Two Thousand Years of Footsteps

Admittedly, working our way up the hill towards the Acropolis in the heat of the Athens morning was not a great plan.  Well, it wasn't actually a plan, which is why it happened like that; no-one in their right mind would have chosen to have visited at that time of day.  "Mad dogs and Englishmen..." and all that.

After the immersion in history at Kastro Myrina, I hoped to be able to get a very real sense of this place, a place that is a reminder of a time when Greece felt they led the world in architectural development and philosophical thinking.  To be able to imagine what the people were like back then as they went about their daily lives, to get a sense of the importance of their deities that they built temples of such grandeur and geometric perfection.

They were there, the people, in their droves; wrong generation, wrong intent.  "...and crawling, on the planet's face, some insects, called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space...and meaning" - (Char) The Criminologist - Rocky Horror Picture Show.

They rushed up the path, trying to be polite as they shoved to claim a spot in which to be photographed against an ancient background, many with no idea exactly what it was they were posing in front of, just knowing that they needed to record that they had been there. A tide of people surging against the mostly unyielding bulk of this ancient architecture. Perching on ledges, finding bits of marble to stand on, claiming their ground and oblivious to the signs and ropes advising the damage to these bits of ancient history caused by constant attack of the touristic kind.  

Behaviour any worse than the plundering of the last century when the greater part of the sculptural decoration was claimed as souvenirs by Lord Elgin and sold to the British Museum? Jury is out on that one, on one hand they have been preserved, on the other, why should they be there and not in their rightful location.  Any worse than the damage inflicted over the last 50 years by the pollution of the city that trades so desperately on it's connection to these monuments? This space, much of which was built as temples for worship, seems to have lost it's sacred soul. Dissolved over the years with the onslaught of these insects called the human race.

Loud voices and sandaled feet pounding the treacherously slippery marble steps and paths, worn to glass like glaze over the centuries, stopping to pose yet again, or stare into the camera screen, chimping as they go.  Swarms buzzing around the German/American/Greek/Dutch/Russian speaking guides, looking vacant now - information overload into an overheated brain.  Eyes glazed but cameras still clicking on command. I found myself photographing the people photographing themselves, rather than the monuments or the sense of them.

It was not what I expected.  It was literally a construction site, an empty shell of a civilization moved on, albeit hugely impressive for the sheer scale of the intent, design and construction, despite the current one clinging to this past in the hope that they may again reach that zenith.  

The spirit is still there, somewhere, slipped back to the caves and this outcrop of rock that supports all. Waiting for the madness to subside.

And what has Che Guevara have to do with it anyway?