Doing Didyma, Performing at Pergamon

Temple of Apollo at Didyma, one of the largest temples in the ancient world. Current home to stray dogs.

The great theater at Pergamon, built into a mountainside, with modern town below. In Roman times, this city had 150,000 people. Off to the left of where I was standing was the great library, rivalling the one at Alexandria. Apparently, the Egyptians weren't too happy about that, so they cut of the supply of papyrus, forcing the Pergamese to develop parchment from animal skin.

Donnie Digs for ɔXc

I spent most of the summer excavating at Zincirli, an Iron Age city. 115 degree heat and 4:30am wake-ups were appropriately hardcore. Additional note: You may notice, on close inspection, that my collar is popped. This is for heat and sun protection alone, and should not (here's looking at you, Dan Hodson) be seen as condoning the practice in any larger context. Donahue Erb-Satullo '07

Trojan CXC

Many an epic battle took place beneath the walls for Troy, where Swift-Footed Achilles fought Hector, Breaker of Horses. Though ruins now, Troy is once again achieves epic grandeur by association with the cXc. --Donahue Erb-Satullo '07

A True Performance

Not since the days of Alexander (who passed by this town en route to Egypt and Babylon), has the theater of Hieropolis been blessed with such a performance. Except, perhaps, when that brother of a medieval king got boiled alive in that castle in the upper left.

Cross Country at Cahokia and Crystal River

Cahokia

Crystal River

Continuing with a tradition of CXCing at archaeological sites, I travelled to two North American mound sites in Illinois and Florida in the past month. Cahokia is the largest pre-European settlement north of Mexico, and may have contained as many at 20,000 people. The largest mound, Monk's Mound, has a footprint the size of the pyramids in Egypt. This Crystal River mound, though not as large, is made mostly from shell... the product of years of eating seafood in this Florida estuary.