Exploring Ancient Greece

Kick off Season 3 with us as we recount our unforgettable journey through Greece in October 2024! 🇬🇷 From the rich history of the Peloponnese to the mysteries of Eleusis and the grandeur of Mycenae, we connect ancient myths and biblical stories to these iconic sites. 🏛️ Along the way, we share personal anecdotes and reflections that bring this beautiful land to life. 🗺️ Join us on the Navigating An Ancient Faith podcast as we uncover the secrets of Greece’s past and its connection to the Biblical story.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Our Third Trip to Greece
• 5:38 The Eleusinian Mysteries
• 21:39 Discovering Mycenae
• 29:54 The Healing Center of Epidaurus
• 37:46 Ancient Sparta and the Hidden Gem of Mystras
• 43:25 Journey to Olympia
• 49:36 Unveiling the Palace of Knossos
• 55:28 Wrapping Up the Journey

Transcript

Exploring Ancient Greece

[00:00:00]

David: Hercules killed the Nemean lion. I don't know where that was. Apparently that was the only one there. 

J.R.: Yeah. The only animal there was that Nemean lion. Now lots of cats. So now they're just Nemean cats. 

David: The cats, because there's no other natural predator there. Cats just have taken over All right, let's talk about this trip that we took last October. Yep. I guess a couple months ago. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: To Greece. 

J.R.: Trip number three. 

David: Yeah, our third time to Greece. Yeah. 

J.R.: And everybody asks me every time we go, they're like, dude, you know, you going to the same spots? I'm like, nope. Other than Athens, we obviously land in Athens.

Yeah. But other than that, you know, we always go a different direction every time. So first time we went, I guess, you know, the first time we went, now that I think about it, we landed in Athens, obviously did several days in Athens, but then we went to Turkey, went to Istanbul, Ephesus, kind of, we're more in Turkey than in Greece. Now we landed in Greece. I don't remember doing anything. Oh, we went to Corinth. 

David: We took a train to Corinth. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. We took the train to Corinth, which is right outside of Athens. 

David: Yeah. It's not too far. 

J.R.: [00:01:00] So that was the first trip. Second trip was kind of went all the way around. 

David: The northern part. 

J.R.: Right. And hit Meteora and then hit Philippi and Thessaloniki. Yeah. Yeah. Hit some sites up there. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: But this time we went south the Peloponnese, which is the huge peninsula to the majority of Greece, really, as far as land. <Yeah.> You know, landmass. But, not many people go south. 

David: No, and people kept telling us, we'd run into people who said, Oh, you gotta go south, it's the most beautiful part. <Right.> And I remember talking to some woman about olives. <Yeah.> And she was searching for a word, she said, The ground there is very, and she said, angry. 

J.R.: Well, yeah. And I think she nailed it because it is, man. I mean, nothing but olive trees. 

David: That's a very good description. 

J.R.: You know, vineyards, but nothing, really nothing else. No trees. You get up in the mountains. It was kind of surprising that we saw some trees, but yeah. 

David: But then some of the valleys just, everything was growing, right? <Yeah.> You could almost think of it almost as the breadbasket of Greece, right? Because it's just fruit trees, olive trees, the [00:02:00] oranges you can't eat, which was, that was weird. 

J.R.: Yeah, the bitter oranges. Yeah. Apparently that's, I don't know why that's popular. <Yeah. Yeah.> I don't know if it's something other than consumption. I mean, medicine or so. I have no idea. <Yeah. We asked someone.> We saw many growth. We saw a bunch of groves. 

David: We said, we saw your orange trees. Yes. Very beautiful. You know? And we said, yeah, do you eat them? No, you can't eat them. 

J.R.: No, no. Yeah. Never. Why in the world would you do that? You know, we're from Florida. 

David: Florida. We eat these things. Oh God. No, don't eat them. 

J.R.: But no, so it was a neat area. And the funny thing is a couple of the hotels that we stayed at, they were like, are y'all Americans?

Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. We're here, you know, vacationing. And then they would pause and they'd say, why are you here? As if to say, nobody ever comes down here except for Greeks. And it's probably true. There's very, very much of a monoculture down there. So every time we went out to the city, it was nothing but Greeks.

You know, you didn't see, you know, in Athens, of course, there's all kinds of different nationalities. You get outside and even up north, Thessaloniki was a relatively modern city. 

David: But yeah, a lot of young people, a lot of cultures represented. 

J.R.: Yeah, down south, it is, there's not many, I [00:03:00] didn't see any other, I don't think we saw any other Americans, really.

David: I'm trying to remember, maybe at Olympia. Olympia was the one site. Yeah. So you saw all kinds of people, but other than that, no, I mean, it was just beautiful country. Greeks who were happy to see us, who were kind of almost honored that we were there, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. If you really want to experience genuine Greece, I would say go to the Peloponnese. Cause that's where you're really going to experience it. 

David: And I think that's right. And they told us again, they said, well, you're exploring the most beautiful part of Greece and can't argue with that. 

J.R.: Yeah. We noticed that there was a big change in climate environment zones. You know, when you'd go up in the mountains, like I said, there were no tree.

I mean, you never saw like, for instance, pine trees never saw any tall trees, lots of olive trees, but then we'd go up in the mountains and I remember on one side of the mountain, we'd cross over the mountain. We're like, Hey, look at all the trees. It was actually trees up here, you know? 

David: One side of the mountain would just be bare and rocky. And then . It was almost then the other side you were driving through. It reminded me of North Carolina. 

J.R.: Colorado, something like that. It's just kind of crazy how quick it changes there. <Yeah.> But yeah, lots of [00:04:00] different zones that we went through. But angry ground. I can't argue with that because there are places where other than olive, olives, I guess olives can kind of grow.

David: And they actually like that. So yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Like it's ideal soil for olive trees. 

J.R.: Yeah, but you didn't see any just vines or bushes or scrubby, you know, you just didn't see much, anything outside of what they planted. And no wildlife. 

David: Very little wildlife.

J.R.: I mean, we were off in the woods a lot. 

David: Hercules killed the Nemean lion. I don't know where that was. Apparently that was the only one there. 

J.R.: Yeah. The only animal there was that Nemean lion. Now lots of cats. So now they're just Nemean cats. 

David: The cats, because there's no other natural predator there. Cats just have taken over.

J.R.: Yeah. So anyway, no, it was a whole different part of Greece. It was beautiful. So I would encourage anybody who goes there and you have a week or two, definitely get down to the Peloponnese and check that out. <Yeah. Yeah.> And then we went to Crete obviously too. 

David: To Crete. Yeah. 

J.R.: So here we go. Here's our recap episode. 

David: Yeah. And we're not going to go through all of our whole travel log and all the [00:05:00]restaurants and stores we went to. But we did visit several locations of historical significance and we're really just going to run through those today. <Right.> So don't worry, this isn't going to be our, our trip slideshow.

J.R.: Yeah, this isn't TripAdvisor or anything like that. 

David: So that's what we're going to do today. And then off of these sites, we had, you and I had some, we, as we always do, we have these conversations that we find fascinating, entertaining to ourselves, but we are going to spend a couple episodes on some of those conversations as well.

So on some of these sites, we'll just kind of hit the significance of it, but we'll save the actual conversation for the next couple episodes. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of starts out at Eleusis. <Yeah.> So we kind of landed in Athens. We really didn't do -No, we didn't. In fact, we didn't even go to downtown. We landed. We went straight to Eleusis. 

David: We rented a car. 

J.R.: We rented a car and went to Eleusis. 

David: Took us two times, but we rented it. 

J.R.: That's right. We won't even go there, but yeah. Yeah, I got the car and hit Eleusis. And it's kind of neat because we were kind of driving around a neighborhood and we're [00:06:00] like, It's the, the GPS says it's right around the corner. 

David: Says we're here, but. 

J.R.: And it actually was, but it's right in the middle of kind of a neighborhood, I guess what you'd call, but you know, once we got on the site, go up a little hill, beautiful, you overlook the ocean and you can, once you're there, kind of where the ancient temple used to stand, you really could see why it was such a beautiful site and why they chose it. 

David: Yeah. Cause right on the other side of the temple that overlooked the bay, you could see the big, well, the, what the Western port of Athens, right? I don't think it's Piraeus, but you could see that. And yeah, it was really a beautiful site. <Right.> So the significance of Eleusis though, why are we talking about that? And this was one that the third time visiting Greece, I remember thinking we have to go to Eleusis. I don't know what is there, but we have to go.

J.R.: Right, right. 

David: And so Eleusis is the home to one of the most significant, what, mystery religions of the ancient world. One of the big religions of the ancient world was the Eleusinian mysteries. 

J.R.: Right. And this would have been in Jesus's time before that.

David: Would have been, Oh yeah. This goes back probably [00:07:00] at least 500 BC, maybe 600. <Yeah.> And runs for a thousand years. 

J.R.: Yeah. I was about to say it was significant for about 400 AD. 

David: I think it pretty much dies out. <Yeah.> But it reads like a who's who, when you read who claimed that they were initiates into the Eleusinian mysteries. It's everything from 

J.R.: Marcus Aurelius

David: Marcus Aurelius. Yeah. He's one of the famous ones. Plato, Socrates, almost anyone who's anyone has said that they were initiates into the religion. And yet it's one of these odd things because we don't know much about it. 

J.R.: Well, it was a secret. 

David: Because it was a secret. It was a mystery. Right. You can't, you can't call it a mystery religion when you run around telling all your friends how to get it.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. Right? Yeah. But I was trying to think of, what is a modern religion , that's that way? I think kind of, what is it, Scientology is a little that way.

David: Scientology, maybe like, what is it, Kabbalah, which is kind of that Jewish mysticism. 

J.R.: Oh yeah, right. Right. Yeah. 

David: I think Madonna was into Kabbalah for a while.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Not quite the list that Eleusis had. 

David: Yeah. They have Marcus Aurelius. We have Madonna. 

J.R.: Right. [00:08:00] You know, well. 

David: It's up to you. They went bigger impact on civilization, but. 

J.R.: But right. I mean, it was so, you know, the big question is What is it that all these brilliant philosophers and thinkers of the ancient world, what attracted into it?

What made them come out of it saying that it transformed the way they thought, transformed their lives in many times, many ways, again, because it was a mystery religion. In fact, it was like penalty of death if you told anybody. <Yeah.> So not many writings about it. Not many people wrote the book and said, 

David: here's the ancient handbook to say, you know, here's the theology of Eleusis. Exposed. Yeah. And none of that. Yeah. So what we know about it today has been pieced together. I think I want to say Ovid, but that may not be right. So don't quote me on that. But there's someone who wrote a play that someone hints at joining the Eleusinian mysteries. And there's a little bit of description of it, what we know pieced together from the site.

And we just kind of piece this together. about what actually was going on. But Eleusis is very close to Athens [00:09:00] because there was a temple to Eleusis, Athens Agora. <Right.> And once a year, the Greater Mysteries, there was a procession from that temple from Athens. <Right.> And they walked to the site of Eleusis. <Right.> So it's not that far away. For us, it was just around a couple bends of the bay and then you were there. 

J.R.: Yeah, but it was what? 

David: It was still like 20 minute drive. I feel like. 

J.R.: Well, it was, I want to say it was like 12 or 13 miles the road to Eleusis, which is, which is, you know, you see a lot about that historically. But when we drove it, it was kind of neat because you can't see Athens from Eleusis or vice versa because there's kind of a hill in the way and you kind of walk around the hill and then you hit the bay.

Yeah, but again, you kind of, when you're standing on that temple spot and looking back towards Athens where you know Athens is. You're like, Oh man, you kind of understand the whole processional from Athens. And if you've got thousands of people or hundreds of people coming down this road, you can see them from probably five, six miles away coming up by the bay and, you know, blowing their trumpets, whatever they're doing. And so you can kind of see the big parade aspect of [00:10:00] this annual event. 

David: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So something that took place annually. The initiates probably went through some kind of cleansing ceremony, as you often see in ancient religions and the mysteries themselves were based off the myth of Demeter and Persephone. <Right.> So Persephone gets dragged down to the underworld and then basically is reborn half the year or a third of the year. Right. It's that whole myth. But the mysteries imitate that myth and that myth. You can see that myth everywhere around there because it's basically a dying and rising initiation.

Sure. So very much you kind of like we talk about Christian baptism almost. <Right.> You are dying. And then you go through this thing, you drink some, this probably isn't Christian baptism, but 

J.R.: The cocheon? 

David: The kaikion or the cochea, something like that. This drink that probably had hallucinogenic properties. <Right.> And it kind of took you to this mystical world. And then on the other side, you [00:11:00] were reborn. Right. Right. You would walk into a new life. 

J.R.: Right. And it tied in with nature. So, so it's very harvest, you know, nature, religions, things like that. But also there was this mystical part of it. I think we talked about this on the YouTube video, the mystical part of it does seem to be, there was some hallucinogens in the, what is it? The beer or the wine. 

David: The barley mixture. 

J.R.: Right. The drink that they, that they gave them. And so, yeah, you can see that that probably did. Cause there's something we talked about this. There's something that makes it last for a thousand years. And it's more than just a good band or, you know, some good music and right.

There's something more than getting drunk on wine. <Yeah.> That it was like, 

David: Wow, that was a blast last night. No, they really did. It endured for a thousand years because there was really something that, and, and there are some people who write about it was a transformative experience for them. <Right, right.>

You know, even like Marcus really, it's like, what, you know, such an adherent to stoicism. Right. And it would [00:12:00] point to the Eleusinian mysteries as something that was very transformative for him to do.

J.R.: Right. Well, we saw it at Delphi that when we were up in Delphi, it was sort of this, okay, these Pythia women are entranced by the spirit and they come and see the future and they tell you the future.

And so there's a little bit of an eye roll or sort of ancient mysticism that they didn't know any better. But then again, same thing, it lasted for, what, 1,500 years or something that this was a major site. Yeah. The Oracle was probably the most important person in the ancient world. Yeah. You know, as far as Kings would travel to her and you're like, okay, that doesn't last for that long if it's some roadshow gimmick. 

David: That's right. 

J.R.: Right. And so there's something to it, but we got into what the mysteries were. And so what we noticed was we saw something in the three symbols of Eleusis that we saw it over and over again. 

David: Yeah. We saw these images carved into rock. So what were the three symbols then?

J.R.: There was the basket that they carried the, what, the secret, 

David: The wheat or the ingredients. Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. [00:13:00] The secret items went in the basket. Right. And then the one that they show on the carvings was barley and poppy and poppy, right? And so poppy right away. You're like poppy flower. Yeah. 

David: So there was a flower, a basket, and then stalks of wheat. <Right.> And you saw those symbols everywhere at the site. 

J.R.: Yeah, whatever the mystery was it was carried in that basket.

And so that kind of tells you okay You're talking about something relatively small some kind of ingredients for the wine. And the one thing they did tell you was the barley, which you could say, well, that's some beer concoction, , or harvest, you know, you kind of read that either way, but then you got the poppy, which modern, of course, we look at that and it's like, oh, well, there's your hallucinogenic.

<Yeah.> That's your strong drug right there. There was the barley and researchers have noticed or knew about a fungus that grew on the barley that can be a bit of a hallucinogenic. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. They've actually shown that that there's this fungus that barley or wheat can get. 

J.R.: Yeah, I forget the name of it.

But anyway, yeah, , so there's kind of those elements that make you say, okay, maybe there's something to this. But at the very least, it's our connection or our [00:14:00] interest in the whole Eleusis mysteries is that it intersects with the Bible in an interesting way. 

David: Yeah, , there are allusions to this mystery religion that would have been very dominant at the time.

J.R.: Right. 

David: And you probably see this clearly in the book of Ephesians. <Right.> And it's very easy to read over Ephesians and go, I don't see anything where they're talking about this mystery religion. But this mystery religion, it uses things like secret knowledge, right? <Right.> So there's secret knowledge. The whole thing is couched in mystery.

There's the death and the rebirth elements. And so when you recognize the language that this mystery religion, the Eleusinian mysteries used, then go back and read the book of Ephesians. And I, Actually pulled out just a couple of verses of Ephesians chapter 2. So I'm gonna read this real quick and listen to the words. So in Ephesians chapter 3 actually, I think I said 2, Paul said, "Surely you've heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you."

So he's writing to the people at [00:15:00] Ephesus. "That is the mystery made known to me by revelation." So there's a couple of those words right there mystery and revelation. "As I have already written briefly. In reading this then you'll be able to understand my insight" That's another key word. "Into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body and shares together in the promise in Christ Jesus."

So that's just a couple of verses, but even those couple of verses are loaded down with words like mystery, revelation, insight. It's something that's been hidden that is now revealed, right? And all those words are associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries and other mystery religions, but that's the dominant one at the time. 

J.R.: Right, and the words don't really come out and just punch you in the face. But if you understand what was going on at the time in Eleusis and areas around there, you can kind of [00:16:00] see that Paul's tapping into people's interest in mystery religions in general, because I'm sure they were probably wildly popular because, hey, what's this all about?

You know, these famous people are part of it. I want to find out a little bit more about it. There's probably a little bit of what difficulty being invited in to be a part of it. And so there's some exclusivity to it. And I think Paul's just recognizing that this is the dominant interest of the area. And so he's kind of saying, well, hey, I've got a mystery religion for you. 

David: Yeah. You know, he's speaking their language. These would be words that if you were sitting in Ephesus and this guy, Paul was talking about a new religion, look, your ears would perk up if he talks about this mystery that I'm now revealing to you. This has been hidden from times past, but I'm going to share with you secret insight that you can be a part of this mystery.

I mean, that just that. Okay. You got my attention. What is this? 

J.R.: And if you're familiar with the area, you might be saying, well, Ephesus is across the Aegean sea. I mean, , it's in another now another country. But you [00:17:00] have to remember that , this mystery religion of Eleusis. And again, again, it kind of ties in with Delphi, kind of the mysteries there.

It had spread around. It's all of Greece, you know, that idea. 

David: And all of Greece and the, what the West coast of what is now Turkey <Right.> was all Greek colonies <Right.> by this time. 

J.R.: Yeah. So they were not that far removed, even though nowadays you kind of look at and say, well, that's hundreds of miles away. You know, they weren't that far removed from the idea and the interest in that type of religion. 

David: And there would have been sites of the Eleusinian mysteries have been found in other places. <Right.> So we know this wasn't just a central thing around Athens. <Right.> This was all through Greece. <Right.> But the site of Eleusis was the place where this all took place.

We saw this huge Platform of Apollo, the big platform where the temple would have been right to Apollo. And we saw the cave where supposedly was an entrance to the underworld. You know, and so it was all there. It was, it was all there. It was really, it was a great site. It was really, I'm glad we went there.

J.R.: Yeah. There are better preserved sites, but just kind [00:18:00] of like all the sites in Greece, you know, you kind of think, man, I wish I could see it in all of its glory. <Yeah.> But it's also one of those sites that when you're standing on that temple of Apollo platform, that's still there. You really can kind of see the, it just takes your breath away.

You know, the side of the Bay, you look the other direction, you see towards Athens. You can kind of imagine where the road came up. It was a, it was a really neat site. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. You and I, I think of both read books on the Eleusinian mysteries. And again, if we're being vague, it's because that's really all we know.

There's not this book of theology, yeah, there's not this book of theology to say, well, what do they believe, you know? We don't know. We know it was this powerful experience and people claimed to be changed from beforehand to afterhand, represented by this whole death and rebirth. And I think what's interesting, my big takeaway has just been that Paul was not shy about pulling in that language, describe what it meant to be in union with Jesus.

<Yeah.> And it's almost like, look, this is what you're looking [00:19:00] for. 

J.R.: Right. And kind of what we can learn today is I think , if we were to pull concepts from say, I'm not saying this is a good idea, but if you're to pull in concepts of Scientology or something to get people interested in Christianity, there would be kind of a pushback and there might've been a pushback in Paul's day.

There'd be a big pushback certainly in modern times of saying. No, no, no, don't. We're not going to acknowledge other religions. We're not going to acknowledge this other fringe ideology, this fringe group, right? And Paul didn't have a problem doing that, which I think is interesting that, yeah, I think the fundamental religious people at the time may have pushed back. But I just do think it's interesting that we look back at Paul with so much admiration of all his writings and he was actually kind of tying into this mystery religion, kind of this fringe group, although it probably would have been more culturally mainstream than we realized today.

But the fact that Paul tapped into that and was okay with that.

David: Yeah, it might be today. It might be the, what you might say, the, what the balancing act of pulling in elements of Eastern [00:20:00] religions to Christianity. To not be afraid to say, you know, look, what these Eastern religions really have down is this whole idea of meditation, right?

It's this whole idea of ascending past your thoughts and pulling in other elements, right? Yeah. Some people would embrace that, some people would get real hesitant. But it's the same balancing act that Paul was trying to do. How do I speak their language while pointing them to what's true?

J.R.: Yeah. And I don't know what the answer to that, but there is a tension between, should Christians practice yoga, you know, kind of things that we might roll our eyes a little bit out.

And it is, I just think it's an interesting story about Paul embracing this kind of non traditional -certainly when it comes to Christianity- this non traditional understanding of the culture at the time and he was okay with that and he actually kind of used some of those elements to point to Christ.

David: Yeah, that's right. 

J.R.: Yeah, so that was Eleusis and it was a beautiful place. I'm glad we didn't I'm surprised because you know again It's only what well what I say like 12 miles outside of Athens the third time we've [00:21:00] been and we've never been there. Or it took the third time before we got there.

David: Well, it's not one of the big tourist sites, but it's definitely a site that I'm glad we went to. Cause I at least wanted to say, look, I've been there. Cause it was such an important center of religion. 

J.R.: Yeah. It was, it was, it was really neat. 

David: And I'm going to say this on several of these, but this is one where he actually did do about a 15 minute YouTube video, I think from the site.

So I'll say this once, but then I'll probably refer to it a couple of times is we have a YouTube channel, Navigating an Ancient Faith. Go there, subscribe. But we do do a video on Eleusis. 

J.R.: Yeah, we kind of get into a little bit more of the mysteries and the elements, that type thing. So yeah, check that out.

David: Pictures, videos from there too, as we talk. <Yeah.> Okay. So the next site then, we went to Napflio, which was on the coast, just south of Eleusis, not too far away, south of Corinth. <Yep.> But, the significance there was, actually there were more sites than I realized, but Mycenae, ancient Mycenae. 

J.R.: Yeah. On the drive in, there are all these brown signs, you know, which were kind of archeological [00:22:00] sites and they would say half of Greece.

Right. Look, look at, and we kept Googling it's like, man, I've never heard of this stuff. So anyway, but yes, Mycenae, we went the, what, the second day. <Yeah.> And that was a really, really kind of restored archaeological site. Lot more there than, say, at Eleusis and some of these other places. 

David: Up on this hill, it's a very dramatic site.

J.R.: Yeah. Like a fortress type thing. And it's another one of those things that when you're driving up to it, you're thinking, well, you know, why would they tuck it in here? And then when you get there and you can look out at the bay and you're like, oh wow This is really like an ideal location for a fortress and a city.

David: And the thing that struck me is from the right angle Mycenae is this hill, fortification on top that is actually flanked by two higher mountains that look like pyramids. They're almost perfect. <Right.> What those triangles. <Yeah.> And there's this gosh, I mean you can't get any more symbolic than that, right?

Here's this ancient kingdom and it's flanked by what looks like two giant pyramids, right? Which [00:23:00] what symbolized like the connection to heaven, right? It had to been this ...

J.R.: Heavenly mountain, yeah. 

David: Had to have been this image of this is a city with divine protection behind it. And a couple of miles from the coast, you had the harbor there. In fact, Nafplio we stayed, I didn't realize was the ancient harbor to Mycenae. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah, that's right. And so it was more, I mean, obviously more modern, more touristy. <Yeah. Yeah.> At least Greek to the modern harbor. Yeah. And so it was a beautiful city, in and of itself. But the ancient site. Yeah. You could see Naplio from, from the ancient side of Mycenae and had the mountains on either side.

You could picture soldiers up there kind of being on lookout. You'd see miles and miles and miles in every direction. You'd see any boats coming in the harbor. Yeah. So it really was a well fortified, a really well protected, you could just see for miles and miles. So, you know, you're not sneaking up on anybody.

And at the same time, it was kind of tucked in. If you were, we mentioned that, yeah, we drove by it without noticing it. And it was kind of one of those things where like, yeah, I guess if you're kind of an [00:24:00] army marching, unless you knew exactly where it was at. They would see you, but you wouldn't see them.

David: The map says it's here. 

J.R.: Right, yeah, it's kind of hidden, you know, it was a neat site. 

David: Yeah. And so the significance of Mycenae in case you haven't heard of it, the Mycenaean civilization or the Mycenaean civilization, I'm not sure how it's pronounced, but it was one of the dominant civilizations in Greece up to about 1200 BC.

And that's going to be a reoccurring theme because around 1200 BC, something happens that we now refer to the Bronze Age collapse. 

J.R.: Yeah, the collapse of the Bronze Age. 

David: And I think same thing with Knossos, about 1200 BC, it just collapses. And this power center in Greece, probably maybe back to 2000 BC, but 1800 BC, 1500, is this power center in Greece. It was the dominant culture, the Mycenaean civilization. <Right.> And about 1200, it just collapses, disappears. 

J.R.: Yeah. One of several empires that sort of collapse and created power vacuums, created instability, economic instability. And that's where [00:25:00] kind of some of these civilizations were, you know, died and kind of reborn right there at the end of the bronze age.

David: Yeah. The golden age of democracy and philosophy, it really , follows the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Kind of the birth of Greek philosophy. Yeah. The birth of the Greek age. Yeah. 

David: And the other thing that Mycenae is known for is, it is the empire that is ruled by a King Agamemnon.

J.R.: Yeah. There you go. 

David: That should ring a bell. 

J.R.: It did. It did. I've seen Troy.

David: Yeah. I've seen Troy. I've seen the movie. So Agamemnon is the king who actually, I think it's Menelaus, who is married to Helen, right? Cause it's, he's married to Helen of Sparta. Menelaus is south. We'll get to that. And Agamemnon is brother, but Agamemnon is the power broker.

 And so when Paris takes off with Helen, the Greeks had this agreement that, Hey, an offense to one is offense to all. So he goes to his big brother and says, Hey, you know, he disrespected us, right? We're going to pick a fight. Yeah. So that's the whole basis for the Trojan war. 

J.R.: [00:26:00] Yep. And they loaded up and the face that launched a thousand ships.

David: Yeah, that's right. That's right. The 10 year journey over there, the 10 year siege. <Yeah.> And for people like Odysseus, the 10 year journey back home. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: But all this is couched around this King Agamemnon. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And for me, it was surreal. Personally, I was like, wow, this is the place where King Agamemnon, <Right.> You know? 

J.R.: And we went into his tomb. 

David: Yeah, that's right. So we saw these huge royal tombs. And they actually, disclosure, you know, they actually don't know who they belong to, but it would make sense that these fantastic royal tombs. 

J.R.: Beehive. Yeah. 

David: Uh, well, 1200 BC, so 3200 years. It makes sense that they belong to the king.

So one of the first ones we saw was the tomb of Clytemnestra, which is Agamemnon's wife. And then we saw the grand, even more grand, they said it was the treasury or the tomb of Agamemnon. 

J.R.: They weren't sure about the treasury or the tomb because, I forget what the deal was, they thought it was a treasury, but it had been robbed [00:27:00] over the years.

Anyway, they weren't positive about that, but it was the same kind of beehive shape, this fascinating kind of cone that when you stood in the middle of it, everybody was staying in the middle, like stomping their feet, cause it made this crazy. 

David: It echoed. You could feel the vibrations through your body. Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. So everybody's standing in the middle of it, making noises. But no, it was, yeah, it was amazing and it was probably. What, probably 50, 60 feet high. I don't know. It was, it was. 

David: A big cone, but it goes way up high. And it was impressive. It was impressive structure. And again, to think these things were built in 1200 BC. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. And so then you hike up to the fortress gate. And you see, what is it, the, the Lionstone, what was the name of that? 

David: Yeah, it's the Lion Gate. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And again, if you read any kind of history book, you will recognize pictures of the Lion Gate. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And so that was another moment that was just surreal.

You're standing there looking at the Lion Gate. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: Of Mycenae. And King Agamemnon would have passed through, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. And there's this massive stone with the lions carved in it, hence the [00:28:00] name. And the stone is just, I forget the weight of it, but the myth is, is that the Cyclops, , the mythical Cyclops. <Yeah, that's right.> Right. Built that fortress and you walk in and you're thinking, well, of course that's obvious where that myth came from.

David: What do they call it? They even called it some kind of, like the Cyclopean wall or something. I'm sure that's not, but it was something like that. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. It referred back to the myth that the Cyclops, the giant Cyclopses, I don't know what's the plural of Cyclops Cyclops. I don't know. Yeah. The Cyclops built that fortress. And again, you, these massive stones. That were the size of buses and they were just perfectly stacked on each other. Very much like the Pyramids of Egypt. Yeah. No seams. 

David: And you, so you hear that and you just think, well, yeah, how else do you explain it? How do you, how else do you explain these massive stones being put in place? <Yeah.> Just perfect seams and you know, perfect carve outs for some odd shaped rock. And yeah, it was incredible.

J.R.: Yeah, no, it was, a beautiful place. And again, you kind of [00:29:00] climb up the hill, the wind is going nuts and you just have this amazing view of the bay, the mountains, the pyramid mountains on either side. Yeah, it was really a beautiful place. 

David: Yeah, and so there's a whole myth about Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and we had this conversation about how that relates to the Bible, but we're actually going to save that because I think we're going to do a whole episode on Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter and what that almost shadows Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac with a twist, right? We had that whole conversation. Yeah. Let's save that for another episode. 

J.R.: Well, it also referred back, I thought to Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter. We talked about that in the Judges series. Yeah, so. 

David: Refer to that a little bit. 

J.R.: Anyway. Yeah. Lots of reference, lots of mirroring those stories going along. Anyway, in our conversation, we were like, okay, we're going to have to do a whole episode on that. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: So anyway, so that's probably coming up in next couple episodes. 

David: Yeah. We'll get to that one. So we'll save that for later. 

J.R.: All right, on to where?

David: Well, one more thing though, like on our way back to [00:30:00] Nafplio, we would pass this fortified structure and it said something like the Acropolis of Mycenae or the Fortress of Mycenae. <Right.> But we had been to the city, so we're like, I don't know what that thing is. 

J.R.: Yeah. We never made our way up there.

David: And it was closed when we went there one time. So, it's actually the site of Tiryns, and I was just watching a movie about Hercules, and all the action takes place in Tiryns, and I was like, yeah, that's the site we passed. 

J.R.: We were right there. 

David: We were right there. 

J.R.: Yeah, I don't know if we couldn't, I mean, I don't know, we just couldn't get up there or what.

I guess it was closed. 

David: It was closed. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. I thought there was a monastery or something up there. I don't know. 

David: It was this big wall looking thing, this big wall looking structure though. And so it had something to do with like the main city or a fortification before you got to Mycenae or maybe Mycenae once it fell, all the action moved down to Tiryns to be close to the harbor, but it's something like that. So anyway, the next site.

J.R.: Yeah. Epidaurus. We took a day trip there. We really didn't stay very close. It was what? An hour or so.

David: Yeah, it's about an hour drive. 

J.R.: Yeah. And we were still [00:31:00] staying. The opposite direction. Yes. That's right. Yeah. So we went a little bit further south and kind of down in the peninsula and went to Epidaurus.

And that was another really neat, I don't know, it was a really neat site that I didn't know much about until we got there. And the more I started looking around and we kind of tied together with the Bronze Age and kind of the way the culture was in those ancient times. It was really, really neat. And, we probably got an episode about that by itself also, but.

David: Yeah, that's right. 

J.R.: Yeah. At least the snake and yeah. 

David: The snake imagery. 

J.R.: But anyway, yeah, we'll get to that. But yeah, Epidaurus, it was a healing center and sick people in the ancient world, like traveled man, hundreds of miles. in some cases to get to Epidaurus.

And this is another one of those things where you hear about it. And on the surface, you might say, well, sounds like they would rub some herbs on you and maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn't. But this is another one of those sites that you're thinking, man, it was really transformative site for hundreds and hundreds of years. And the best doctors in the ancient world would [00:32:00] come and study under Asclepius, right? 

David: Yeah, it was the site of the cult of Asclepius. 

J.R.: The cult of Asclepius. They would study underneath those doctors and then take it back to their hometown. So , this is not just a kind of a hocus pocus. <Right.> It was a genuine, genuinely powerful site in the ancient world. 

David: Yes. And we ran into this a couple of times that from a modern perspective, you hear about the Eleusinean Mysteries or you hear about the cult of Asclepius, and you tend to do kind of an eye roll and think, well, you know, they were just superstitious and didn't know any better.

J.R.: Right. Worshipping the sun god. 

David: Yeah. Then when you go to these sites though, I mean, it's incredible. And the imagery there, and when you actually, at Epidaurus, you actually saw a little bit more about the ritual, and how powerful it would have been, and the, some, in some cases, the testimonies are etched in stone, about, this is what happened when I went to this site, and I came away, and so, there's gotta be more to it than just our modern perspective that says, well, these guys don't know what they're doing. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: Well, one of the gullible people that will [00:33:00] fall for anything. 

J.R.: Right, right. One of the neat things that when we understood what they were doing is one of their, I guess you call it techniques is that they would sort of put them under this -it was kind of tied to drinking the spiked wine. It was something like that. But one of the things that they did is that they would put you under this, maybe hallucinogenic trance and then you would meet the snake, which kind of takes you back to Delphi, the Pythian spirit, the Python spirit. You would meet this snake image and the snake would tell you how to heal yourself.

David: Yes. 

J.R.: Which was kind of bizarre, you know?

David: Now that was fascinating. 

J.R.: Yeah, but again, we're kind of looking at it today. It's like, ah, this sounds like some kind of crazy gimmick. But again, it was there for hundreds of years. And so you kind of see these stories and you're like, man, that's interesting. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: You know, and again, we'll probably get into it more in that snake episode. But anyway, I just thought that was fascinating the way that happened. 

David: So there were several bath houses there, there were dorms. So you might go stay a month or so, right? Yeah. There was a lot of cleansing rituals. [00:34:00] And then when they thought that you were prepared, and there were other things, it was like diets, dietary things and. 

J.R.: Yeah, some more modern things that you would say, yeah, this is obviously going to help.

David: But then when they thought you were prepared. You went and you drank this drink and you laid on the floor of the temple. And that was the fascinating part, what you mentioned, is that they didn't tell you what the cure was. You actually told them what was revealed to you in this vision that you had.

J.R.: Right, right. And so you kind of go on this vision quest. You meet the Pythian spirit, you meet the snake spirit, and he tells you what's wrong with you. And again, etched in stone are all these different stories about this guy told us that whatever was wrong with them and that's what they treated. Yeah. And then there's successful results from it.

David: Yeah. And again, I read a book. I was fascinated by all this. So I read a book at the latter half of our trip, and I had finished it by the time we got home. But one thought might have been that, well, they were just cherry picking the easy cases. But actually the opposite is true. They were [00:35:00]taking the cases that the local town doctors couldn't figure out.

Yeah, they couldn't deal with the herbs. They were taking the hopeless causes. Right. You know, look, last chance. It's like, go to Mayo Clinic, right? Yeah. It's like, look, last ditch effort, man. Go to Epidaurus and see what they can do for you. 

J.R.: Yeah. And so they would, they would get family to take you there. And, you know, like you said, stay for a couple of months and it's just crazy the stories that came out of that. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. And some of the, I think we will do an episode on the snake and healing, because the other thing this book was talking about is for a couple hundred years, the cult of Asclepius was almost a rival to Christianity, because of the healing aspect that Christianity was claiming. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: Like, you know Hey pray to God and it'll bring healing and things like that, right?

And it was almost this rival thing right a couple of hundred years. 

J.R.: Yeah, there's a tension between it. 

David: Yeah And we were talking about some of the maybe some of the overlap that you could see in the healings of Jesus some similarities, right? Again, I guess we'll talk about that on that other episode.

J.R.: Yeah. Well the snake in the staff immediately makes you think of [00:36:00] Moses going to the Pharaoh throwing down the staff and it turning into a snake, right? And then the staff of Asclepius is the image that everybody sees tied into pharmacies and hospitals where you have the staff and the snake curled around it, right?

<Yeah.> So anyway, we'll get into that in another episode, but there are some fascinating connections between those two ideas. 

David: Yeah, one last thing about the site itself is that this is one of those I didn't know what it was. But I kept reading about it Epidaurus, Epidaurus, Epidaurus. About the third time I read about it, I'm like, Okay, we've got to go there.

It's the site of one of the best preserved stadiums. Theaters. 

J.R.: Oh yeah, yeah, it was hidden. 

David: In the ancient world. <Right.> And so we were excited to see this thing, and we get onto the site, and we don't see it anywhere. <Right.> There's a sign that says, well, through those trees there, is the stadium. <Yeah.> And I, in my mind, this thing was built up pretty big. And so we work our way through this path, through the trees, the trees open up and, Oh my goodness. 

J.R.: Yeah. Massive. 

David: Just a beautiful, [00:37:00] massive stadium. 

J.R.: Yeah. It's, it's pretty much completely restored because it was never really completely destroyed like most stadiums. And the reason was, is because of this kind of hidden aspect to it. You know, you had the main town and nobody knew that the stadium was up there. 

David: In fact, didn't there was a story about how the town was being raided and they hid in the theater. <Right, yeah.> And you think, well, how can you hide? 

J.R.: How do you hide in a massive open theater, open air theater, right? 

David: But once you're there, Yeah, it's like they raided the town and they didn't even know that the theater was through the woods.

J.R.: Yeah Yeah, everybody goes up to the theater and keeps quiet. And yeah, yeah I forget what the specifics of that raid was, but it was yeah, that was fascinating. Yeah. 

David: So yeah Anyway, Epidaurus did not disappoint. It was it's a yeah fantastic site. Yeah amazing site. <Absolutely.> So we made our way after that we made our way south and we stayed in Kalamata a couple of nights, right?

And if that sounds familiar, it's, yes, that's where the olive comes from. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. The Kalamata olives. Beach town, [00:38:00] kind of a small, I don't know, small little city. <Yeah.> Not much going on there as far as archeological sites, but it was a nice central location. 

David: Yeah. Nice little relaxing town.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Stayed at the spa there. <Yeah.> That you found. You found a new ...

David: May or may not have partaken in spa activities. 

J.R.: That's right. Yeah. We're not going to go down that road, but. 

David: Yeah, so our plan there was to go see the site of Sparta because Sparta was close by. Now it's interesting because I had been told Sparta is not worth seeing and we were talking to our waiter the night before and he kind of said, what's your plan?

And we said, we're going to go see Sparta and he kind of, you know, he gave us about 10 other little towns, mainly beach towns. Yeah. It was more tourist. No, no, no. Go here. And you and I were both like, we're not going to be this close to Sparta. 

J.R.: You can't not see it. Right. 

David: Go. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: Yeah. So the next day we went, we didn't have high expectations.

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: And truly the site of Sparta, there's not much there. Now there is some stuff there. 

J.R.: It's worth seeing. Again, I mean, obviously I'm glad we saw it, but you're right. As far as archeological sites, very, very, what overgrown is not [00:39:00] the buried basically, you know, you see these large boulders and you'll see these signs that kind of map out that this used to be this, and this used to be this temple. But really all you saw was the kind of some foundation stones. But otherwise it was pretty much covered with dirt and it was a working olive farm, olive tree farm. Harvesting.

Yeah. They were harvesting right there, next to. 

David: You're sitting there trying to look at this temple and some guys are sitting there harvesting olives right next to you. Yeah. Excuse us. If we get our nets and you know. 

J.R.: Right. So it was kind of private property and some farm, but at the same time, it's an ancient site. So they kind of, I guess they have an agreement. There was a harvest. Oh yeah. Right there. 

David: Butted right up against the archeological site. And we were joking, you know, those kids have dug up. Yeah, like the little bronze helmets, little bronze helmets or, you know.

J.R.: Shields and swords. And they're probably running around playing with them in the, in their playground 

David: fights, literal Spartan swords. Cause you know, they found stuff there. <Oh yeah.> It's right there. It's all right there. And they were excavating the theater, right, which was a small theater. 

J.R.: Yeah, that was, that was neat, but that was neat [00:40:00] just because you saw the excavation process. So that was worthwhile. 

David: That there was sections that they had excavated. They had a lot to go, but you could see it taking shape, right? This is going to be cool in another five years or so when they get this thing excavated, you know? 

J.R.: And the cool connection there was, we had also sort of stumbled on the side of Thermopylae from our previous trip when we were going out to Meteora.

 And again, a hotel owner told us, Hey man, you know, if you're going to go to Meteora, you need to stop by and check out Thermopylae, you know? And so we did, we checked that site out. And of course we relived the whole 300 movie. And so it was kind of worth going to see Sparta for that reason.

But otherwise, you know, you're right. It was pretty covered up. 

David: Yeah. So the movie 300, you probably know the King Leonidas. You know, that whole story was, you know, Sparta is of course the kingdom of King Leonidas. And again, one of these, another society that collapsed around 1200. 

J.R.: Right around the same time.

David: Bronze age. Right. And the other ironic thing was, is they were running the [00:41:00] Spartan race the weekend after. <Oh yeah.> Visiting. 

J.R.: Yeah. They were setting up for it. Yeah. And so a lot, some of the site, a big majority of the site was closed. And they're kind of putting up these modern rope swings and , whatever, you know, these. 

David: The the symbol of the Spartan helmet. And it was like Spartan race. We're like, wow, we're they're really into this. <Yeah.> And someone said, no, they're literally running the Spartan race <right> next weekend. 

J.R.: Right. And people from basically all over the world. All over the, yeah. Yeah. It's a big deal. So it was kind of cool. Unfortunately we missed that.

David: Yeah.

J.R.: I don't know. It probably would've been just completely bananas if we had been there the next week when they were doing, but they were setting up for it, and that was fun to watch. 

David: I tried to apply, but they weren't taking anything anymore. 

J.R.: You had to win another race to get invited. 

David: But the real payoff to this day was that after we had visited Sparta, one of the waiters did say, 

J.R.: Yeah.

David: On your way back, if you cut through the mountains, you'll go through this town called Mystras. 

J.R.: Oh, yeah, that was amazing. 

David: That was the big payoff for that. 

J.R.: Right. And I wish we had more time because we didn't even cover it. It was [00:42:00] what? 14th, 15th century. So it was a little bit later, obviously than Sparta.

David: Yeah. Real new city. <Yeah. Brand new.> Brand-spanking new. And new only 500 years old. 

J.R.: Yeah. But it was built up into this mountain. It was like something that you would see off Lord of the Rings movies. Right. I mean, there was these houses and churches all built into this mountainside, and you could just wander through the whole thing.

And it was acres and acres and acres of it. Oh, interesting. It took us what, a couple hours to get to the top of it. Yeah, yeah. 

David: A couple hours to get to the top. <Right.> Wander all the way up, because it's pretty steep hillside. 

J.R.: Yeah, it Oh yeah. Yeah. You made it all the way to the top of the mountain where the fortresses at.

David: Yeah. And of course the guy told us how to do it, and of course we didn't listen. We just took off. I know. And then realized that we could have driven to the top, could have driven to the top and made it our way to the fortress. But we did the whole thing on foot because that's what we tend to do. 

J.R.: And by that time we looked at our watches and saw that our massage was coming up in about an hour and a half and we just had to leave. We had to bail on the whole thing to leave. So anyway, yeah, I would have liked to have spent more time there. [00:43:00] Eh, you know, as far as Sparta goes, definitely worth seeing, but I would say something like a five, five out of 10.

David: But if you're down that way, I would say do Sparta, Mystras and the drive through the mountain.

J.R.: Oh yeah. The drive was also beautiful. Right? Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. That was where the changes, you know, that you'd kind of go to see the trees on the other side. That's where we got stopped by the goats. That's where it was. Yeah. Lots of neat stuff up in the mountains, but. 

David: Yeah. So the next major site that we went to is we made our way a little bit West in the Peloponnese to the site of Olympia.

And of course, that's the home of the Olympic games, right? And that was much more touristy. Again, that was one of those things where Google took us a shortcut that saved us five minutes, right? But we were sure that we were going to end up just like in the middle of nowhere. 

J.R.: Well, we kind of were. The town itself, yeah. And it was, unfortunately, well, no, we kind of hit right at the end of the season, but that little town was shutting down clearly. <Yes.> Like restaurants were, you know, lots of restaurants were [00:44:00] closed. Lots of the tourists, you know, you saw the tourist stalls where you could get gifts and things like that.

And half of them were closed. And we talked to one guy and he's like, Oh no, this is the last day I'm open. Yeah. I'm closing now. So we were right there at the end of the season. 

David: Yeah. I looked at the calendar and we were there October 31st. Of course, the calendar turns and it's November 1st. And yeah, we had several places literally saying, no, we're shutting tomorrow for the season.

J.R.: Yeah. Hard line, man. <Yeah.> But anyway, we caught it right at the end. Neat, neat site. Obviously, the amount of work that was put into this ancient site just for the ancient games kind of spurred several conversations that you and I had about the amount of preparation that took to run in these races.

And the other kind of cool thing that we talked about was that during the Olympic games, all of these surrounding city states would allow athletes to pass through. You know, normally you're not walking through a rival city state without being harassed, but during the Olympic games, everybody said, okay, truce, you know, no wars, right?

No wars, all of our athletes and people [00:45:00] traveling to the games can travel freely. And so it was kind of this community effort of saying, okay, everybody calls a truce, let's go to the games. And so it was kind of neat that it was such a, in an era of rival cities and wars constantly going on. <Yeah.> It's kind of neat that they stopped and said, no, this is more important.

David: They had enough reverence for the games. <Right.> And we talked, we actually, this is another one where we did a video. So, you go to our YouTube channel and we do a short video on, Olympia there, but this is another one where these were not just athletic games. These were religious ceremonies. <Oh, yeah.> And of course the centerpiece of Olympia is one of the seven wonders of the world. The temple of Zeus was there and there's only a couple of columns. 

J.R.: They were huge though. They were huge. 

David: But there were several that were fallen down almost in place. And yes, these column bases describing it doesn't do it justice. 

J.R.: Yeah. It's a little bit like the pyramids massive. The pictures don't do any justice when you stand next to it, that your breath is taken away. 

David: Yeah. And we had talked about [00:46:00] when we were there, what was that? The third wonder of the world, ancient wonder that we had seen. <Yeah.> The three being the temple of Zeus, right. That we were witnessing right then. Right. We have been to the pyramids. And the temple of Artemis in Ephesus.

Yes, that's right. That's another ancient wonder of the world. 

J.R.: Yeah. So bucket list, check. 

David: Yeah. So it was neat to be there to say, Oh, look at this, another wonder of the world that we've seen. <Yeah.> And the site itself was pretty incredible. There was the temple to Hera next to it. <Right.> What you would say, not a lot reconstructed, but they've uncovered a lot. You were trying to use this little app that showed you what all these different structures, a little virtual reality thing on my phone. And of course, then they had the Olympic stadium there. 

J.R.: Right? The stadium, we went out there and saw the people running.

And so the kids racing out there on the. Ancient stadium. Yeah. That's you feel like if you go out there and you're under the age of 18, you got to get out there and run. 

David: Yeah. You and I tried and we pulled both hamstrings. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah. We were down, down for the rest of the day, but yeah, it was neat. I mean, just kind of, it was expansive site, but it was [00:47:00] neat just because it wasn't a city.

And so it wasn't really cluttered is not the right word, but it wasn't cluttered with lots of houses. And, you know, you kind of go to a place and you're like, well, this is probably just somebody's house at some point, but it was all very specific sites of different Greek gods, different temples, different bath houses, different preparation, the, you know, the gymnasium, the place where they practice. But anyway, it was a neat place.

And the other thing that we kind of picked up, and this is more in the YouTube video, the idea that they weren't just going to see who the fastest person was, right? It wasn't kind of modern day athletes the way we think of it, because the modern athlete is for the most part, it's glory for himself or his team.

<Right.> But what was really, really clear is in Olympia, it was very much a race to give honor to the gods. 

David: It was glory for the gods. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. And so it was kind of, you know, we talked about that about again, go back to Paul and Paul's writings that he was writing [00:48:00] about culturally relevant things in the ancient times when he talks about in Corinthians, you know, "whether you eat, whether you drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." That really has those echoes of Olympia of we're running for the gods. 

David: Yes. We're doing what we're doing for the glory of the gods, right? 

J.R.: Yeah Yeah, so that was not an idea and a concept that was missed by ancient people. They understood that perfectly. 

David: And of course Paul has a lot of running metaphors.

J.R.: Oh, yeah. 

David: Right, I think almost any letter he writes he's gonna pull out some running metaphors talking about running the race, <Right.> strive to win the prize. We talked about this in a couple of the stadiums, we actually saw the starting blocks and the finish line right which was this pole. 

J.R.: Pedestal, yeah.

David: Yeah So that pole was called the goal marker right and it's actually a term that Paul uses he says keep your eye on the goal marker. 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And sometimes our translations don't always capture that but you read that and you think yeah, this is what Paul's doing. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: Paul seen these races. He was in Corinth some of the games the Isthmian games were in Corinth. [00:49:00] <yeah.> So he's seen these games and he's seen the tracks, you know And these are some of the metaphors he uses that talks about living the Christian life. Do it for the glory of God, not the gods, but God.

Keep your eye on the goal marker. Run in such a way as to win the prize. And these are all metaphors that Paul puts all the time. 

J.R.: And when you're there at the site, those metaphors and those images like really spring to life and make it more concrete for me. 

David: Yeah. So that was the site of Olympia. There was a lot there. Again, we did a video on that so you can check out the YouTube channel. So I guess to wrap this up then, we drove back to Athens and we flew to Crete. 

J.R.: Yeah. First time to Crete. 

David: Beautiful island. 

J.R.: Beautiful island. Very similar landscape, but it was a really, really cool place. 

David: Yes. And we stayed in Heraklion and the second day we were there, because that's why we went there, we're doing this tour of ancient civilization.

J.R.: Right, exactly.

David: Is the site of the palace of Knossos. 

J.R.: Right, and I didn't know much about it until we went, and Knossos, the myth behind it, [00:50:00] was that was the Minoan bull, right? The half man, half bull that was stuck in the labyrinth of Knossos. 

David: Yes. 

J.R.: Right, and so , that was what I kind of vaguely knew when we went there, and that's another one of those things that you're like, Well, that's just a myth, but then you go to the site, you're like, oh, wow, no, it is quite the labyrinth, you know, you can see where the myth came from. 

David: Yeah. So Knossos is the home of the Minoan civilization, King Minos, right? And like you said, the Minotaur, the labyrinth, all that is tied to Knossos. <Right.> And one of the very fascinating things about this site is it was excavated in the early 1900s by, I'm gonna say the guy's name is Schleierman.

He's the same guy who excavated Troy. And we talked about this in, well, we did a YouTube video on that, so you can check that out. 

J.R.: A bit of a hero and a villain at the same time. 

David: Yeah, so he goes through guns blazing, tearing up everything he can. Because he wants to actually uncover this site. <Right.> He's kind of more of a hit and run guy, early days of archaeology.

<Right, right.> And so a lot [00:51:00] of modern day archaeologists, well most, and there's truth to it, would just say, this guy trashed the site. How much can we learn from him now that he's just, you know, he's messed up the layers, he dug stuff up, we don't know where it came from, he tried to recreate stuff. <Right.> We don't know how much is original and how much is his own imagination.

<Right.> So from that standpoint, the site is kind of scoffed at, but what we were noticing is he did try to recreate some of the walls, some of the structures, and he tried to recreate some of the paintings and the site itself is amazing. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: No, despite what you think about the archeology.

J.R.: Well, I mean, look, we've seen countless archeological sites. And one thing we've always said is, man, just get Disney up in here to recreate this, to put it together. And I want to see what it actually looked like back in the day. 

David: Just one site, sacrifice one site, one site for it. Disney Imagineers. <Yeah.> So let them go crazy with it. 

J.R.: A true archeologist is just gritting his teeth right now, [00:52:00] and that's certainly sacrilege. <Yeah.> But, what he did, you know, the interesting thing about what he did is you really could see the modern, not modern as far as modern materials, meaning the paint that was used.

But it's all in its vibrant colors. It's pretty accurately recreated, at least to the best of his knowledge. And yes, he took some liberties, which is the criticism of him. It was packed. It was packed with people. Everybody was, I mean, it was Disney World. Everybody was there standing in line to see all these things.

And you could, you really could walk through the labyrinth, you know, the kings chamber, the throne room was actually, the cool thing there was the actual throne, which was a little bit underwhelming because you're thinking, 

David: It looks like a high chair. 

J.R.: But yeah, you're thinking game of thrones, right? The swords all welded together. Yeah. But no, you go in there. 

David: We're like, oh, this is going to be so cool. 

J.R.: It's going to be great. But the cool thing is that throne, the high chair that was there has never been moved. <Right.> Yeah. The King actually sat there and it is set there ever since. <Yes.> And so that was kind of cool. But anyway, it was just an amazing site.

David: Yeah. And [00:53:00] sound like a broken record, but again, this is another Minoan civilization, another civilization that collapsed at the end of the Bronze Age. <Yeah.> And it used to be this power broker between Egypt and Mycenaean civilization. And again, somewhere, whatever happened, I read a book about it. 

J.R.: I was about to say, you've been reading about , what do they attribute the collapse of all these huge civilizations to?

David: Well, according to this one book, it's several factors that all have, it was kind of like the perfect storm, right? Several factors happened at once. 

J.R.: Okay. 

David: And it's like when one Civilization collapses for whatever reason it almost is like dominoes. And when there was this balance of power in the region, <Mm hmm.> there wasn't any war there was free trade. <Right.> A lot of trading going on because what's interesting is they found Egyptian artifacts in all of these cities that we visited. <Right.> They found Minoan pottery, right Over on the coast around Syria and in Egypt. So there was obviously a lot of trading going on, but it's like once the power and you can see this in modern day to maybe, yeah, [00:54:00] sure.

It's like we back one regime and that shifts the whole power balance and then we cause a whole war over there. 

J.R.: Yeah, well, it is interesting because it's kind of a modern problem. Whatever you think about America, if our economy collapses, don't think that the entire world economy is not going to feel the ..

David: Sure there's going to be a domino effect.

J.R.: Yeah. And so we're tied together much tighter than say the bronze age, but it is interesting that because of trade, because of open communication and travel between these civilizations that, yeah, I guess it shouldn't surprise you that whichever one started actually caused a chain of events that caused them all to collapse, which is kind of fascinating.

David: It's around the same time, the Sea Peoples, which probably originated from Greece, they leave Greece mainland. And some speculate that it may have been the remnants of the Mycenaean civilization looking for new land. <Okay.> So they land on the Mediterranean coast around what is now Israel. <Yeah.> And they become the Philistines, which that's really interesting.

J.R.: Yeah, that's kind of [00:55:00] cool. Yeah, that's a cool idea. 

David: That's pretty much what most archaeologists agree. The Philistines originated from the Sea Peoples. <Okay.> And so there's that migration happening. There was a war that took place. The Hittite Empire falls. And, you know, it's just the domino effect all the way around.

So there's several factors that happen at once that this whole Mediterranean region that had pretty balanced power, free trade, not a lot of war, all of a sudden collapses. And yeah, you know, it's like the decks reshuffled. 

J.R.: Well, that's kind of a good place to end it because what I thought about this trip in general is we kind of went and it's like, well, we're not going to any biblical sites.

I'm not going to Philippi. We're not going to any known biblical sites that Paul wrote letters to, anything like that. But it really was kind of a connection historically with biblical times, with just ancient times in general, that you really could, when I came home and I followed up and read some books, I really can tie that kind of, Bronze Age leading into BC, AD, Jesus's time.

You [00:56:00] can see how all those things connect together in a much more vibrant way when you kind of go and actually put yourself on the ground at some of these sites. 

David: Yeah, that's right. So overall, there were some other sites we saw. It's funny how many times we actually just stumbled onto another site, you know, another well known site that we didn't really have time to get into.

We were in Nemea. <Oh, right.> And out in the field, it was like, what's that big structure out there? And there's this huge temple, another temple to Apollo, I think. 

J.R.: Right. Every little town, if you can imagine going to every little town around the city you live in and there's some kind of old ancient temple, they're just everywhere there. You just can't throw a rock without hitting some kind of ancient column that's from 1500 BC. 

David: We talked to Kloe who raised bees in Olympia and she was several generations there. And we asked her, we said, man, you must have just been playing among the ruins of Olympia. <Yeah.> And she just kind of said, yeah, you know, a lot of it was in fact, her, grandparents owned olive trees on the site. 

J.R.: On the site. [00:57:00] Yeah. And she was a little bit miffed that they had to kind of move their olive trees. You know, they've been in the family for generations and people are freaking out about the temple. So got to move the olive trees, got to take them. Don't mind Kloe and her bees. That's right. Yeah, it's just a lot of that.

And when you're there, you really kind of soak it up and think, golly, it's just so real to the people that live there. You know, and I had the same feeling in Israel when you're in Jerusalem and you're thinking, man, it's so real. It's so concrete and even modern times with all our modern conveniences and hurried lives, there's still a connection to somebody who lives in Israel to go back generations, recognizing when some of these ancient sites were found, and I don't know, just the connection back is just kind of fascinating when you're there. 

David: One of my other big takeaways was the connection to myth. 

J.R.: Oh, right.

David: It's one thing to read all these myths, Iliad, Odyssey. All these individual myths. All the myths of Heracles, right? 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And then to go to these sites and all of a sudden they just jump out at you. 

J.R.: Yeah. 

David: You know, like you were [00:58:00] saying, the Labyrinth. 

J.R.: Right? 

David: The Minotaur and the Labyrinth. <Yeah.> And the Palace of Knossos is literally Labyrinth- room after room, several stories. And again, this is 1500 BC. <Oh yeah.> And just several layers. 

J.R.: In the museum, there was a recreation of the entire palace and it was a labyrinth and it was just insane. I mean, what we saw was insane, but then look in that recreation, you're like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. You're right. Like three or four stories high of just, of just all these interconnected rooms.

David: Yeah. And so there's that deep connection to all the myths that you're familiar with. And you see the setting and you say, yeah, this makes sense. Now this it's no wonder that certain aspects of this culture, that culture, or this city developed this kind of mythic story behind some element of the city or the region, right?

J.R.: Well, it's what we say about myth in general. It's trying to explain the world so that it's not just coming up using your imagination. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a giant castle that was full of a labyrinth, these mazes. And wouldn't it be cool if there was a monster underneath. These weren't just [00:59:00] figments of people's imagination.

They're really an explanation using a mythic way of storytelling in order to explain the real world that they encountered every day, right? It just, you're right. You may, it made it more concrete and it made you realize that myth is not just really cool storytelling of the ancient world. It was an attempt to explain how the world worked.

David: Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. Explained how the world worked and why things were the way they were. And yeah, there was that deep connection to the myth. <Yeah.> And the historical connection as well. So, in the next couple episodes, we're going to talk about some of these more in depth conversations that we had about some of these sites. <Yeah.> So, we're going to do that the next couple episodes. 

J.R.: Yeah. We're going to talk about serpents and symbols, kind of the Asclepius idea that we touched on to Abraham and Isaac sacrifice, how that ties into Agamemnon. <Yeah.> That'll be fun. Oh, the other thing we're going to talk about, we didn't really mention it on this one was the relic of Titus, which is funny. We're going to talk about relics [01:00:00] more in general, but we got to see the skull of Titus. How cool was that? 

David: Yeah, that was really interesting. 

J.R.: And it was, we walked in the church of Titus, the church of Titus. <Yeah.> 

 And there's a little sign that says, Hey, the skull of Titus is to the left. And we're like, okay, we got to check this out.

David: How about that? 

J.R.: Yeah. And we went in there and sure enough. Little skull, you know, just this little window, you could look down and see the top of clearly a human skull and you're like, wow. So anyway, so that'll be another episode, not necessarily about the skull of Titus, but just relics in general, because this is not the first time we came across.

We came across the hand of. Was it, was it John? It was one of the, it was one of the apostles. Anyway, it was in, in a, just kind of a random monastery. They were like, here's the original hand of, we'll just say St. John and sure enough, there's a withered hand in there. You're like a mummified hand. So anyway, that's another kind of thing we came across that it'll be a fun episode.

Kind of, how do we take in the West modern Christianity? How do you take this? How do we tackle [01:01:00] this idea of relics, the Eastern, well, Greece and those types of ancient areas? <Yeah.> So we'll talk about that too. 

David: That'll be a fun one to unpack. Cause I think both of us were kind of had this mixture of fascination and a little bit of, I don't know how to take this right now.

J.R.: Yeah. Skepticism. Really? Yeah. I don't, I don't know. But then, you know, I don't know. They certainly are adamant about the authenticity of it. So. Anyway, yeah, we'll talk about that. So that'll be fun. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: All right. So there we go That was our trip in a nutshell and we'll tackle some of these other deeper ideas next few episodes. 

David: Yeah, and if you have any thoughts on anything that we've said, comments, right in the description the first thing you'll see is a little link that says questions comments And especially if you're on your phone, you just click that link and it'll open up a text message and you can text us. 

J.R.: Yeah, real easy.

David: We'd love to hear from you. 

J.R.: Sure. That'd be great. 

David: All right, we will talk to you next episode. 

J.R.: We'll see you