More Antiquity

CHAPTER 27

After exploring the sunbaked ruins of the Acropolis I was pretty sure that nothing in Athens could top them, but then we stumbled into the National Archeology Museum… what a treasure trove of antiquity! From eerily half-decomposed shipwrecked statues, to colorful 2000 year old glass bowls that look as contemporary as something you could buy at Pottery Barn today, to household accoutrements, like a safety pin, that apparently haven’t changed design since the bronze age, to ancient tablets of the earliest Greek writing, and the coups de grâce, the amazing Antikythera Mechanism, a hand-held astrological navigation device that could precisely calculate the positions of the sun, the moon, and the planets in the sky based on the input time and date of various ancient calendars- it could even predict eclipses! Absolutely incredible.