9.4 Samos: A beautiful archaeological island!

330 AD was an important year for the balkans. One of the last Great emperors (Constantine) transferred the  capital of the Roman Empire which started new historical period known as Byzantine empire. In 1453, Turks conquered and created Ottoman Empire in 1821. The Greeks rebel and fight for independence. One of the most famous battles took place in the channel between Samos and turkey, which is less than one nautical mile away. It has been a place of battle for many centuries due to the division. The lion statue is in honor of the Greek independence. 

Irene was our tour guide and she showed us one of the Greek Orthodox churches of Samos.

Greek Orthodox members believe in united trinity which is why they use three fingers to make sign of the cross (index, middle and thumb), pay an offering, light a candle, and kiss one of the icons.  1053 schisma in Christianity happens where they split power between different religious figureheads.

The orthodox are strict and male dominate. Women are only praised for fertility.  The services last 2 and a half hours and there are no instruments; rather, people and priests chant. 

There are no statues in orthodox churches because they are a reminder of the paganism past. This is why there are icons. In the orthodox version they aren’t as soft and human-like; they are thin and ghost like because it is supposed to represent they are spiritual rather than human. 

Samos makes muscatel wine which is the sweet Eucharistic wine used during holy communion.  They supply it to Greek Orthodox Church all over the world.

The myth is that in 1200 BC king brought first fig plant and made the slaves work. An old man cursed him and said he hopes the king never gets to taste the wine. A few years later, the king went to taste the wine and the old man was called before him. He chided the old man, but someone came in and told the king a boar was destroying his fields. He went to kill the boar, but died instead.

The moral is that life is a circle: what goes around comes around. 

We also went to the temple of the goddess Hera which is far from the city (6 kilometers) which is from 500 BC. They had a deep love and respect for nature. If they found a lake or river, they built temples to goddesses. Ancient religions respected Mother Earth. In this case, for Greeks, she is Hera (the Great mother). In Rome she is known as Juno. And she had many names in different surrounding regions.  The first signs of religion and civilization were from this area from 5000 BC. 

First temples were just long rectangular buildings with no roofs and were just there to protect the statues. They were knows as basilicas because that means they are rectangles. There were 155 pillars twice the height of what remains. The one column was left so pirates could find it.   The temple was as tall as a 6 story building.  They didn’t sink because they weighed the foundation evenly. It was built with the Egyptians’ technique.  The people who built the temple were not slaves, but paid workers because they found it disrespectful to have a slave build a temple.

We walked down the “sacred way” to the temples. Most of it has been destroyed and the marble was stolen and used for other buildings by the Christians, who didn’t look to kindly upon the ancient pagan religions. The sacrificial altar was the most important building. It was very tall and they lit fires and made sacrifices of animals, bread, and libations.  With a sacrifice of an animal, it is for the smoke in the sky which is supposed to be for the god. The only parts the gods could claim were the skin and fat, so the people are the meat.  They also burned “placentas” metaphorically (a mother’s food); it was a flat sweet bread without yeast.  Libations could be milk, honey, and wine. These were sacrifices to the gods underground.

Chaos was the first thing that existed and the first goddess was love Gaia (earth) + Sky (Uranus) = children of Mother Earth.

The ancient Greeks personified their gods and gave them human flaws: they were jealous, petty, lustful. For example, Zeus had many lovers. He wanted Hera but she wouldn’t give in to him so he transformed himself into a hurt bird. She finds the bird and holds it and then it transforms into Zeus. She decides she will be with him, but only if he marries her so she becomes his official wife. 

This castle used to belong to pythagorious and then Caesar. This is where Anthony and Cleopatra hid. 

Samos