(White phalusses at Sigri)
Have you ever noticed the great
number of stones on a Greek island? Just like the Lesvorian landscape, that
proudly shines with its stones and rock formations. It was millions of years
ago that volcanic forces ravaged and reshaped the island, so that now we can
admire whimsical rock formations - like the mountainsides built-up of columns
(columnar lava), horizontal stone plates that seem to be on the brink of
falling down, or enormous rocks which were catapulted by the force of the
eruptions and now lie scattered around, just waiting to be made into a
Lesvorian Stonehenge Centre.
The monastery of Ypsilo, which has,
without doubt, the best view over the stone desert of the West, has been built
on the Ordymnos, a so-called lava dome (see it as lava that gets pushed upwards
and forms mountains). Also the tops of Lesvos' biggest mountain range, the
Lepetymnos, are lava domes, as are most of the mountaintops surrounding Eresos.
The famous mermaid church at Skala Sykaminias has been built on lava rocks.
Filia, Avlaki and Alifanta present 'so-called' dikes, plates of horizontal
stone (solidified magma) sticking out in the landscape like enormous
ridges. The Panagia Glikofiloussa Church
in Petra has been built on a 'so-called' volcanic neck (the solidified end of a
canal transporting lava when the volcano was active, with the sides now
eroded).
The volcano’s also petrified thousands of trees,
so that we now can enjoy the beautiful Natural History Museum in Sigri,
where you not only find trees, millions of years old, but where you can discover all sorts
of other fascinating geologic aspects of the island. If you don't fancy popping
into a museum during the hot weather, or you don't want to go for a stroll in
the Park of the Petrified Wood during the soaring heat, you might venture out
by car from Andissa towards Sigri, where just after the junction to Eresos,
there are construction works going on to widen the road. Digging into the
ground they have found a whole museum-full of new petrified trees. Upon
discovery they are first covered in plaster to protect them, thus creating a
landscape of white phalluses. When you take a closer look at where the earth is
removed you might see other trees, branches or roots that were covered by lava
and rain millions of years ago, thus getting petrified and transformed into
colourful fossils, and now seeing daylight after so much time.
During the last few weeks the Greeks
have been under the spell of another road construction discovery. Close to
Serres in the northern province of Macedonia: a grave was found, where two sphinxes
and a huge statue of a lion (resembling the Amphipolis lion) stand guard over the entrance. The
enormous grave dates from the time of Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC) and because the last resting
place of this great warlord has never been found, lots of people hope he will
be hidden in this grave. Other, more sober, persons think it might be the grave
of Alexander's wife Roxane.
Alexander the Great and his wife
Roxane are known worldwide and the discovery of their grave would bring lots of
publicity. So too, I could imagine, would the discovery of the grave of Sappho
during the road construction at Sigri. However, the very important
archaeological finds made this summer on Lesvos seem only to have attracted the
local media. For a few years the archaeological service of the University of
Crete has been digging around Lisvori and what they have found has not been a
statue of a lion, but lots of stones that served 150,000 to 500,000 years ago
as tools for the inhabitants of Lesvos. That means that the site is the oldest
archaeological place in Greece and the East of Europe.
Can you imagine that where we now
drive around in rented jeeps and cars, people used to roam in search of food
with spears and axes hewn out of stones? In those times there was no
agriculture. People survived by hunting animals and finding plants. Apparently
the hunting fields of Lesvos were plentiful, especially around the Lake of
Kalloni. The lake was only much later connected with the sea after a severe
earthquake. Prehistoric animals as big as elephants, camels, rhinoceros, deer
and huge tortoises were all living on the island (some bones of those animals
found near Gavathas can be seen in the Natural History Museum of Vatera in Vrissa). People in paleolithic times did
not depend on planes or boats: it is thought that the island was then still
connected to the Asiatic plateau, so that it could be reached by walking.
It is known that the Romans used to
come to have a holiday on the paradise-like island of Lesvos. I guess that
people in the Stone Age were not familiar with the concept of vacations. When
they wanted something different, they just moved elsewhere to another place and
I bet in those years Lesvos already was pretty popular, due to all the tools
that now have been recovered.
So stones can be mighty interesting.
Without knowing you may have in you hands an antique item: a prehistoric axe or
spearhead. Stones on Lesvos can also provide more surprises: they can sometimes
hide amethyst or quartz. Even gold and silver used to be mined on the island.
Other less flamboyant stones can
also surprise you. During volcanic eruptions, pumice can be made, as was the
case during the eruptions on Santorini: lava cooled so fast that gas got
trapped inside the clot. This porous stone has the attractive attribute that it
can float. I read about it by accident and when the next day I took a stroll
along the beach I could not believe my eyes: there was a piece of stone
floating on the water! I thought that I might not have seen them before,
because I had not known their story. A few days later I saved another piece
from the sea, but since then I have never again seen stones swimming in the
sea!
(with thanks to Mary Staples)
© Smitaki 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment