Concordia CMLL Study Tour

By Victoria Bonici

The day began with a visit to Kerameikos, a site known for its cemetery and toured the museum. There were many grave markers displayed as well as translations for the inscriptions included in the labels. One grave marker that stood out was Dexileos’ grave who was defeated in battle. He’s depicted as victorious despite having lost and is not buried at the location of the market either. There was also a section on pottery found at the site, organized mostly in progress of dating. After that we took a short walk to the roman agora, passing by a Holocaust Memorial statue, where we toured the site for a couple of hours. We stopped to appreciate some more important locations such as the temple of Hephaestus and Simon’s house.

The temple of Hephaestus stood out the most to me as the most impressive artifact we visited. It is a canonical Doric temple dedicated to Hephaestus and Athena, and has been well preserved over the years. The temple is an amazing piece of architecture, decorated by an ionic frieze depicting the centauromachy and gigantomachy. This temple managed to withstand many elements throughout history, especially the conversion to a church. It’s interesting to see how the entry doors moved from east to west to adapt to the publics wants. We can see the physical ways in which the building was affected by cultural changes. This being the first archeological museum also adds to the history of this temple.

~The temple of Hephaestus, Athenian Agora.