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Yesterday was a rare day indeed – a day of snow. A few flakes had the courtesy to drift this far south and excite the kids with a promise of a white city, like the ones we see on Christmas … Continue reading
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Dear friends, allow me to wish you Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Best wishes to all (Decorating trees is a very ancient custom, found in many cultures. Here, two women decorate a tree with tasseled ribbons. Athenian decorated … Continue reading
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Restoration on the Acropolis has been going on for years. It is not easy to repair the marks of centuries of warfare, human abuse, earthquakes, fires, not to mention the latest nemesis of the monuments, pollution. Here we see a … Continue reading
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Most visitors to the Acropolis leave with the impression that there was never anything on top of the rock, except impressive temples of white marble. Nothing could be more misleading. For most of its long history (and prehistory) the Acropolis … Continue reading
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This is one of my favorite places in Athens. A giant of a temple, this one still manages to dwarf the visitor and instill a sense of awe, despite the fact that only a handful of its 104 columns still … Continue reading
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Having talked about how colour was indispensable to Ancient Greek sculpture, to the extent that even in bronze statuary attempts were made to give a more colourful appearance, I couldn’t help posting another photo of a bronze. This is a … Continue reading
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After posting the previous article about the classical statues found in Riace, Italy, I couldn’t help posting another photo of them, this time the head of the statue known as Riace A. As I’ve said before, no statue was uncolored … Continue reading
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Treasure and in particular gold has always been the ultimate archaeological find in popular fiction. In reality, archaeologists are happier to find more mundane things, which will give them insight in what their lives were like, such as what people … Continue reading
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Girls instead of columns. What an unorthodox idea for the most unorthodox of the Greek temples, the Erechtheum (or Erechtheion, as we Greeks call it). Yet it worked so beautifully here that it inspired countless imitations, across the centuries. The … Continue reading
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In the streets of Plaka (again) I caught a glimpse of the past hand in hand with the present: In the 19th century house, a woman is tapping furiously the keys of a 21 century laptop. Above her, part of … Continue reading
Aristotle, Greek tourist guide 