Delos Island by Kaelie

Delos Island

By Kaelie Stainwright

When we were in Mykonos, Greece, we went to Delos Island and it was very cool. I loved it and we learned a lot. Delos is the mythical birth place of Artemis and Apollo.  Artemis and Apollo are two of the Greek Gods.  People believe the Greek Gods are gods that look after the world. If they get angry they can start hurricanes and waves. When they are happy they will give you fish and sun to grow your crops.

When we got to Delos Island, we got a tour guide. The Guide told us that in the rock/granite on the island there was metal. Every time we looked at them we could see the metal in the rocks. They were shiny and it looked like silver sparkles.

First, we went to the markets and they were all ruined. Then we went to the House of Dionysus and it had a pool that they filled up with water. As the water evaporated, the house would be cool and it was like air-conditioning.

Then we went down to the main part and the guide told us the story of this island.

Zeus, the god of all gods, married a woman called Leto and she was pregnant with twins. When Hera, his main wife, found out, she was furious. She said that no island would accept her to have her twins. One day, Leto prayed to Zeus to save her.  So, Zeus sent Poseidon, his brother the god of the sea, down to create an island and Leto found it, but she still couldn’t have her twins because she didn’t have Ilithyia, the goddess of birth. The other Gods were sad for Leto so they offered Hera a necklace, that was 7 metres long.  Hera couldn’t resist it so she let the goddess of birth go down the rainbow to Leto.  She had her twins under a palm tree on the island Delos.

 

After that, we left the tour and went to see the copy of the stone lions, the real stone lions are in the museum. Archaeologists think there were nine to nineteen lions. Now there are five still standing and only three with some parts. The lions were built to watch over the Sacred Lake where Apollo and Artemis were born.

Next, we went to the birth place of Apollo and Artemis. It used to be a pool of water, but now it is dirt and plants. It was called the Sacred Lake. After that we went to the museum.

When we first went in the museum we looked at all the pots and they had all been put back together. It looked hard because there were thousands of pieces. We also saw the real lions and they were in pretty good condition. One of the lions was taken to Venice and they replaced its missing head with a very ugly head.

Then we walked up the hill and saw some more monuments. At the top, we had a snack (it was a Nutella snack) then went down. On the way down we stopped at the mosaics and they were beautiful. We also got to see the theatre and the cistem. The theatre was pretty, but we didn’t stay there very long. Next, we went to three cistems and the water was green.

When we were on the ferry, we saw archaeologists, well what we think were archaeologists. They were pulling things up from the water, like pot handles, pots and they even pulled up an anchor. It was very exciting to watch.