Pella Museum

The Pella Museum houses the finds from the Pella site located near by. The main exhibition has finds concerning the daily lives of Pella's inhabitants. One thematic grouping's main objects on display are the mosaics floors from the Houses of Dionysus and the Abduction of Helen set in the floor, and the wall decoration from the House of the Wall Plasters. The display cases show finds that provide information on furnishings, clothing, personal adornment, shrines, exercise, education, and amusements.
Another grouping has the public life as the theme displaying finds from the Agora and are connected with administrative institutions (seals for documents, inscriptions, coins, and monumental sculpture) and production and commercial activities (vases for storing and transporting wine, oil, etc.; molds for vessels and terracotta figurines; and equipment from pottery and metal working workshops).
A third thematic display is on the city's cemeteries. There are two burials on display with their grave goods as well as display cases containing grave goods from Pella's cemeteries.

The Pella Museum

mosaic - The Abduction of Helen

mosaic

drinking vessel

figurines and their molds

terracotta figurine

Each section of this is a separate grave finding. These are all findings from men's graves.

Findings from women's graves.

lead tablet

A copy of the lead tablet above, so you can see the inscription.

The translation of the inscription.

Tombs at Lefkadia

You may have noticed we see a lot of tombs. These tombs were a lot different than ones we'd seen in the past. They were very large and colorful. The way they were excavated keeps them underground and cool. In this area there are four tombs, but only two can be visited. One had a nice viewing area so I could take a picture of the whole thing. The other only had about three feet of space to back up to take a picture, so I couldn't get it all on one photo.
This first tomb was called The Judgement Tomb because of the paintings on it. They are judges of the underworld.

we went down into the underground structure

Notice the four pictorial representations of the four men.

As we were walking from the first tomb to the second, this little guy came up for some pets. He was the smallest pup we saw on the trip.

He was Mr. Popular for sure.

The second tomb is called The Palmette Tomb because of the palmette decor on the top of the tomb.

This one was more of a shed than a viewing area.

see the palmette at the top

we got to go inside this tomb

inside the tomb

 

the ceiling of the tomb

This is the outside of a third tomb, but we were not able to view it. I can't remember why we were not allowed.

Athens update:

Still rainy days here in Athens. I gave directions in Greek yesterday to a lady asking me where the Metro was located. I also had a short conversation in Greek about where I was from and my Greek speaking abilities with a shop owner today. I enjoy these conversations.

Mieza Theater

When I did my Mieza post yesterday, I had forgotten about the theater there. It is being reconstructed, so the stone you see is not the original. It was estimated to seat 1500-2000 spectators. This is a possible site of the death of Phillip II.
I usually try hard to not have a bunch of people blocking the ruins in my pictures, but it was unavoidable here.

Then our leader took us off-roading aka we walked through some grass and brush to find these walls. I think this was part of the Agora of ancient Mieza.

While we were walking, there were these shells all over. Our leader had talked about how the water moves. Where there was once a river is now land and vice versa.

In other news:
The Athens' weather forecast this week is full of rain. All night last night, you could hear the thunderstorms and the water running down the street. If you remember my hail in Athens post, the streets get very flooded here.

We are now sick of Thanksgiving leftovers. (only took four days)

 Today at the Parliament building, where the famous soldiers stand guard, there were a bunch of men (I'd say around 50) in uniform playing instruments and drums. There were a lot of police men there and had moved the crowd that always forms to take pictures of the guards back. I was going to get a picture of the men playing instruments, but I didn't see anyone else taking them, so I didn't know if the police had put a stop to it. Then suddenly the men just marched away.

the guards outside the parliament

Mieza - Aristotle's school(?)

We went to an archaeological site in Mieza which people here claim to be a site of one of Aristotle's schools. However, according to our leader there is no reason/evidence for it to be his school. There were however some pretty cute dogs here.

There were caves here, but they were locked.

the holes in the rock here were for planks to set up an awning

While our leader was trying to explain our location on the map, two dogs decided they wanted some belly rubs/pets.

You can see our leader trying to point to the map, but it just wasn't going to happen. The next time he got out the map, it smelled like wet dog.