That island just next to Mykonos...

Delos is an island that takes a 25 minute ferry from Mykonos to reach.  We could’ve anchored outside of the island, and taken the dingy up, but it was a lot easier to just take the ferry from Mykonos.  So we boarded the 9:00am ferry and rode over to what was once the religious and political center of the Aegean.

The island is barren and has no natural resources, but again the importance of location, location, location is what transformed this mound of nothingness sticking out of the sea into a pretty sacred spot.  Delos provided the safest anchorage for vessels sailing between the mainland and the shores of Asia, and when you climb Mt. Kynthos it’s clear that the island is shielded on three sides by other islands. 

According to the myth, Zeus fell in love with Leto and cheated on Hera with her.  When Hera learned this she forbade Mother Earth to give her refuge and Leta had to wander around, knocked up, being chased by a Python.  Poseidon felt bad for her and anchored the island of Delos so she could have a place to rest and she gave birth first to the virgin huntress Artemis and then clasping to a scared palm tree to Apollo, god of music and light.  Makes sense right?

By 1000 BC the Ionians had made Delos their religious capital.  It was apparently a very elegant place where choruses of temple girls sang and danced their hymns and displaced beautiful tunics and jewelry.  Life was a great dream until 543 BC when Athens rose to power and the oracle at Delphi required the island be cleansed which means removing all of the graves to Rhenea which was supposed to alienate the Delians from their past.

The most prosperous time was during the late Hellenistic and Roman times when it was declared a free port and quickly became the financial center of the Mediterranean where, according to Fodors, 10,000 slaves were sold daily. 

Sadly in 88 BC Mithridates, the king of Pontus, in a revolt against Roman rule attacked the island and the entire population of 20,000 was killed or sold into slavery.  Those that did survive or attempted to come back and revive Delos were victim to many pirate raids and the island was eventually abandoned. 

I felt the history lesson was necessary.  The island was awesome and even though we had a limited amount of time there (The island is open from 8:00am – 3:00 pm Tuesday-Sunday… and that’s it) Dad and I agreed that it was best and most fun set of ruins we have seen in Greece.  The things that were intact were a lot different than what we had seen previously and the excavations weren’t as thorough as the other places as you will see. 

This is the view of Delos right when you get off the ferry… it looks like a swampy mess and you can see the barren dry landscape that would’ve otherwise been a deterrent for people to come and build a major settlement on.

This is in the center of the Agora of the Competialists located just to the left of the harbor and where the blue walking trail begins.  It was built by members of the Roman guilds who worshipped the Roman “crossroad” gods.  In Greek they were known as Hermaistai, after the god Hermes, protector of merchants and the crossroads.

Welcome to McDonalds.  Lining the Agora were lots of shops that still had big puts like these laying around.  Dad and I have learned that these shops were very similar to modern day fast food restaurants.  People could go shopping, buy goods, and get a quick bite to eat all in a days work.

As I stated above, this is Apollo’s birthplace so it’s only natural he should have a temple here.  This is what remains of the Sanctuary of Apollo.   It wasn’t very big, and now has a great view of the museum and gift shop.  

There were bulls everywhere.  I don’t remember where this particular one was located, but there was a Sanctuary to the Bulls built as a dedication to a naval victory.  I need to brush up on my Greek and Roman myths to get a better idea of the significance of a bull.  The sanctuary was apparently decorated with maritime symbols and last I checked, bulls aren’t really considered maritime.

On a dry and barren island, any lake would probably be considered sacred.  The lake was fed by the river Inopos from high on Mt. Kynthos until 1925 when it dried up and turned into a nice patch of shrubbery.

The 164ft long avenue of the Lions was very cool.  These were replicas, we saw the originals in the museum, but it gave a great idea of what it looked like intact.  There were 9 Naxian marble lions sitting on their haunches and guarding the Sacred Lake.  

So according to the map there was a line of blue arrows we were supposed to follow to keep within a certain time limit so we could see everything… we watered off the path.  But we ran into an entire shopping and housing area that was pretty cool.  This was the Lake House or House of the Delians.  It was lake front property and check out the tops of the columns!

This is another view of the Lake House.  These are the men’s rooms and the second main courtyard.  The woman and children lived on what would’ve been a second floor and the servants lived in tiny rooms by the main courtyard (pictured above) and the toilet.  

The further back we went, we discovered a giant bath area.  The plaque on the house said it was located by the baths, and sure enough, we found the baths.  These were clearly huge public baths and well as you can see here had filled up with water which gave it a very good visual quality for us.

Throughout the city we were walking on stones over what was clearly a tunnel of some sort.  This is the widest we saw and some of the stones were missing.  We figured they were a sewer system of some sort.   Either to filter waste out somewhere, or to being fresh water into the town.

We didn’t have a ton of time to see the things on the top of the mountain because we wandered off on our own, but we managed to climb up to the theater which was awesome.  It was a huge structure and this was the coolest part – the underground tunnels they had for the animals and “entertainers”.  It was now filled with water, but looked really cool.

This is in the museum on Delos.  It is a statue of Artemis Shooter of Deer that was found in the theater district of Delos.  Artemis, goddess of the hunt, is Apollo’s twin and was also born here too according to myth.  

This is part of an equestrian statue of a Roman general that was found in the Agora of the Italians.

This is a beautiful mosaic found in one of the homes.  It was not labeled in the museum, like a lot of the things, so that is all I know about that.

This too was not labeled.  It is a man.  I liked the bust because one, it’s very well done.  I thought it was a beautiful piece of marble work.  Two because you can see the burn marks.  When Delos was attacked, there were a ton of fires and a lot of what survived on the island has burn marks.

This is a terracotta stove they found and were able to piece together.  A nice three burner stove with oven, perfect for any modern day kitchen.

This is a statue of Boreas, King of Thrace and the personification of the north wind, abducting young princess Oreithyia, daughter of the Athenian King Erechtheus and Praxithea.  I guess simply abducting someone to have kids with is a lot easier than buying them a drink?