guy and should write about that too some time). This is the side which faces down-hill.
I also have, for the first time since the profile picture, an image of myself here (!).
- some will recognise the 1st VIII hat, there under the helmet. I have got into the habit of wearing it for a number of reasons - not least because my hair is getting long enough to be a real nuisance when it sticks to the strappy bits inside the helmet. And of course, the woolly hat is both warm and iso-thermic, in that it takes the sweat away from my head - when I'm sweating, that is.
After Sykia, which I guess was fun enough for the new kids, we cruised on down the dirt track to Archedimos' cave which goes by more names than I can remember all at once - there's Nympholeptos, the Grotto of Pan and the Nymphs, and some others as well.
This inscription is telling us that the cave is that of Archedimos, the one who has been taken by the nymphs. Nice. It's close to the entrance, and there are more inscriptions here and there.
Over at Hobby-O - (The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse, edited by Peter Cochran) we read in footnote 144 that Archidamus was said to have created it, and its votarists manifested all the signs of nympholepsy (“enthusiasm for an unattainable goal”).
Hobhouse visited the cave three days before Byron's 32 birthday - I first visited a few weeks after mine... He tells us that he wrote his name and Byron’s just above the nose. I did not see them, and did not really look, either, not expecting something like this.
So, here is Archedamos, walking one way and looking the other:
No sign of the names, but excavators may have seen fit to remove them since the writing of them.
Here, Rania is giving us a talk based on the stuff published in the bulletin of ESE. When I take Korinna, we're going to take the hobhouse texts and look around better. The Blue Guide (seventh? edition which Charlie gave me for my birthday in 1994) mentions the cave, gives the crappiest directions to it (and I'm not going to divulge on such a public forum how to go to the place), but has a nice an full description of the inside, which tallies with Hobhouse, and no doubt any excavation reports. The Blue Guides are good like that.
So here's the headless enthroned female deity mentioned in the three sources I have referred to:
She may be Isis, Demeter, Isis/Demeter/Ceres, or something else.
And here's the little altar thing, too:
Not a bad trip. Must get a helmet for Korinna and go back there.
I also have, for the first time since the profile picture, an image of myself here (!).
- some will recognise the 1st VIII hat, there under the helmet. I have got into the habit of wearing it for a number of reasons - not least because my hair is getting long enough to be a real nuisance when it sticks to the strappy bits inside the helmet. And of course, the woolly hat is both warm and iso-thermic, in that it takes the sweat away from my head - when I'm sweating, that is.
After Sykia, which I guess was fun enough for the new kids, we cruised on down the dirt track to Archedimos' cave which goes by more names than I can remember all at once - there's Nympholeptos, the Grotto of Pan and the Nymphs, and some others as well.
This inscription is telling us that the cave is that of Archedimos, the one who has been taken by the nymphs. Nice. It's close to the entrance, and there are more inscriptions here and there.
Over at Hobby-O - (The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse, edited by Peter Cochran) we read in footnote 144 that Archidamus was said to have created it, and its votarists manifested all the signs of nympholepsy (“enthusiasm for an unattainable goal”).
Hobhouse visited the cave three days before Byron's 32 birthday - I first visited a few weeks after mine... He tells us that he wrote his name and Byron’s just above the nose. I did not see them, and did not really look, either, not expecting something like this.
So, here is Archedamos, walking one way and looking the other:
No sign of the names, but excavators may have seen fit to remove them since the writing of them.
Here, Rania is giving us a talk based on the stuff published in the bulletin of ESE. When I take Korinna, we're going to take the hobhouse texts and look around better. The Blue Guide (seventh? edition which Charlie gave me for my birthday in 1994) mentions the cave, gives the crappiest directions to it (and I'm not going to divulge on such a public forum how to go to the place), but has a nice an full description of the inside, which tallies with Hobhouse, and no doubt any excavation reports. The Blue Guides are good like that.
So here's the headless enthroned female deity mentioned in the three sources I have referred to:
She may be Isis, Demeter, Isis/Demeter/Ceres, or something else.
And here's the little altar thing, too:
Not a bad trip. Must get a helmet for Korinna and go back there.
24 January 2005
Birthday trip to -90m
So 32, eh? Well, it's not all that bad.
Spent the day with family and not too much hoo-ha, then spent yesterday out at Vouliagmeni. It has what we term a Gruiyere consistency - holes everywhere. Not exactly my cup of tea. Very hot too - up at 26 C inside which makes you sweat just from standing there. I must have lost a few K in sweat yesterday.
Next weekend, we go exploring in Paloumba - finally!
Spent the day with family and not too much hoo-ha, then spent yesterday out at Vouliagmeni. It has what we term a Gruiyere consistency - holes everywhere. Not exactly my cup of tea. Very hot too - up at 26 C inside which makes you sweat just from standing there. I must have lost a few K in sweat yesterday.
Next weekend, we go exploring in Paloumba - finally!
15 January 2005
Neek's birthday and other things
So it’s neek's bidet and we're still at home and we'’re meant to be buying shit - like useful shit like ice for the party and that'’s all a little stressful - but at least I have managed to cross the "scan Helidorea photos" task off my list. So now we can show everyone the entrance to the cave:
It's all of about four feet wide, oh yes.
And there's Eri, too!
It's all of about four feet wide, oh yes.
And there's Eri, too!
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