LEGENDS AND CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE, collected by Pausanias, IN ITS TRAVEL THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. (1 ª part)
CHRONICLES OF TRAVEL SITES AND MONUMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH containing large BONE REMAINS , CONNECTED BY THE LOCAL TRADITION WITH THE GIANTS OF OLD.
Although many people uninformed popular belief that tourism is an "invention" rather new, a cultural leisure activity characteristic of "modern" society, we must remember or disclose in its Mediterranean tour version, is a very ancient practice that dates back to Greek and Roman times. although activity was a relatively minority and elitist.
Furthermore, in those days, took advantage of pilgrimages to certain sanctuaries, also, to visit some nearby places that might be attractive. To make it easier for potential travelers and pilgrims, the simple choice of the best routes, according to the possibilities and interests of each, and knowledge of the attractions of the most interesting, according to taste each, were written and published "Trip reports" which, in essence, were similar to many of the modern travel guides that are published in modern times.
Perhaps one of the best examples of a type spec ializado of these guides for travelers of old, is the Greece Guide ( TES Periégesis Hellas), published and n 10 books dedicated to various regions of the Great Ancient Greece, was written the year 180 AD , by Pausanias Lydia also known as the Periegeta Pausanias, because of his travels. This work was edited in more modern times, with the title of Description of Greece, so, today, is better known by this name,
This work had in his time a very popular, being very popular in that time, the theme of the facts "miracles, wonders and mighty" that Pausanias addressed in this work, but then and for many centuries, fell from grace, because his style was considered not literary because its their theme tabloid already outdated. The Greece Guide fue despreciada por los críticos influyentes, por estar considerada una obra de poco m érito literario y de escaso interés histórico, pues su temática era, fundamentalmente, mítica. Las malas valoraciones de sus críticos, determinaron que esta
obra fuese ignorada, completamente, durante siglos, porqu e muchos escritores y recopiladores posteriores no la citaban 
en sus obras, en absoluto. A pesar de todos los avatares históricos que causan la destrucción de los libros, algunos ejemplares de esta obra sobrevivieron y se conservaron intactos hasta la época del Renacimiento. To be rediscovered, l Guide to Greece, was very positively valued by historians, then very interested in details of daily life in classical antiquity because their descriptions of the customs and beliefs of the ancients, were very useful and illustrative to understand many things of Greco-Roman world.
home one of the first translated editions of the Guide Greece Pausanias, in this particular case, tr ata an edit in Italian, 1593, published in Mantua.
Image: http://www.summagallicana.it/lessico/p/Pausania% 20detto% 20il% 20Periegeta.htm The first translations of l to Guide Greece, to modern languages, were made at the end of the sixteenth century, but not until the eighteenth century when European travelers interested in discovering the remains of the Greco-Roman world mayoritariamen you, it was Historians and British and German archaeologists began to travel to the territories of the former Great Greece carrying as travel guide, one of several modern editions, translated into English or German, the old work of Pausanias. These travelers educated and skilled, they sensed that the detailed place names and topographic information containing the Description of Greece , could help them locate geographically, the ruins of some ancient cities and monuments, then it disappeared, then its discovery, to start laexcavación of the same archaeological sites.
The Description of Greece , allowed some archaeologists the location and identification of several major Greek archaeological sites, among which include, in particular, the sites of ancient cities and sanctuaries of Olympia and Delphi.
home of the translated editions of the Guide to Greece of Pausanias, in this particular case, it is a French edition of 1731, published in Paris.
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Currently, Greece Guide Pausanias has regained the prestige it had in its time, but for very different reasons, it is now considered to Description of Greece as a very valuable and reliable source of information ethnohistorical therefore contains descriptions of the characteristics of cults and customs as well as the content of the mythical legends of the various Territoris of ancient Greece and neighboring countries. It also includes references to topography and toponymy of the different places that are very useful, at present, for the location or location of cities and monuments now destroyed or ruined.
the Guide Greece by Pausanias, t lso is considered today, as an early tourist guides of old, as it was designed and written by Pausanias with the intention of making known to his contemporaries, many places unusual, by the "signs and wonders" that could be seen in them, live. All these wondrous places were distributed throughout the territory of several islands and coastlines of the eastern shores of the sea Mediteraneo that were then or had formed, formerly part of the vast territories of Greece. Most of the places listed in the Guide Greece by Pausanias, had been visited previously by himself, on several trips in the following years had done on the ground.
be recalled that the old work of Pausanias, in modern times, was very helpful for some people well versed in classical mythology who were able to intuit the relationship between the ancient mythological tales and modern paleontological remains of Tertiary and Quaternary large mammals, both coincide in the same locations of mythical tales. In the nineteenth century, we should mention the German scholar, Ernst von Lasaulx who wrote Die Geologie der Griechen und Römer , published in 1851 in Munich and in the twentieth century , the American historian and folklorist Adrienne Mayor who wrote The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times , published in 2000, in Princeton. Of the different editions of l to Guide Greece and of Description of Greece, Pausanias , we could see, for writing this article, we have managed to cull 19 references large mythical skeletons and bones, found in various places in different countries Eastern Mediterranean coasts. In classical antiquity and in times of Pausanias, the bones and skeletons, as the context of local legendary tales, in some places, could be regarded and treated as "bones of heroes' mythical or their immediate family members such as wives and children, while in other places, other large bones identical or anything similar, could be interpreted as the "bones of giants," mythical.
Although review of the Guide of Greece and Description of Greece, Pausanias, we have found many other legendary references to bones giant, we have ignored, when in such cases, was linked to those great mythic bones (fossil skeletal remains) with certain non-Greek gods and other mythological monsters , which had no human or humanoid appearance and therefore were not comparable to typical giant.
get to the point ....
Description of Greece, Book 5, Chapter 12, paragraph 3 . Pausanias alludes here to the principle of truth that guides everything described by him in this work of his that deal with wonders and miracles could be provided to the exaggerations and inventions publicly stating that " I've never written anything about unsubstantiated rumors, only on what I have been told by people confidence and from what I saw with my own eyes. "
also reported in this paragraph, an elephant skull was exposed in a temple, something spectacular and attractive to pilgrims visiting the shrine: "In the sanctuary Sage, near Capua (present Italy) 've seen, the skull of an elephant (probably, it was the skull of some modern Asian elephant, animal well known to the Greeks, for centuries, Alexander the Great brought some of their campaigns in Gerrard India's current par display in your country) and I can assure that the skull of the elephant does not appear at all, to any other beast known for their way and size characteristic. "
From this information we can deduce that Pausanias, of which some students of his work, involving a doctor, by the specialized terminology sometimes used and, therefore, should have knowledge of anatomy, should never be able to observe any complete skeleton modern elephant, African or Asian, nor mammoth skulls or fossils of mastodons, sufficiently complete, as to reach a partnership between the two types of animals, the similarity of their skulls and other bones. For this comparison would have enabled him to make the correct zoological identification of many of the great mythical bones attributed to the Greek tradition, systematically, to various heroes and giant mythology. 
Two graphical representations of skeletons of two Proboscidea, to the left of a mammoth and an elephant right now Indian. Note the great similarity between the parties and the two whole species of animals.
THE DISCOVERY AND RECOVERY OF bones of Theseus on the island of Skyros.
Description of Greece, Book 1, Chapter 17, paragraph 6. Pausanias recounts: "C hen Cimon son of Miltiades, had hit the island of Skiros, to avenge the ignominious death of Theseus, could freely seek the tomb of the hero and after finding miraculously took the bones (giant) hero and took them to Athens. "
To avoid to repeat the comments above, above, in the third part of the introduction to the Iberian giant bones, in "Greek history", see it written on modern interpretation etnopaleontológica that another version of this finding, it was there.
The most famous feat, all that is conducted by Theseus, the Athenian hero, possibly, the victory over the invincible Minotaur, imprisoned in the Labyrinth of Daedalus on the island of Crete.
OEDIPUS THE BIG BONES, RECOVERED IN TEBAS, were venerated in a shrine in Athens.
Description of Greece, 1.28.7 . says " In Athens, within the precincts of the shrine dedicated to the goddesses, to whom the Athenians called" August ", but that Hesiod, in Theogony, calls the Erinyes (The Furies), a monument that holds the bones of Oedipus, which were found and brought from Thebes (capital of the ancient city of Boeotia) after made a diligent investigation in that City to locate his grave .
In modern times, in the area of \u200b\u200bGreece which is the ancient region of Boeotia, abundant paleontologists have found fossil bones of Tertiary megafauna such as mastodon Auvergne ( Anancus arvernensis ) of Etruscan rhino ( Stephanorhinus cf. etruscus ) final Pliocene of saber-toothed tiger ( S Milodon fatalis) of cave bear (Ursus spelaeus ) and cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea ) the Pleistocene. 
Note the appearance, more or less anthropomorphic skeleton acquires a cave bear (Ursus spelaeus ), male, when exposed in standing position, completely rebuilt and articulate. Specimen from the Pleistocene of Romania. Compare the height of this beast of 2.65 m. with Glenn which is 1.75 m. The largest specimens (male) cave bear, could reach as high as 3 m in height in the standing position, and even a ton.
Image: http://files3.tellmewhereonearth.com/Photos% 20Cave% 20Bear/bear31.BMP
As we have noted on many occasions previous possibly the largest bones of any animal species listed or a mixture of several of them, could serve to satisfy the need of the time, display, worship and admire big bones or skeletons, such as testimony of the truthfulness of the narratives concerned the existence of giants and recount the great deeds accomplished by various mythical heroes of the past.
SAMPLE MARINA EROSION IN THE COSTA TROJAN, the tomb of Ajax, the Greek hero.
Description of Greece, 1.35.5. Pausanias tells how he learned that the sea had laid bare bones of Ajax, on the coast of Troy, (next to the Dardanelles, ancient Hellespont, in the present Turkish province of Canakkale). " A misi or told me about the enormous size of the body of Ajax. He said the sea had taken the beach in front of a mound of earth, existing near the city of Sigeon, which was discovered by an oracle that was the grave of the hero, it was within its enormous skeleton. "
"A detail of what that man told me, allowed me to estimate the true dimensions of Ajax e l hero: the bones of the "cups" (ends) your knees, which doctors call " millstones " , were exactly the size of the discs thrown by children playing games in the pentathlon. "
probably the major bones, the alleged hero of the Trojan War, in fact belonged to a mastodon ( Trilophodon pentelici ) Or a rhinoceros (" Aceratheriumsp. ?) Miocene, as paleontologists have found remains of both types of animal species, at that time, the whole region of the former Rhoeteum and also his kneecaps measures coincide with the estimates given by Pausanias, equivalent to 
about 12-13 cms. in diameter.
aspects of reconstruction, living a Trilophodon. The beautiful young lady who the illustrator next to the beast, can serve as a reference to get an idea of \u200b\u200bthe relative size of proboscidean and its skeleton.
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ASTERIO GIANT'S GRAVE, on a little Mediterranean Sea, close to the city of Miletus.
Description of Greece, 1.35.6 . Pausanias says "Facing the city of Miletus is the island of Lada and very close to it a tiny islets that have been separated. One of these islets is called" island of Asterio "and say that name is because the giant Asterio body is buried in it. Asterio son of Anax, one of the giant children of the Earth. body (skeleton) Asterio not measure less than 15 feet length ( equivalent to 4.5 m high). "
In modern times, in insular areas (Samos) or inland (Turkey), very close, paleontologists have found abundant fossils of Pliocene to Pleistocene Proboscidea, such as mastodons ( Deinotherium giganteum, Trilophodon pentelici ,) and 
primitive elephants ( Palaeoloxodon antiquus) whose skeletal remains would be the most likely candidates to be considered by the ancient Greeks, as the remains Asterio the mythical giant.
looks Deinotherium articulated skeleton from the Early Miocene, as outlined in quadrupedal position. The skeleton belonged to a juvenile, since it only reaches a height of 2.65 m. on the back, while adults tended to reach 4.5 m. high.
Image: http://science.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/files/collection/01_deinotherium_0.jpg
ASSUMPTIONS GERION GIANT BONES THAT IN FACT, WERE THE GIANT'S THREAD, BUT IT WAS NOT A SECRET THAT PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ...
Description of Greece, 1.35.7-8. Account Pausanias: "Another prodigious event surprised me being in a small town located in top Lidia (current Turkish provinces of Izmir and Manisa) , which is called the Gates of Temenos, when, through a great storm of water, off of a mountain and appeared several huge bones that form would be made to believe that humans, but its size was mammoth could not be said so. Immediately, it spread among the local people, the story that was the body of the giant Geryon. Because everyone in the Hilo area of \u200b\u200bthe river, knew someone who, when plowing, had found buried bobino large cattle horns, which were related to the legend of Geryon, because according to this Geryon was famous for raising a oxen race bounds. When contradicted and explained that the tomb of Geryon was Tartesos (modern Cádiz), then religious officials Lydians, secretly showed me the true story: in fact those bones belonged the body of Hilo, another giant son of Earth, whose bones had been found on previous occasions and for this reason, the river that crosses the land, named in his honor Hilo "
In modern times in this same area, paleontologists have found abundant fossils of Pliocene to Pleistocene Proboscidea, such as mastodons ( Deinotherium giganteum, Trilophodon pentelici, ) and primitive elephants ( Palaeoloxodon antiquus, Anancus sp. ) which remains, would most likely candidates to be considered as the remains of the legendary giant Geryon / Hilo. In addition, they have found remains of the giant uro ( Bos primigenius) in the case of the males came to achieve, "the cross", an average height of 1.60 of 1.80 m., the largest specimens can reach up to 2 meters (1, 50 m in females) and 3 m. long. Would not be surprising that many discoveries of their remains, for agricultural work, have induced rot in the popular mind time, the legend of the herds of Geryon, although some paleontologists suggest that the alleged antlers legendary, in fact, the defense may well be some kind of fossil mastodon or elephant house, for similar interpretations were made at that time elsewhere Mediterranean: the tusks of the legendary "wild boar of Calydon", found in Capri. 
complete and articulated skeleton of uro ( Bos primigenius) , from the Pleistocene site of Fonte Campanile, in Viterbo (Italy), examples in quadrupedal position, the Museum Palaeontology, in Rome.
the discovery of the bones of Orestes, in Tegea, count again.
Description of Greece, 3.3.6-7 Pausanias wrote "A Licas called Laconian, came to Tegea, by the time the Spartans, on the recommendation of an oracle were looking for the bones of Orestes, in order to win the long war against this city held. Licas learned they were buried on land that was owned by a blacksmith smith bronze, so that, thanks to his cunning, could do with them. "
Description of Greece, 11/03/1910 . tells " When the bones of Orestes were rescued and transported from Tegea, the Spartans were buried there (in Sparta). "
Description of Greece, 8.54.4. says" The Tegeans say where the Spartans say they found the bones of Orestes, is not correct because said that this was not in Tegea, but in Tire, a location east of Tegea. "
To avoid duplication with the above, in the second part of the introduction to the Iberian Giants Bones in" Greek history and Roman "see the modern interpretation etnopaleontológica that another version of this same finding was made there.
