Fun Facts of the Day
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
60
148
Trip End
Dec 09, 2008
Athens,
Attica,
Greece
Thursday, October 2, 2008
-- Ancient sanctuaries were places of asylum if you were physically touching the altar. BUT tying a rope around the altar and staying connected to the rope still counted as "touching" the altar. You'd just better make sure the rope didn't break.
-- The altar of Zeus at Olympia was not a table of wood or stone, it was actually just a big cone of ash from generations of burned sacrifices. The ash cone was later used to fertilize the fields and the rest rained away, but archaeologists know it existed because they found huge layers of ash at the site filled with small votive figurines made out of clay that would have been given as offerings to the god.
-- During the Hellenistic period, warriors catapulted vases full of poisonous snakes and scorpions into enemy ships. Oi!
