Today I will tell you more about the weird dream I had at the age of 15 and which had remained indelibly etched in my memory. I recalled it back in 1989, when I scaled the acropolis of ancient Amathus, in order to visit the Temple of Aphrodite for the first-ever time. When reaching the top, I looked upon pieces of marble from the temple scattered on the ground next to the temple's very foundations. In that dream, I had seen myself scaling a large, steep rock face. It was night time, the air thick with mist, and a full moon in the sky. On reaching the top, I found myself face to face with a magnificent temple, gleaming in the pale light of the moon. Suddenly, the area was struck by a terrible earthquake. The ground shook, and the temple started to collapse. Scared, I ran to scale back down the rock face, but this was now impossible. I found myself standing on the edge of a sheer vertical cliff, and there was no way down. It was then that a beautiful young woman dressed in an archaic-looking white gown, appeared behind me. In the darkness, she shone brightly and, smiling at me, reached out to me with her hand and said, in a calm voice, "Do not be afraid..."
As I mentioned in the previous post, everything that happens in our lives happens for a reason. It was then that my acquaintance with Cypriot artist, lover of antiquity and researcher Goris Gregoriades played a determining role and opened before me a whole new world. Goris Gregoriades "initiated" me in an up-'til-then unknown to me aspect of the adoration of Aphrodite which has to do with archaeoastronomy. This matter, which was indeed greatly interesting, had as a result my launching of the production of the documentary Entelechy which, as I've already mentioned, took the best part of 20 years. How I succeeded in realizing this production, as well as what it includes, I will be posting in subsequent blogs.
"The heavens teach us to observe and the earth to remember. Blessed is he who has beheld the Mysteries. He knows the end, he knows the divine origin of life." With Pindar's verses as a starting point, I entered the gates of mystery, attempting to decode the secrets hidden in the primordial stone tablets of knowledge, with Goris as my guide in the journey of initiation.
The ancient Greek civilization is a primary source of inspiration for Goris the painter. His lack of academic training in areas contextual to his research did not prevent him from penetrating into the very depths of archaeoastronomy and philosophy. With their help, his restless and creative spirit was led to a profound and unprecedented discovery: that the distances between three sites of worship in Cyprus form an isosceles triangle. As for their orientation, it is directly linked to the rotation of the sun.
The archaeological site which led Goris to discover the unique geodesic discovery, is the temple of Apollo Hylates. The temple's unorthodox orientation in relation to the opposite building was the stimulus that prompted Goris to note its alignment with the sun at midday on the day of the summer solstice. Goris recalls the day he made this discovery:
"It was here, at this temple, which had interested me for decades and was my primary subject of research, that my questions began. Because even though this place, particularly the temple of Apollo Hylates, belonged to the Priesthood, I noticed that they decided to position architectural constructions along oblique lines, and there must have been a reason for that. And that reason is what I have been speculating on for decades. I got my answer in 1989, when I came here and saw that on the longest day of the year, when the sun is as its brightest, its grandest position in the summer solstice, it aligns with the sanctuary of Apollo Hylates."
Indeed, at midday on the summer solstice, the sun lies at a 10-degree angle from the vertical axis over the temple of Apollo Hylates, which is also the exact declination of the temple's facade from the opposite building, just as Goris had noted. This declination also corresponds to the geographical distance between Ancient Syene -- modern day Aswan in Egypt -- and the temple of Apollo Hylates in Cyprus. Goris calculated this using the method of Eratosthenes. The great philosopher, mathematician and geographer of the Alexandrine School, was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth by measuring the angle of the sun at midday on the summer solstice in Alexandria, measuring also the distance between Alexandria and Syene, where on the same day the sun would, at midday, appear directly overhead, its rays lighting up even the bottom of wells... (to be continued)