Excerpt from second book of the Peloponnese series: “Artemis Child-a Rain of Stars”:

As she perused the news headlines, one article
caught her eye: “The Perseid Meteor Shower.”
The article revealed that the shower would reach its
peak in the early morning hours of August 11th, 12th,
and 13th. It also noted that this year’s shower would
feature meteors visible under moonlight and that, despite
the presence of moonlight, the Perseids would be bright
enough for many to see with the naked eye.

Knowing that the shower was named after King Perseus,
Maria continued reading.
It went on to explain that the Perseid Meteor Shower
is one of the most beloved and brightest meteor showers
of the year; that people from all over the world could
expect to see the greatest number of meteors in the early
morning hours.

Maria’s eyes went wide open as she read aloud: “Those
meteors will be seen as a shower of Stars that seem to rain
down from the sky.”

She paused her reading as memories flooded back
to her of climbing the other Nisi hill, located across the
bay near the coastal town of Agios Andreas, with the
handsome young man, many years before.
Upon reaching the top, where there was a small
walled-in church, they stood to admire the stunning sea
view. As they did so, he shared some information with her:
“In the olden days, the stars appeared to fall into the water.”
As they walked back down, he confided in Maria a
hidden treasure––huge chains hanging on the side of the hill.
He revealed that these chains were used to anchor
ships in ancient times, but a catastrophic event caused the
land to shift and the chains to remain suspended from
the cliff over land.

Based on her research, the hanging chains may
have dated back to King Danaus’s time, around 1550 BC,
if the once heavily fortified hill was the Pyramia of Thyre-
atidas, as Maria strongly suspected it was.
This also meant that the fortification of the hill also
dated to around the same time.
Now she was wondering if by the stars falling in the
water in the old days, the young man wasn’t referring to
King Perseus’s time, 1350 BC.

He must have meant the Perseids. Maria imagined a shower of stars cascading into the water. 

Maria snapped back to reality, realizing she had
stumbled upon a perfectly timed article that may also
relate to the area she was now researching, the Nisi Hill
Peninsula area, her current home.

Claudius Ptolemy referred to the region as Astron in
his book, The Geography of Ptolemy, which dated back to
the second century AD. However, the area was recognized
as Astra at more ancient times.

Was it possible that the ancient Nisi peninsula and
the surrounding area had been named “Astra” at a more
ancient time due to the same phenomenon?
One thing was clear, both names Astron and Astra
translated to “Stars.”

As she considered this, she realized that the more
ancient town of Astra may have been linked to the found-
ing king of ancient Mycenae, King Perseus.

Was it possible that the ancient walls said to have
once surrounded the peninsula had enclosed a palace, possibly
a summer palace where he and his family would watch the
meteor shower each August?
Maybe an annual celebration or festival where friends
were invited to watch the most celebrated meteor shower of
the year which lasted for a few days.
Moreover, could the ancient town of Astra have been built
during Perseus’s reign and named to mean “a rain of stars”?
This would mean that the town of Astra dated back
to the fourteenth century BC!

Maria was excited about the connections she was
making, but she knew she needed physical proof to sup-
port her claims. So far, she had found no evidence that
the Nisi hill peninsula and the surrounding area of Astra
dated back that far.

She was not discouraged and conducted another
search. To her astonishment, she discovered a fresh source
of information about the region.

The source was The Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography, written by William Smith, LLD, Ed, in 1854.
It was there that she found some valuable information
that validated her hypothesis:

Although the town is of modern origin, it is supposed
that the place has retained its name from antiquity, and
that it is the Astrum (Ἄστρον) of Ptolemy, in whose list
it occurs as the frontier town of Argolis, between the
Lacedaemonian Prasiae and the mouths of the Inachus.
On the land side of the promontory towards the river,
are considerable remains of an ancient wall, built of large
unhewn blocks of stone, the interstices between which
are filled up with smaller stories, like the well-known
walls of Tiryns. On the other sides of the hill there are
no traces of walls, nor are there any other remains of an
ancient town.

It had been within that paragraph Maria had found
the proof that she was looking for. In the part that had
included: “On the land side of the promontory towards the
river, are considerable remains of an ancient wall, built of
large unhewn blocks of stone, the interstices between which
are filled up with smaller stories, like the well-known walls
of Tiryns.” Maria already knew that Tiryns was fortified during
the Bronze Age.