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Exploring Australia's Red Center Ayers Rock - Melisa Sperle
- I want to watch the sun change Uluru's colors at sunset—I've seen the postcards and know the rock will turn a bright, glowing red. Luckily, our first stop in Yulara, the town built around Ayers Rock for tourists in 1984, comes just in time.
We choose one of the best spots for viewing; unfortunately, so does everybody else. The most impressive spot in Central Australia, Ayers Rock is also the most crowded with tourists. Of course, it's for the visitors that the best rock-viewing sites have been developed, paved parking lots plopped into the middle of the barren plains that surround the rock. Seeing such a dramatic landform in the middle of a great expanse of otherwise nothingness is a moving experience, however crowded.
The sunrise viewing, also in a paved parking lot, feels the same. It's only my close-up of Uluru, later in the day, that redeems the rock for me. I don't climb: The region's Anangu people consider the rock sacred and don't climb it themselves, so they request—but don't demand—that visitors take the five-mile walk around the base instead. Many people climb the 1,050-foot rock anyway, marching up the side like ants.
Instead, I walk around the base of Uluru, with a guide who explains where the Aborigine dreamings (their stories of creation), are on the rock, and what they mean. The rock face changes, with the dreamings and with the sun, from flat and unforgiving to craggy and shaded. I'm allowed to see one of the Aborigine women's sites, Pulari, where the women came to give birth, but am asked, as are all visitors, to walk past the site that men used for initiations. It's too sacred, I'm told.
My final stop is at an overhang next to a crisp, cool watering hole, a place the guides call the"art site." The fading drawings on the rock tell the stories of dreamtime; my group and I learn that the symbols that look like arrows symbolize emu tracks, and the u-shaped drawings, a woman's seat. Aborigines used this space as a sort of classroom, teaching the children about the dreamings and taking advantage of the cave's protection in times of heat and cold. In the warm sun, I feel a welcome and rare breeze meet me from the waterhole.
A day at Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) is welcome after Uluru; my group and I see only a handful of other travelers on our walk into the Olga Gorge. The red mounds of this range, which reach 900 feet above the plain, look like a smooth, scooping fist on approach. But get a little closer, and the rough red rock, eroded by water, looks more like piles of bread pudding. Like at Uluru, I can see why the Aborigines of the area considered the Olgas sacred—the gorges and valleys bring safety from sun, for people and for hunted animals like kangaroos and emu.
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Myth and History of Skopelos - From Toubiss
- Skopelos seems have been inhabited since the Neolithic era based on finds dating from that time on neighboring Alonnisos. According to legend, the island's first settler was Stafilos, son of Dionysos and Ariadne.
The myth starts when Theseus, son of King Aegeas of Athens, left for Crete and killed the fearsome Minotaur inside the labyrinth of the palace at Knossos with the help of Minos' daughter Ariadne. Theseus took Ariadne with him on the return journey to Athens, but abandoned her on Naxos. The king of Naxos was Dionysos and he fell in love with her and had four children by her: Thoad, king of Umnos, Oenopion, king of Hios, Stafilos, and Peparithos. The latter two, both heroes, were to play an important role in the history of Skopelos.
In the myth there is a strange predilection for Stafilos, who is considered to have been the first settler and king of the island. One version says that he was Minos' Cretan general and that it was he who built the ancient town and planted the first vines and the first olive trees on the island. From that point on, grapevines and olive trees were regularly grown on the island and became renowned for their quality. In addition, the word Stafilos and the Greek word staphyli (grape) have the same root.
The admiration and affection for Stafilos went on for centuries, continuing into classical times, when the island's coins had a representation of Dionysos on one side and Stafilos on the other. In antiquity however, the name used for the island was that of Stafilos' brother, Peparithos. The island was called Peparithos until the 2nd century A.D., when Ptolemy the Geographer refers to it for the first time by the name 'Skopelos', obviously due to the reefs (skopeloi in Greek) around it. Stafilos would have to be content with giving his name to the beautiful sandy beach on the south side of Skiathos where, according to legend, he disembarked with his Cretan comrades, setting foot on the island for the first time.
But fate was ultimately to link myth to reality, and it is rare for the connection to be so vital. It was on Stafilos Beach that quite a few ancient artifacts were found, raising the need for archaeological excavations to get under way in 1927. An ancient tomb which contained impressive findings such as a gold scepter, a sword hilt embellished with gold, gold jewelry, silver and stone vases, seal stones, bronze vessels, and much more were discovered intact. The gold scepter can now be seen in the Archaeological Museum of Volos and the sword hilt is in the Archaeological Museum of Athens. There is no doubt that a tomb so rich in funeral gifts, and especially gold, must have belonged to an important person of those times, perhaps to a king. Who could it have been other than Stafilos?
Years went by after the colonization of Peparithos by the Cretans. Here mythology intervenes again. The claim is that the island was conquered by Pelias, the king of Iolkos, near present-day Volos. It was Pelias who feared that his nephew Jason might one day take the throne from him. In order to get rid of the threat, Pelias dispatched Jason to distant Colhis to bring back the famous Golden Fleece, hoping that he would die in the attempt. Even this myth could have some basis in history due to the fact that Iolkos is in the vicinity of the Northern Sporades islands, although the Golden Fleece reference is probably to later events that occurred at the end of the Mycenaean period.
After the Mycenaean period, the island was captured by the Dolopians, a rough warlike people from Thessaly, who for many centuries used Skopelos as a base from which to launch their military operations. There is much justification for describing the colonization of the island by Halkidians in the 8th century B.C. as a deliverance from the tyrannical Dolopians.
The Halkidians founded three colonies: Panormos, Selinous, and Peparithos, the latter of which they re-established. Coming from a city with seafaring traditions and experience in trade and transportation, the new settlers worked together with the longer established inhabitants with the result that Skopelos enjoyed a period of prosperity. Its ships took part in the transit trade, traveling as far as Halkidiki, Lesvos, Kos, and even Sicily. It was at this time that silver coins were minted, gifts were offered by the islanders at the sanctuary of Delfi, and in 569 B.C. the runner Agnodas won a race at Olympia. To honor him, his fellow-citizens gave his name to the celebrated bay of Agnodas off the south coast of the island.
The prevailing peace was shattered at the beginning of the 5th century B.C. by the Persian wars, during which Peparithos remained neutral. However, immediately after the end of these wars it became a member of the First Athenian Confederacy or Delian League, and its contribution to the common treasury on Delos amounted to the sum of 3,000 talents.
Following the example of the Athenians, the island implemented a democratic system of government, which played a special role in the history of Greece. The Peloponnesian War and the defeat of Athens, of which it was a loyal ally, placed it in a difficult position because the Spartan victors imposed an oligarchic polity on it. The island was then subsequently conquered by Alexander, the tyrant of Pherres, and then by the Macedonians and the Romans, who permitted the restoration of democratic government. Slowly trade began to flourish again with wine exports bringing in considerable revenues.
The 2nd century A.D. brought the first reference to the island by the name of Skopelos (changing from the hitherto customary Peparithos) by astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus, or Ptolemy, one of the greatest geographers of antiquity. Christianity spread to the island in the third century A.D., and in the middle of the 4th century, an archbishop's see was established which would last until 1842. The first to occupy the post of archbishop was Reginos, who was later proclaimed a saint and protector of the island.
The 4th century also witnessed the beginning of the 800-year period of Byzantine rule. Very little historical evidence remains from this period, despite its long duration. It is nevertheless known that ancient Peparithos was abandoned during this time as were the sites of other ancient towns on the island, and that new settlements, much smaller than the towns, came into existence at a number of different locations.
After the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204, the Venetians occupied Skopelos and made it the seat of a barony. A long succession of lords became masters of the island; among them was Philippo Ghisi, who simultaneously enjoyed leading the life of a pirate. In 1538 the Turkish pirate Khayr ad-Din (Barbarossa) put an end to Turkish sovereignty when he attacked the island with 150 ships, sacked it, and killed the inhabitants. Skopelos lay devastated for many years until it was re-colonized by new settlers, whom the Turks allowed to be self-governing.
At the beginning of the 18th century a man of letters named Stefanos Daponte founded a school on the island. He and his family also assisted in the establishment of the famous monastery of Evagelistria (the Virgin of the Annunciation). During the same century, in the course of the Russo-Turkish War, sailors from Skopelos fought alongside the Russians against the Turks in the crucial naval battle of Cesme (1770). In this battle the whole Turkish fleet was destroyed with the result that the Russians became the dominant power in the Aegean until the signing of the peace treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji (1774), which restored the power of Turkey to the region.
In the meantime however, the spirit of revolution was spreading throughout all of Greece and it was not long before an armed struggle began. Skopelos frequently provided refuge for the revolutionary fighters, it participated in the Revolution, and became part of liberated Greece in 1830 by virtue of the Protocol of London.
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