Sea of Olives

[roombakitty.livejournal.com]

Hello, Sounis!

I've been a lurker for a while now, even before KoA was published. I've been captivated with the Queen's Thief series since I had to read The Thief for Battle of the Books in middle school. That was 8 years ago, and I'm just as interested as ever in Megan Whalen Turner and posts on Sounis, especially fanfiction. However, I wanted to introduce myself because I have some interesting photos to share (and because checkers encouraged introductions).

Last summer, I traveled extensively in Greece while studying archaeology. I found myself constantly looking at the landscape for Gen's sea of olives. I finally found the perfect example at Delphi, where olive trees are so dense they look like a river. The sanctuary ruins at Delphi also look like what I imagine Eddis to be like in the mountains.



My vision of the "sea of olives" that Gen runs through.


The sanctuary of Athena at Delphi.

(I hope this works...I only made an LJ account to deal with Sounis, so it's new to me.)

Comments

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

Oh wow!! Thanks so much for posting these and giving us a visual! Did QT influence you to study archaeology? Welcome!!!

[roombakitty.livejournal.com]

I was ultimately a classics major, and she didn't initially inspire me. However, I enjoyed noticing aspects of ancient Greece in the worlds she described.

[janicu.livejournal.com]

That is pretty cool. Thanks for posting these pictures! :)

[veriloquently.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these! (As someone who also studied archaeology, I'm jealous you made it to Greece! Were you digging there, or touring?)

This post was actually really exciting for me because one of my all time favourite books, Mary Stewart's My Brother Michael, is set in Delphi and mentions that same sea of olives and the sanctuary of Athena. It's so evocatively rendered in the novel that going to see it is definitely one of my goals, but until then your pictures have made me want to read the book all over again--especially to bask in the fact that despite being written over fifty years ago, the places in the book are still there! (And after that, a re-read of the Thief seems in order).

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

I love Mary Stewart too! But my fave is The Crystal Cave.

[roombakitty.livejournal.com]

I spent a month touring with a college course on art and archaeology and a month digging at Argilos near Thessaloniki. I'm glad the photos were inspiring! :)

[tasukigirl.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous! Thanks so much for sharing!

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

These are SO COOL! What I'd give to be an archaeologist in Greece...

Thanks for sharing! And welcome! =)

[keestone.livejournal.com]

These are perfect! Thanks for posting them.

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

These are lovely. They definitely help with forming a mental picture as I've never been to Greece. Thanks!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Welcome!

Oh, wow! The pictures are unbelievable. I hadn't pictured the Sea of Olives as looking like that---that massive, I guess. Are those really all olive trees, do you know? The sanctuary picture is gorgeous. Thanks for sharing them both.

Sounds like you get the longest-time-a-lurker award. How could you resist joining up to now??

[roombakitty.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the welcome!

Those down in the valley and along the coast are indeed all olive trees. Greece is covered with more olive trees than you could believe.

I think I never had any unique comment to share, and that's why I didn't jump in earlier.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Lovely! That's the Sea of Olives alright!

[valiantarcher.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the pictures! The first one really does like a sea, with the olive trees so thick. :)

And I think it's very neat that you've studied (are studying?) archaeology---it's something that's fascinated me for quite some time, but I've never done anything connected to it.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, gorgeous pictures! Thanks for sharing! Were they taken on a dig?
I'd also like to know if QT influenced your field of study. I've flirted with the idea of archaeology but I don't think I'd be able to do it. You archaeologists seem to have to be part linguist, part historian, part art-historian, and part mathematician/scientist. That's too much for me. It's amazing you're doing it!

[roombakitty.livejournal.com]

I took the photos on travel for a course on art and archaeology. I happen to be a classics major, so I normally read dead languages and histories; luckily, my university's classics department gives money to study abroad for archaeology.

I don't think that I was very influenced by MWT to study classics, but I've always liked that sort of historical fiction. When COK came out, I convinced myself that reading it was almost like doing homework. :)

[(Anonymous)]

So am I! Don't you feel sometimes that your wasting your life away thumbing through dictionaries for dead languages? Where do you go?
I read QT right before and during my first two years of university. It didn't influence my choice of major, but it definitely makes me think all the rote memorisation is worth it :D and more interesting.

[roombakitty.livejournal.com]

Latin and Greek can be laborious, which is why I'm not going to grad school. I just graduated from Princeton this May, and now I ned to find something useful and paying to do with myself. :(

[amolegere.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm studying Classical archaeology too! You have good taste ;)

Thanks for sharing these beautiful pics, olive trees are amazing! And congrats on delurking, I'll look forward to your future posts :D

[(Anonymous)]

This is another view of the Sea of Olives between Delphi and Itea, with the village of Chrisso in the foreground.

The Sea of Olives at Delphi

[dave smith #fbpe (from livejournal.com)]

This is another view of the Sea of Olives at Delphi from closer to the coast with the village of Chrisso in the foreground.