A Visit to the City of Jason and the Argonauts

Last week, Anastasia, the triplets, and I took a trip to visit the late Neolithic city of Dimini, which dates to around 4500 BC. Lying about 5 km west of modern-day Volos, the city covered an area not greater than 7.5 acres and is believed to have had 200-300 inhabitants occupying 30-40 houses. Today, it is situated about 3 km from the sea, but then it was probably only 1 km away. It was abandoned perhaps 1000 years later, becoming a cemetery for a period. Around 1500 BC, the Mycenaeans founded a new city on the ruins of the old one, which flourished for 200-300 years before being abandoned for unknown reasons. Evidence of the Mycenaeans' famous Linear B script has been found on the site.

As you can see from the photos, the kids enjoyed playing on the ruins of the 6000-year-old city walls.

Here we explored the very well-preserved Mycenaean tomb. Above, you can see our crew walking down the corridor into the circular tomb area. 

Here are the kids inside, standing on one of the walls of the crypt, where they found some pottery fragments, etc., despite the tomb having being plundered many centuries ago.

Benny at the top of the path entering the city.

Here's Benny and Phoebe standing in the center of the ancient city, which recent research has identified with the city of Iolkos, famous from mythology as the home of Jason and the Argonauts.