Concordia CMLL Study Tour

By George W.M. Harrison

GeorgeHarrison@cunet.carleton.ca

~Dr. George W.M. Harrison

To agree with Hanna, my fellow translator of a Latin inscription in the Mesara museum, the German grave site is horrific. Several of us discussed this in soft tones on our way back down to the bus, as I suspect most of the rest of you did, too. The numbers speak for themselves:

344 German dead from the battle for Maleme whose bodies were never recovered.

4465 German dead buried in the cemetery which includes the entire time of German occupation on the island. These are nearly 4500 young men, most younger than the youngest of you, who would never have a family, never own a car or a house, would never again sing Stille Nacht, Helige Nacht. They won the battle but they won nothing.

Pedant that I am, I always, always encourage anyone and everyone to look at statues from all sides, pots from all sides, and the same is true of architecture.

~Charles standing under the lintel block of the tholos at Maleme.

The tholos at Maleme is remarkable for many reasons and Matt covered them more than adequately. Looking at the relieving triangle from behind, however, shows how it works. From the front it looks solid, but in terms of architecture if it was solid it would collapse. It works because it is hollow and this is apparent only from the back side. I use Charles as a model for height (as I shamelessly used 6 of you to show how theatres were also statue galleries) and to give a shout out to his report at Maleme.

This leaves Elpida.

She is the first woman to win (grudgingly) an upper tier appointment in the Greek Archaeological Service. Her resentful senior colleagues spent years placing obstacles and landmines (once when on a dive a stick of dynamite was exploded above her) in her career path. At one time she was in charge of all underwater projects in all of Greece. I am doing/finishing (this is the lie I tell my publisher) a book on Hercules. I know what heroism looks like; it looks like Elpida.