Jus' sayin'...

Once upon a time, there was an issue so important and so burning that you could not go to the baker without getting an earful. Of course, there were no referendums then.

Πάντα γὰρ τὰ κατὰ τὴν πόλιν τῶν τοιούτων πεπλήρωται, οἱ στενωποὶ, αἱ ἀγοραὶ, αἱ πλατεῖαι, τὰ ἄμφοδα· οἱ τῶν ἱματίων κάπηλοι, οἱ ταῖς τραπέζαις ἐφεστηκότες, οἱ τὰ ἐδώδιμα ἡμῖν ἀπεμπολοῦντες. Ἐὰν περὶ τῶν ὀβολῶν ἐρωτήσῃς, ὁ δέ σοι περὶ γεννητοῦ καὶ ἀγεννήτου ἐφιλοσόφησε· κἂν περὶ τιμήματος ἄρτου πύθοιο, Μείζων ὁ Πατὴρ, ἀποκρίνεται, καὶ ὁ καὶ ὁ Υἱὸς ὑποχείριος. Εἰ δὲ, Τὸ λουτρὸν ἐπιτήδειόν ἐστιν, εἴποις, ὁ δὲ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων τὸν Υἱὸν εἶναι διωρίσατο.

As rendered by Kallistos Ware:

The whole city is full of it, the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers: they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask “Is my bath ready?” the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing.

#GReferendum #Yes #NAI #Ναι #WhatHaveTheRomansDoneForUs 

Isthmia museum, July 2011

The museum at Isthmia is really very much off the beaten track and this is a pity as it houses some amazing finds in materials not normally encountered when making any sort of must-see tour of the Peloponnese or indeed mainland Greece. It is modern, well laid out and with plenty of well-written texts.

A view of the main hall of the Isthmia museum

The religious site at Isthmia was of course dedicated to Posidon, the god of the sea and not without some reason. The site straddles and controls the paths from the south to the isthmus and along with Corinth itself two and a half hours to the west it effectively controls all access to the Peloponnese. The southern edge of the isthmus is just 15 minutes’ walk away while the harbour of Kenchreae is one hour to the south.

Excavations were conducted from 1952 onwards. It is one of the locations of the four great Panhellenic Games (Delphi, excavated by the French and Olympia by the Germans were both excavated before the end of the 19th Century, Nemea and Isthmia were both excavated in the last half of the 20th Century by the American School). The finds of the excavations from the fifties and subsequent re-examinations form the main part of the museum’s exhibition, although the finds from sites such as Kenchreae and Almyrae are no less interesting and the finds from Kenchreae are what give the museum its unique nature in terms of the materials on show.

Terracotta finds originally from the archaic temple of Poseidon, dated to the 7th CBC and found in the Large Circular Pit which lies to the west of the Palaimonion and south of the Temple precinct.

This Large Circular Pit contained many other finds. The pit was used to bury fragmentary and broken terracotta and stone artefacts and serves as a sort of Perserschutt pit for Isthmia. One of the larger finds is the Poros Kouros, below.

Fragmentary statue in the shape of a Kouros, youth

The kouros part was found at Isthmia in October 1959 by members of the University of Chicago digging at the site under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies. The piece was found at a depth of 18.70 m. in the Large Circular Pit.

The fragmentary nature of the find and the fact that the pit contained all sorts of finds spanning many centuries has allowed classical scholars free reign to try to date the statue on stylistic grounds alone. This, coupled with the relative paucity of Kouros finds in the Peloponnese, the soft material used (and the constraints this imposes on diagnostic indicators) makes it an interesting case.

Next up, back to the Bronze Age:

Mycenaean Psi-figurines

The ubiquity of the Psi and Phi figurines in Late Helladic contexts is one of those reassuring things. We are so used to them that that if there were none, you would be curious to know why. Other people do a much better job of discussing and describing these so I will not repeat what better researchers have already said. The specific figurines are part of the exhibition focusing on the chamber-tomb Cemetery of Almyri, near Isthmia. More precisely, Kato Almyri, Rachi Bechri. There are twenty odd tombs excavated at this site, yielding some pretty standard looking ceramics and the psi and phi figurines. The floor plans of the tombs look interesting enough and maybe I’ll make a trip sometime in the future – although given how long it has been since I first tried to get into this museum and how many years passed until I made it there when it was open to the public, I doubt such a visit would be any time soon.

Moving on to Kenchreae, the star of the show…

Kenchreae is one of the harbours around the Isthmus of Corinth. For some it is famous for the haircut of St. Paul (dude, srsly?), for others it is known for the amazing underwater excavations of the American school in the sixties. The reason for underwater excavations is the earthquake which struck in 375 and caused the land to sink a few feet, thereby burying buildings in the water of the harbour. How’s that for a funky terminus ante quem? Underwater excavations usually means that we get a whole bunch of stuff turning up which would normally have rotted away. When it sits underwater, there is a great chance that a site’s perishable materials will be buried in anoxic mud and will not rot, but remain for the archaeologist to find. And so we have it… the so called temple of Isis, looking remarkably like a village church in floorplan, revealed a whole lot of funky finds in materials we don’t normally encounter.

Wooden furniture find from the so-called Temple of Isis

The furniture is a great discovery as not only will it allow the interested visitor to have a good look at ancient joinery, but also to see the ivory inlays and sculpted decorations which would have adorned the furniture itself. The piece above shows some very finely wrought, presumably burned decoration in the wood itself.

Ivory plaques for decoration of wooden furniture

Speaking of inlays and decorative bits, the ivories above depict cupids doing everyday tasks. To me the worksmanship and subject look very much like later medieval ivories with almost identical theme. This is the sort of thing that if I had seen it without the context, I would have dated totally wrong... as such it is very much good fun.

One final but uber-funky wooden find from the so-called Temple of Isis is these wooden doors:

Wooden Doors off the so called Temple of Isis, Kenchreae

These are by far the largest of the wooden finds currently on show at the Isthmia museum. To me, they look not very much different to provincial or naïve doormaking of far more recent times. We don’t often get a lot of wood surviving in Greece so this is all good stuff.

Another great find from the so-called Temple of Isis were the packing crates with the glass panels depicting scenes from a seaside city... These were stacked in groups around the walls of the main area of the temple, presumably either for installation or for transhipment elsewhere and most likely originated from an Alexandrian workshop. They date to the period immediately before the earthquake that led to their burial and subsequent preservation.

Corner of one of the plates

There were originally about 120 glass plates which would have covered an area of about 150sq.m. The plates were either completely decorative, depicted life-sized figures of priests or philosophers or were part of a cityscape panorama showing a seaside town. The whole work is an amazing look at an art form for which we have very little (if any) other information and an impressive decorative programme spanning many meters of wall space.

Scenes from the seaside town panoramas

The panels were stacked face to face, and the faces were the parts most susceptible to the corrosion of the sea, frequently resulting in the fusing of the two panels face to face. Most of the finds on display are actually the back side, rather than the front side which would have been on show, and this should be kept in mind. Because of the difficulties of desalination and the fragile nature of the finds, they are now stored in climate controlled rooms in the museum basement.

To sum up – if you have not been to the Isthmia museum – definitely make a point of taking a three minute detour and go!

Monastery at Daphne / Dafni

So we took A to the monastery at Daphni. I had not been since 1991, almost twenty years ago. I remember walls and fortifications and a blurry photograph I have of the pantokrator (which I may be confusing with a pantokrator in Mystra). I did not remember the Ionic columns from the temple of Apollo and I would not then have been able to spot any trace of Gothicness on the narthex, let alone remember it. Given how much we did learn and retain while making this study tour with the school, there is no fault to be ascribed to Jimmy and the gang if we missed some of the Mediterranean Gothic...

Walking into the site today, the visitor is confronted by the massive block of the Daphni church, orange and pink in limestone and brick with its impressive drum and dome on top, all covered in scaffolding and dotted with stickers labeled ΕΜΠ and NTUA. The south door which was in front of us was locked. We headed to the west colonnaded section of the monastic complex's southern courtyard. The buildings there housed classical sculptures from the Daphnephoros sanctuary and late antique, Byzantine and medieval architectural fragments. Across the court, on the top floor, there is an exhibition on the restoration and the work being done. After wandering about a bit more, we found the phylax and much of what follows we were either told or I figured it out for myself as the phylax took us up the scaffolding.

Photos and videos are not allowed inside (rofl). No, really, they are not, so I was all fidgety and annoyed both because of the brevity of the preparation time available to take some photos while no one was looking but also by the need to keep my (now handheld) helmet-cam hidden.

On the way up, we first see two Gregories, amazingly large when at eye-level, amazingly pink-skinned and white haired in their restored splendour. Each mosaic we saw was an invitation to spend a whole afternoon there, wondering in awe at the work of the mosaicist. Opposite these was Zacharias in an arch, with his funny cuboid hat and then onwards and upwards - the guide rushing us upwards, but telling us to take our time... At conch level, we were face to face with (from NE-NW clockwise): Annunciation (amazingly tranquil and inspiring), Birth, Baptism (no willy), and Metamorphosis (badly damaged). And like the Narnian Mouse - "Further up and further in!", cried the phylax and we found ourselves face to face with sixteen prophets around the drum, again splendidly pink and white, like the Gregories or Zacharias, all of course with their golden backgrounds and with calligraphic names but also with conspicuous tubes and plastic pipes sticking out of them for the strengthening of the mosaics and eventually for the cement enemas which will serve to strengthen the walls and finally allow the walls to again take the weight of the building for themselves.

Then, finally, on the top floor of the scaffolding, we stood face to face with the pantokrator in awe, and were able to distinguish the tesserae and notice that each one is quite a large stone. Amazing indeed, but I had to let K see it too. I came down with appetite for close-up mosaic unsated and told her to go up while we played with A in the garden to the West. The narthex contains one of the four original Ionic columns from the Daphnephoros sanctuary. I am not sure where the other three are, various sources give various stories about what indeed Elgin took from here. The asymmetric gothic exonarthex is rather fun as well, with its arches not quite lining up on each side.

The need for restoration came with the famous quake of 1999, where, apparently the mosaic decoration all came to the ground. On commencement of restoration, they only replaced whatever pieces had a definite provenance, meaning that there are great chunks which will never be replaced. The opportunity to get this close to such exquisite mosaic work was amazing and I totally recommend a visit. The feeling it inspires reminds me of the feeling I had when facing some fresco work in Ochrid or facing the frescoes of the Protaton in Karyes, both pretty much contemporary with these mosaics. I want to go again...

View towards the exonarthex from the North West

View towards the exonarthex from the North West in clunky HDR

Base of the Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade, complete with seismic sensors

Capital of the Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade

Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade

A visit to Naxos Archaeological museum (2009)

The Archaeological Museum of Naxos is located pretty centrally on the castle of the old town. It houses a rather fine collection of Cycladic figurines and mycenaean grave goods from the numerous LH cemeteries on the island. We went last year with K and A (seven years old at the time).

On the way up to the museum we spotted this rather nice spolion in a yard wall...

The museum is in the old town which is essentially the medieval castle of Naxos. There are many "Frankish" arches in evidence such as the one on the left and many heraldic designs of the various dukes and counts and lords who were installed after the fourth crusade (don't get me started).

The museum is housed in a Francescan building which shares this side of the square with the Ursuline building, all very tangible signs of the Catholic church's attempt to convert fellow Christians to caesaropapism on the one hand and the heresies of Rome on the other.

Strictly no photography is allowed in the museum (in clear contravention of Law 3028/2002) despite the potential for outreach. Inside, the museum houses a nice cycladic collection with good Late Helladic (second millennium BC) gravegoods and some kitsch looking Roman sculpture. In the open air part, there is assorted sculpture from all ages which is presumably not considered special enough to warrant a guard or protection from the elements. Most of the photos which follow are from the outside part of the exhibition as the lack of a guard allows some photographs to be taken.


The open air section has a large mosaic in the middle, showing the bull carrying Europa off in its centre and animal forms around the edges. In style it is not very different to mosaics from the late antique period all over the Roman empire. The outside section is really quite chaotic and without labelling. On the right, we have classical and gothic capitals rubbing shoulders without seeming to mind the millennium which separates them.

Amongst the many loose sculptural finds from all ages in the open air section, there was also this rather exciting archangel in the "stumpy dumpy" style of the late and post-Byzantine era.

On the left, above, we have various bits of sculpture with an unfinished kouros and on the right, an unfinished Kouros amongst more sculpture of various periods.


On the left, capitals from various periods and in various "styles" - note the very vernacular low relief moustachioed cubes. On the right, a rather nice capital with a medieval / late byzantine figure between two animals, reminiscent of the mistress / master of the animals motifs from many centuries before.


This is the only shot inside the museum I managed to shoot before being told that it was forbidden. It shows a rather nice seated Cycladic figurine from the end of the third millennium BC.


Korinna and Cousin A with the spolia... a walk up to the museum is an opportunity to walk through the town of Naxos and talk about the processes which lead to the incorporation of spolia in newer structures (which themselves become old).

A final few words on the museum: don't miss it. It is old-style with old style labelling and the sleepy-eyed guard will tell you (the ticket lady doesn't talk) that the reason you are not allowed to take photos is that the artefacts are unpublished (this is the case for some, not all the items).

The problem with this logic, of course, is that the excavations were in the late forties and early fifties, and the excavator is dead. This is compounded by the fact that no one in the ephor's seat since has the good sense to get up off their arses and make even a preliminary publication of the important bronze age cemeteries the grave goods of which are in the museum.

If they have enough money to waste on fancy-schmancy touch screens with exceedingly little information stored on them, all but one of which were inoperable (through either faults of design or omissions in the training of the local staff) only months after installation, then why is there no money to make a publication of the old digs? Perhaps because the kick-back off purchasing fancy schmancy touch screens sits better in the baggy pockets of ministry officials such as "bounce" Zachopoulos than the ghostly thanks of the original archaeologist...

Another (totally) final thing: don't be scared by the way the exhibits rattle and move about in their wooden cases as you walk over the creaking wooden boards of the museum. The ministry is informed. That's why they spent money on touch-screen machines that don't work.

New Acropolis Museum disappointing anticlimax

This article was edited in December 2012 to correct some image links
Please see my new post on the improvements made since Summer 2009



Don't get me wrong. The new museum is great. It's unique in terms of the architecture and the finds being exhibited inside. It houses the foremost collection of archaic and classical "golden age" sculpture in the world. There is no other such collection and there can be no other.

So, let me tell you about the museum, then, the museum that they have been building for more than four years; the museum that has been built and finished for the last two years (which were spent on the transfer of the exhibits from one building to the other). I emphasise the timescales involved, to pre-empt the whingers who will try to reason that all that is wrong with the museum is a result of the short timescales involved.

I have been critical of the management of the Museum Opening through this blog in the past. I had hoped to be able to come back with a gushingly positive review of the museum itself, to show to myself as well as to the world that Greece knows how to manage its cultural heritage. Unfortunately, this will not be possible. The museum is not so much a varnished turd, as a lilly gilded with shite (and then varnished). The material the museologists had to work with was amazing, the museum itself is rather disappointing in spite of this amazing material.

My complaints cluster around certain categories all of which are seen in the light of the media blitz telling us that this museum represents THE new way forward for all museums in Greece and that this is the face of the future.

Printed material
My first criticism is the lack of printed material for visitors. In every other archaeological site and museum in the country including the forgotten House of Tiles at Lerna which seems to receive no more than eight visitors annually, the visitors are given a glossy printed "guide" in their choice of English or Greek language, showing a floor plan of the site or museum and information about what is being seen. This is given out together with the entry ticket.

At the Acropolis Museum, which admittedly has just opened (but which has been in a state of being about to open for the best part of two years), the visitor is given his barcoded ticket (a nice touch, although it has been implemented in less advanced countries such as Turkey for years) and that's it. No leaflet, nothing. From there on, the visitor is left at the mercy of the occasional signage pointing him to the next floor. The result of this, I saw quite clearly in the group of English-speaking tourists wondering whether there was anything more to see on the floor above the gift shop and cafeteria. I interrupted them and helpfully offered that they may want to go upstairs, given that the museum was built essentially for the plastercasts on show there.

Sure, there may be a printed leaflet on the way, but why isn't it here yet? Was there not enough time? Was the floor plan not known?

Photography ban
This, at the time of my visit had me more annoyed than anything else. I have been away from friends such as the moscophoros or the sandal-binder for about four years, and now I can see them again, I am not allowed to photograph them. This unjustified ban is as unjustifiable as the illegal summerhouses being built in the burnt forests of Attika.

I am curious from where the authorities of the new acropolis Museum think they are given the right to impose a blanket ban on photography in the museum. Certainly not through Law 3028/2002 on the protection of antiquities (and in general of the cultural heritage of the country).


Apparently, the ban was put in place (according to the guard I asked) because some people were taking "improper" pictures together with the statues. This very unique ban on photography is put in place because people are interacting with art? I am shocked! I am shocked, given the copious amounts of information you give the visitor about the exhibition, and given the respect for the art he is watching that this information will have built in the visitor, I am shocked that some chose to photograph themselves standing next to or even pointing at the penis of a statue. How could someone do this after all the interesting information the museum has provided? And even so: how elitist and snobby does one have to be to proscribe how exactly the visitor is to react to art, that some reactions are acceptable and some unacceptable?

Is the museum in the present century? Does it acknowledge the universal nature of the items on show inside? How can it argue that this universally recognised art should be accessible to all people of the world and then proscribe to these same people the way to enjoy it? Is the status of the Venus de Milo or the Lacoon or indeed of the originals of the plastercasts of the Parthenon marbles any different because photography is allowed?


Ban this sick filth!
(Photos have been downloaded in low res, clicking on the image will take you to the original source)

I will not dwell on the photography ban as I consider it wholly temporary. I am just sad that I could not share all the wondrous things I saw, the new faces of old friends.

Poor explanatory materials
Two problems here, both of which stem from the narrow-mindedness inherent in the system. The labels and explanations are written by archaeologists for archaeologists. The labels on each individual item are very cursory and the general texts do nothing to help the casual visitor who has heard of neither Kekrops nor Erechteus nor indeed Hercules (unless in relation to Xena, warrior princess).

The individual labels rarely go beyond a name and a catalogue number, as if this is enough for 95% of the visitors to the museum who hardly realise that possibly all of the archaic sculpture they are looking at is on display because of the same Persians depicted in the hit film "300" (this is Spaaaarta!). To put it journalistically, while the "what" and possibly the "when" are covered (albeit in a very superficial way), the "where", "why" and "how" are left very much missing.

Why is there no text describing for example, what the gigantomachy is? Or indeed what the amazonomachy and kentaromachy scenes are representing: the Greeks and the 'other'? What is the procession showing on the Parthenon frieze, how many horsemen are there and is it a coincidence that there are 192 of them? In the room full of the Archaic Kouros / Kore / Horsemen: Why was this sculpture erected, where exactly, by who, for what purpose, how was it made, where did the raw materials come from, how much would it have cost (how precious was it) and most significantly, how come this sculpture has come down to us: why was it buried in pits? Perserschutt is a wonderfully fun word, after all (Perserschutt on wikipedia). Why is the Kritias Boy so called, but more interestingly, how is the weight balanced on his feet? What does that do to his buttocks? It is infuriating that for the first time visitors to the museum can walk around a three dimensional sculpture that was created to be seen in the round and there is no help offered to them to guide them in their appreciation. It is easy to appreciate the hair on both the Kritias Boy and the Blonde Boy when you know what to look for, but unfortunately most visitors do not. And why are there no analyses of the composition of the kentauromachy metopes contrasting those showing elegant use of space to those without? Finally - for the first time the friezes and metopes of the Parthenon are displayed in glorious 360 degrees, with their back surfaces exposed to the museum goers. This is the case with the balustrades of the temple of Athene Nike also. This is a joy to behold if, like me you are interested in the makers' marks and the pragmatic side of decorating a temple - ie how to fix the decoration to the temple itself. But again, it is mentioned nowhere that it is possible to see this and that the visitor may learn from this innovative way of displaying the exhibits.

It is snobby and elitist to throw art at the people without providing explanations and insight for those interested in learning how to appreciate it more.
I'm not saying there should be touch screens and multimedia mumbo-jumbo (although that would show a more 20th century approach to museum displays), just more information and the right sort of information. At the moment it is almost totally lacking in printed form and totally lacking in the form of walkman style audio tours. Even the jumbled Roman and late antique town under the pilotis of the museum are left completely unexplained, despite the marvels of modern engineering employed to protect them.



Lack of child-friendly ideas
Children do not exist, at least for the curators of the new acropolis museum and their handlers at the Ministry of Culture.

Very few of the exhibited items are accessible to children, those that are, are accessible by accident rather than by design. Even so, there is no printed information for children of the sort that one finds in museums in Rome which provoke the kids into interacting with their past.

All it takes is a sign with big font text asking kids some questions to get them thinking: Questions could range from the totally neutral: Why do you think the statue of the Kore has got one hand extended? To the (unacceptably) sentimentalist-political: What do you think the five Karyatids are thinking about the empty space next to them?


Both of these last two faults may be explained by the fact that there was no time. I realise that the three to four years or so between the closing of the old museum and the opening of the new one are a very short space of time (almost unimaginably short, approaching quantum-short) for the hiring of archaeologists with museological postgraduate qualifications to prepare texts for the visitors. Such people do exist, and I am sure they would have loved such a challenge. Time was not the problem. The problem is that the Ministry does not care, at all levels. From the guard in the Mycenaean room at the National Archaeological Museum who wouldn't know, if asked, where the Sesklo finds are (just through the door on the left) to all other levels of the hierarchy, apathy is king. The lustre of the exhibits is expected to carry the lacklustre effort made to dress them, but this, unfortunately, will no longer do.

So, we come to the final question: what is the role of a museum, in the 21st century? If the role of a museum is to teach or to communicate to the visitor about the exhibits, then the New Acropolis Museum fails. Other than presenting the exhibits, this museum does very little else. Granted, the architecture is amazing especially in the use of natural light.

However, the New Acropolis Museum does not explain nor does it help the visitor to understand the conditions which existed while the exhibits were being made, or why this is important to today's society.
I have been taught that one does not respect that which one does not know well. No wonder that in a society which seeks to impose admiration of the past without also seeking to promote understanding of that same past, we continue to show disrespect to ourselves and our heritages.

Given the state of the Ministry of Culture and its status as dumping ground for otherwise useless political has-beens (not forgetting the rotund fraudsters), it is no surprise that the Greek state has failed to make the most of the new museum. The problem is intimately linked to the leadership of the Ministry, because the problem is one of vision. There is no forward-thinking vision because those entrusted with the protection of Greece's heritage sit safe in their own blinkered world view: they cannot see beyond the walls of the offices surrounding the soft chairs to which their comfortable arses irrevocably adhere thanks to anachronistic civil service staffing laws.

The irony of naming the archaeo-web portal of the ministry "Odysseus" is not lost on many. It would have been fitting had the people of the ministry shared the hero's inquisitive nature and had allowed themselves to "get to know the cities and minds of many men" like he is said to have done.

We cannot assume that because we have the unique resource on our doorstep, that we know what to do with it and how to manage it. This last sentence alone is likely to rile the feathers of many within the musty, cocooned and introverted ranks of Greek academia.

So - final verdict: go to the museum, but learn about the exhibits before you set out.

New acropolis museum - opening soon... or is it?

I am writing to complain about the sheer volume of information that is being poured on us Athenian Culture-Vultures about the opening of the new Acropolis Museum.

As of 3 June a mere 17 days away from the opening, no press release has been released by the Greek Ministry of Culture. Did I write Ministry of Culture, I meant to write the ministry for has-been ministers moved over here to keep a low profile while fat-man general secretary "bounce" Zachopoulos skims the cream off the milk.

So - where were we? Ah, yes. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Don't believe me? Look at the photo - screen grab from the press-release page of the MiniCult on 3 June. Mr. Samaras, the man who loved Greece enough to resign as Foreign Minister when the borders were opened in the early nineties seems less enamoured of Greece now. He has the perfect opportunity to bring the world's attention to this country and to our showcase super-duper-wow museum. Paging Mr. Samaras!

So, I wish I could write more about the opening. Truth is, I know nothing about it. There is no information on the site of the MiniCult and no information on the site of the museum itself other than the opening date of 20 June.

If I were a journalist in foreign parts I would not know anything about the opening of this museum. That is a shame, Mr. Samaras. And it's all yours.

St. George at the Byzantine Museum

The 23rd of April is not always St. George's day. Oh no. The feast is such a big one, probably the biggest of those not immediately connected with Christ or the BVM. For this reason, if the 23rd of April falls in lent (and it does so more often than not), then the feast of St. George is celebrated on Easter Monday. This is because Lent is a time of solemnity and whatnot and we can't go feasting and celebrating in the middle of lent.

So, this year, St. George's day falls on the 23rd as it should. St. George is called the tropaiophoros, the bringer of triumph and is one of the earliest saints to be revered by the church. The whole story with the dragon comes from the levant (lebanon alone has a handful of locations with claims to be the spot where the dragon had been killed. The English crusaders (more about them some other day) saw the cult of the warrior saints (George and the many other literal soldiers of christ) and took his cult back to the British Isles with them. Together with the cult, they took back the red on white cross, known as St. George's cross. It is currently also displayed on the flag of Georgia.

Anyway, back to our picture of the day: the picture shows a piece of cloth with woven design measuring about 20 by 20cm (about 8x8 in inches). The design depicts a mounted saint dispatching a dragon - the chances are that it is St. George, although St. Demetrios is infrequently depicted in a very similar way. It's not clear whether there would have been space in the top right corner for St. George's little helper and the princess who gets saved. Both are iconographically late and are probably not there.

Last for today - the cloth is from the Egyptian collection at the BXM, hence we have it at all. The BXM's egyptian collection has a great number of both everyday items and ceremonial items of normally perishable material which has been saved thanks to the arid climate of the egyptian desert. That is why we have this cloth and quite a few other things, some of which may be featured in future pics of the day.

New Acropolis Museum - first day of exhibition

So we went to the opening with K, George and an increasingly pregnant Poppy of the exhibition of finds from the area where the New Acropolis Museum is being built.


The new Museum, being built next to the Weiler building under the Acropolis.


George, Poppy and K

Far too many people in too small a space and politicians and the teams of cameramen following them gave the whole trip to the museum a different feel altogether. The exhibition houses some of the findings from the site of the new museum being built just a few tens of yards away, displayed in cases made out the building materials being used on the new museum. The site cuts through a good slice of old Athens from classical through to late roman and early byzantine. The site will be visible through the floor of the acropolis museum making it a huge almost open-air museum. Poppy had worked for some months before leaving for the UK on the site and had been informed of the opening by an archaeologist friend who was involved in the excavations of ten years.

On arrival and after all the faff of waiting for the Minicult to arrive, we went in and sat through speeches by inaudible archaeololigsts and the booming Minicult himself who mostly talked bollocks using rhetoric worthy of midday soap operas rather than someone with the syllable "cult" in his title.


After the obligatory chamber music and mad crush for the drinks table, and after some of the most impolite and unbecoming scrambles for the unimaginitive but tasty enough canapés K and I managed to enter the exhibition. George and Poppy had left for elsewhere.

Poppy's friend was showing someone famous around. Well, famous enough to be shown around by one of the excavators, but not famous enough to be someone I recognise. The plus side to all this fame and what have you is that K and I and half a dozen others managed to piggy back on Tatiana's tour of the finds and at the same time benefit from both her enthusiasm for and knowledge of the site.


The exhibition is separated into thematic sections.


The first section is worship. In this section we have some good marbles statues of deities which are very rare indeed outsdie the east - there are not many excavated sites in Greece which are contemporary with some of the sections of this site, so although we got the oriental gods here and there, what was found in this esentially rescue dig was unique in Greece. The first "cool" find is a statue of "Isis Panthea" an Isis figure from the second or third century AD.

Isis Panthea

Why Panthea? - well, she’s got the sun disk of Sol Invictus, the corn sheaths of Demeter, the aegis of Athena, the grape clusters of Dionysos around her ears, a snake running around her body, reminiscent of Asclepios, and she is standing on a funky crocodile. All the gods and goddesses together… Next up comes a Zeus Heliopolites – Zeus from Heliopolis (today’s Baalbek), with a whole bunch of other deities on his tunic.



Zeus Heliopolites, appearing after coming all the way from Baalbek, Ladies and Gentlemen

We also saw a nice representation of the Artemis Astarte with the many breasts.

Artemis of the many breasts...


There was a good bust of Plato from a Herm, and a whole bunch of home implements and pottery, commercial stuff and tradesmans' craftsmens' stuff in the economic activity section.

Plato

One thing I liked a lot was how they give the concept of stromatography a real good showing with this conceptual well with many pots discarded in it over time after it had silted up.

Nice representation of the stromatography in one of the silted up wells






I also liked this thumb shaped mortar for the pestle – very nice and apparently not uncommon, sitting amongst the spice containers and cooking vessels in the cooking section of the exhibition.

Can't find something witty to say - but I'm working on it...

In all the exhibition is really quite worth it, very nicely put together museuologically and interesting for the wealth of second and third century AD items on show all in the same place.


Like I said before, the experience of seeing it under the wing of one of the excavators made the whole thing that much more fun.