Isthmia

yeah, so I'm gonna start every post with a sleepy dog photo. It's why you read this, right?

The sanctuary of Isthmia looks out primarily toward the east to the Saronic Gulf with and eye on the Corinthian Gulf to the west. The site itself is important but has the appearance of emptiness, as the construction of the Hexamillian, the wall built across the isthmus in the 5th century, caused most of the blocks to get up and walk away to be repurposed. Here the little fences that so often surround antiquities, giving the impression of buildings in jail, are actually helpful in delineating temples that are mostly robbed out.

part of a huge, amazing mosaic in the Roman baths at Isthmia

Archaeologists have to be an imaginative bunch. Much like turning a cardboard box into a fort or a rocketship as kid, you must look at a haphazard outline of stones and build up a building, a palace complex, an entire city. When you look at white marble friezes you must paint on the rich hues of antiquity that are so often forgotten by we who are only overexposed to their surviving marble bones. (Guy Sanders says the painted marble was "pretty....tacky.")