After more than 30 years of competions and planning and eight years of construction, the New Acropolis Museum officially opens today. The museum, designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, provides a dramatic new home for the many historic treasures of the Acropolis, including the marbles of the Parthenon frieze. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust on Jun 20, 2009 - 21 comments

"Soon were the lofty peaks of Corcyra lost to view;
We coasted along Epirus, and coming to the Chaonian
Harbour, we drew near Buthrotum, that hill city."
- The Aenid - Book III, Virgil (trans. Cecil Day Lewis)

Founded by Trojans, populated by Chaonians, a sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius, colonized by the Greeks and Romans, sacked by the Goths, ruled by the Slavs, the Byzantine Empire and the Turks, taken by Manfred of Hohenstaufen, purchased by the Most Serene Republic of Venice, invaded by Ali Pasha and Suleiman the Magnificent, eventually becoming a place of refuge for the likes of Casanova and for hunters and painters, the ancient city of Butrint, a microcosm of Mediterranean history, is a World Heritage Site within a National Park which includes a Wetland of International Importance all of which is being kept alive by a partnership of local, national and international organizations . Come and explore Butrint. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust on Apr 3, 2009 - 12 comments

Explore the History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as Art and Architecture, Mythology, Wars, Culture and Society, Poetry, Olympics, History Periods, Philosophy, Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.
posted by netbros on Feb 21, 2009 - 3 comments

A photographic pilgrimage via Flickr to the Monasteries of Mount Athos. (previously)
posted by Xurando on Feb 17, 2009 - 8 comments

"Night of terror - Madness and lunacy in Athens" reads the headline of one Greek newspaper this morning; "Night of agony and terror - Athens, Pireaus and Thessaloniki at the mercy of hooded individuals" reads another, and the rest follow suite. Three days of mass protests, demonstrations... and finally rioting, rampage and looting across Greece have followed Saturday's fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy by police in Athens' bohemian/anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia. [more inside]
posted by taz on Dec 9, 2008 - 66 comments

The Antikythera Mechanism has been decoded. Two years ago, it was confirmed that the machine was capable of astronomical calculations. Now it appears there's just one more thing: 3D imaging of the machine made it possible to reconstruct the complete workings, and it turns out it was also capable of tracking the timing of the Olympic games. The findings were reported today in Nature. Previous Apple joke here, an incredibly deep post about it here, and a longer report from the New Yorker.
posted by one_bean on Jul 30, 2008 - 40 comments

Hellenica is an encyclopedia of Greek culture, from classical Hellas, through the Byzantine Empire until the modern day, though its focus is on antiquity and especially the science and technology of Ancient Greece. Featuring technical diagrams and explications, there's no better site if you seek information on gigantic galleys, now obscure great Greek mathematicians, the last still working Ancient lighthouse and gears and how they were used by Archimedes and other ancients. This is not to denigrate other sections of the site, such as the page on the Olympics (including a Google Map of the site of the games), biographies of ancient, Byzantine and modern Greeks, the warring and healing of the Byzantines or the overview of Greek literature, taking in antiquity, the medieval era and modern times. That said, Hellenica is at its finest when treating science and technology.
posted by Kattullus on Jul 18, 2008 - 8 comments

German newspaper Der Spiegel decided to take a look at Europe's oddest folk traditions and festivals. Perhaps you can have a metaphorical hard-on for the phallus festival of Tyrnavos, Greece. Maybe you're hungry for how a small Belgian town celebrates the practice of swallowing live fish. Or, alternately, you can look down on those bizarre practices... while chasing a giant wheel of cheese down a hill. [more inside]
posted by huskerdont on Jun 3, 2008 - 20 comments

Labour, which had started the disasters of Cyprus by denying it any decolonisation after 1945, had now completed them, abandoning it to trucidation [by doing nothing when Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974]. London was quite prepared to yield Cyprus to Greece in 1915, in exchange for Greek entry into the war on its side. Had it done so, all subsequent suffering might have been avoided. It is enough to compare the fate of Rhodes, still closer to Turkey and with a comparable Turkish minority, which in 1945 peacefully reverted to Greece, because it was an Italian not a British colony. In the modern history of the Empire, the peculiar malignity of the British record in Cyprus stands apart.

The Divisions of Cyprus, an article in The London Review of Books by historian Perry Anderson, is an excellent history of Cyprus from 1878 to the modern day as well as a polemic against the way that outside powers have treated the island. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Apr 17, 2008 - 17 comments

Parmenides. "The pre-Socratic philosopher sparked an intellectual revolution that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey ."
posted by homunculus on Dec 27, 2007 - 21 comments

The Roma Journeys - contemporary photographs of Roma life in Hungary, India, Greece, Romania, France, Russia, and Finland by Joakim Eskildsen. For more photo essays and info on the Roma, see two superb prior posts by plep and taz.
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 15, 2007 - 26 comments

Elpenor - Home of the Greek Word is a site built around a bilingual anthology of all periods of Greek literature, but there's more, including ancient greek lessons, a collection of texts by non-Greeks about Greece, a gallery of Orthodox Christ icons and an online resource-guide on Byzantium. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Nov 6, 2007 - 5 comments

Teacher Dude takes photos of Greek riot police who beat him up. Police say he wasn't allowed to photograph them without accreditation.
posted by Lezzles on Sep 22, 2007 - 35 comments

The Athens Affair. An IEEE Spectrum article on the Vodafone Greece phone-tapping case, quite possibly the most elaborate publicized cybercrime ever (previously).
posted by costas on Jul 17, 2007 - 28 comments

An ancient theatre filters out low-frequency background noise. The ancient Greek theatre of the Asklepieion of Epidaurus, built mostly during the 4th century B.C. and now a World Heritage Site, is renowned for its extraordinary acoustics. Researchers have figured out that the arrangement of the stepped rows of seats are perfectly shaped to act as an acoustic filter, suppressing low-frequency background noise while passing on the high frequencies of performers' voices. [Via MoFi.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 28, 2007 - 16 comments

Silphium was the wonder plant of the ancient world. Originally identified by Greek colonists in North Africa, the plant - a species of Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) - grew only in a dimunitive area near the coast and could not be cultivated. Silphium was popular as a spice for cooking, but its notoriety stems from its alleged medicinal qualities, particularly its use as an herbal contraceptive (the "I love you" heart symbol may have originated from the shape of silphium's seed pods and its use in sex). So valuable was Silphium that it became an important component of the ancient world's economy and appears on coins. It's also among the first species recorded (by Pliny the Elder) as going extinct, probably by grazing sheep or uncontrolled harvesting. Or is it?
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Dec 7, 2006 - 21 comments

The Greek government has just admitted that unknown parties have been tapping the mobile phones of the Prime Minister, government ministers, military and police officials and others. Details are still a bit sketchy, but it looks like someone installed a stealth redirecting software in the routers of Vodafone Greece --which has admitted to discovering the taps in March of 05.
posted by costas on Feb 2, 2006 - 37 comments

Earthquake rocks Greece and felt as far away as Italy, Egypt and Israel. [NewsFilter, except not in the US]
posted by phaedon on Jan 9, 2006 - 22 comments

Love that can't be withstood,
Love that scatters fortunes,
Love like a green fern shading
The cheek of a sleeping girl.
Seamus Heaney's search for the soul of Antigone.
(more inside, with Christopher Logue)
posted by matteo on Nov 4, 2005 - 15 comments

Register article on Greek arrest of well known programmer I'ved been watching this story since it surfaced at the rixstep.com page here and here; also covered at Techdirt.com in a couple of threads. Worth a look.
posted by hank on Nov 2, 2005 - 16 comments

The tomb of Odysseus may have been found on the island of Kefalonia, near the island now known as Ithaca, which means that Poros may have been the Ithaca described in The Odyssey.
posted by cerebus19 on Sep 26, 2005 - 31 comments

You Wouldn't Want To Be ... an Eqyptian Mummy, a Slave in Ancient Greece, or even an Aztec Sacrifice ... would you? The "You Wouldn't Want To" series of children's educational books is written by various experts and viscerally illustrated by David Antram. Conveniently enough, "You Wouldn't" contributor and former Cambridge professor Fiona Macdonald has also written a series of "How To Be" books. (via JessicaHarbour)
posted by grabbingsand on Aug 20, 2005 - 28 comments

I have been thinking about masks lately. Masks are ancient and universal, our ancestors put on masks to become an other, to become a god, even unto this day. Greek tragedy and comedy began in the worship of Dionysos, the god of wine, intoxication, and creative ecstasy, in rituals where worshipers often wore or worshipped masks. Indeed, the word for mask in Greek drama was persona, now commonly used to describe constructed online identities. And so we understand ourselves as wearing masks, whole series of masks--behind which we find only emptiness, for we can never see ourselves truly.
posted by y2karl on Feb 24, 2005 - 30 comments

An overview of Athens' branded olympic experience. Considering how many brand geeks we've got, I thought this link to a style overview from the Athens Olympic Committee would be of some interest.
posted by silusGROK on Aug 12, 2004 - 17 comments

Greece gets ready for the return of the Olympics by ridding the streets of its stray dogs. don't watch this if you're an animal lover. Or better yet, DO if you can handle it, because it's one of the saddest things i've seen in a long time. Though the government of Athens is denying it is responsible for this, someone is poisoning the city's thousands of stray dogs by putting it in food (naturally, a stray, hungry dog will eat it). The ensuing death does not come quickly. I've always wanted to visit Greece, especially being from a Mediterranean family (experience the roots, and all that) but suffice it to say it's moved to the bottom of the list of places to visit at this point. I've seen better treatment of animals in countries far less developed than Greece.
posted by cadence on Aug 2, 2004 - 57 comments

Rebetika, Music of the Greek Underground • "It originated in the hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki with the forced immigration of 2 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor." Audio samples here, more backstory, photos and a curious site supporting "Rebetiko Dechiotification and Bouzouki Detetrachordization".
posted by dhoyt on Jan 8, 2004 - 13 comments

Goddess : The Classical Mode, at the Met. Ancient Greek fashion and haute couture interpretations. (via fashioNroll)
posted by taz on Sep 17, 2003 - 4 comments

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and its many guides and maps for hundreds of Greek archaeological sites, monuments and museums. Here's one of Herakleion, in Crete.
posted by plep on Jun 7, 2003 - 7 comments

Did Noman find it? Scientists on the Greek isle of Crete have found what could prove to be a "cyclops". Truly, it is a creature whose skeleton has been found in pieces, and there is a significant hole in the skull for the opening to the trunk, which people many, many years ago might have "invented" the stories of what this creature was when they found its remains. That is, if you don't believe that the stories brought to us through spoken word and attributed to the blind man, Homer...
posted by djspicerack on Jan 21, 2003 - 10 comments

Mount Athos is the center of Eastern Orthodox Monasticism. It's located in the northeast of Greece and is an amazing place. If you're a man and planning a pilgrimage, make sure to read this first. And if you're a woman planning a pilgrimage, make sure to read this first. [more inside]
posted by soundofsuburbia on Nov 20, 2002 - 15 comments

The Devil's Bridge. For Halloween, tales of bridges where the devil took a hand in the building: "If I help you, I'll have the soul of the first who crosses the bridge!" But the devil gets fooled... [more]
posted by languagehat on Oct 31, 2002 - 9 comments

Greece bans gaming. Apparently since the law was passed last month, video arcades (other than registered casinos, of course) have been raided and closed down rapidly now. I found no evidence of a hoax, but a Slashdot post links to this NY Times article from March about the pending legislation. (Translations of the law to English can be found here as well.) This seems legit: if so, wtf is the host of the next Olympics doing banning people from playing games?
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Sep 1, 2002 - 24 comments

Don't click this link! A woman in Athens, Greece went to the doctor complaining of headaches. Upon examination, the doctor discovered a SPIDER LIVING IN HER EAR. Good night, folks, pleasant dreams. (via Fark)
posted by RylandDotNet on Jun 12, 2002 - 32 comments

Petition to return the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles to Greece. Nice background on the marbles here. Cliffnotes version here.
posted by skallas on Feb 21, 2002 - 19 comments

In Greece, a military officer decapitates (article in greek - english) 5 puppies, using an axe. Just like that. The jury reached a verdict, yesterday: he will face imprisonment for up to 6 months, while the two soldiers who tried to stop him may go to jail for 5 years! I'm just wondering, what would the verdict be if this happened in the US? And how solid is the legislation regarding animal abusement, in general?
posted by kchristidis on Jan 23, 2002 - 16 comments

Cool. I found out from thewebtoday that Xerxes reputedly built a canal in Greece and now there may be some evidence of it (much more inside).
posted by Sean Meade on Nov 16, 2001 - 5 comments

Greeks fill the temple of Zeus full of amps and concert gear for a NASA tribute. Some people look at ancient sites as things to be preserved, but Greece's minister of culture sees them as profitable venues. Next week they'll be using the Parthenon for ammunition storage.
posted by skallas on Jun 29, 2001 - 17 comments

Pope John Paul II apologizes for the Sack of Constantinople and other atrocities committed by the Crusaders against the Greek Orthodox as he goes on with his controversial trip to Greece retracing the steps of his namesake.
[I am gonna miss the guy when and if he passes away.]
posted by tamim on May 5, 2001 - 19 comments

Inspector Clouseau as Greek Police role-model? Wait for the midi file to load... At first I thought the site was hacked but, no, I checked, it's the real "Hellenic police informatics dept" web-site. I'm not sure whether it's self-sarcasm or cluelessness. And I wont even start about the site's imaginative design...
posted by talos on Mar 6, 2001 - 3 comments

Greek Ferry Sinks; 64 dead. I know this is just another news item to you guys. But to us Greeks it's a travesty (besides a tragedy obviously). Crew watching a soccer game; ferry hits charted, lighted rock; ship was 7 years past European legal lifetime age (to help some shipping companies get fatter profits). Only thing that might get reforms in shipping safety moving is, well, media attention. So, there.
posted by costas on Sep 27, 2000 - 1 comment

The world's most successful terrorist group strikes again. Although they can't claim the numbers of other terrorist groups, 17 November is considered to be one of the deadliest. Claiming over 20 kills with none of their members ever having been captured or killed is something to be proud of I guess. When I was stationed over in Greece, this group was our biggest fear, besides the fact that it was rumored that the group had links to the Socialist Party of the government and that the party "assisted" (using the term loosely) them from being captured. I had hoped that they had turned to internal terrorism and not International, as I hadn't heard anything about them in the last 7 years, but I guess that hope was optimistic.
posted by da5id on Jun 8, 2000 - 1 comment