VISIT TO ATHENS 6-8/11/2006, CONFERENCE
First of all Acropolis - highest point in the city
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| View in twilight |
View at night |
At night from above
(Lycabettus) |
We will ascent
through Propylaea |
Closer (guide behind) |
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There were no cats
in Ancient Greece |
Disappointment -
very few things left |
Erechtheion temple
with caryatides |
Parthenon |
The same |
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| General view |
Relief was destroyed
by explosion in 1687 |
British ambassador
took remains
(1801) |
Restored with
original materials |
View onto
amphitheater |
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View until the
great sea |
This is place, where
Socrates was sentenced. |
View to Mount
Lycabettus |
There was a theater,
Turks took almost all
remaining columns |
Great view to amphitheater
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Parthenon stood for a long time since
Pericles (5th century BCE) and his architects built it
after victory on Persia , but during the war between Venice and Turkey
(1687), the
latter kept gunpowder in no better place than Parthenon. It was hit and
exploded. Buildings remained, but figures and relieves mainly gone. The remnants
were stolen by some lord and sold to British Museum. After an attempt to restore
Crete, a law passed that only materials equal to original can be used. So, it is
a long difficult job to restore from marble.
Chicken arrived to Greece some 200 years after Homer, so he mentions only geese.
Home cats arrived only during Roman period. But Greeks invented philosophy,
theater, democracy, math with axioms and proves, mechanical specialized
calculator (Antikythera mechanism), made great progress in mechanics, physics,
astronomy, art, grammar, verse, sport (also competition in art and verse). They measured Earth, Moon, calculated eclipses, sailed a
lot, albeit without compass. The best of them was sentenced, because he talk
about one God (inter alia), it was Socrates. Others endangered themselves by
hypotheses of Earth revolving around Sun, that Sun is a hot stone, that there
are atoms. All these without any special advantages in nature or geography,
except Mediterranean.
They took Semitic alphabet, it further passed to Slavs and in changed characters
to Romans and further. In the airport they say Greece gave 50807 words to the
world.
The first Greek to describe us was
Theophrastus: they (Jews) are a
philosophic sect that devote to their teaching all their life. The contact
was made in times of Alexander the Great.
Note: all images with "-01" in their name are by colleague Lev Y.
"cdfs3032.jpg" by colleague Mark Pr.
Artifacts from Museums
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| Greek-Roman wrestling |
Hockey on grass |
Sirens. Talmudic
Sages also mention them,
non-kosher |
From Museum of Pottery. Much before J.K. Rowling. |
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| Typical respect for deceased wife on burial place |
Fine and famous! The are bold enough to reveal beauty
of naked body! |
Head of unknown philosopher |
Animals are not forgotten also |
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Roman Caesar
Hadrian liked Athens,
so they built the Arch to respect him.
Alas! He hated Jerusalem,
revolt by
Bar Kokhba against him failed |
Click on
this image and you will find some moderately frivolous commentaries.
Caveat! |
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Agora - partially reconstructed place,
where direct democracy ruled. Parliament was invented much later:
Iceland and Britain. And not much of religious freedom: wait for
Holland, France, USA. See modern democracy in Greece coverage below. |
There are a lot of stories, how paintings were perfect also. Two
artists brought pictures. One - still life with grapes, another covered his
masterpiece by curtain. Birds came to pick on fruit at the picture of the first.
Everybody was amazed and asked the second to remove the curtain also. "I cannot
do this" - was the answer "It is only on a picture". The second won. Sculptures
were colored also, but the color has been lost. They also loved a lot fine talk
around the table on chosen theme, while lying and eating. Passover Seder
ceremony reminds such a "symposium" a lot.
Greek menu was rather limited. The main course was bread with "additions" like
fish, vegetables, fruit (olives, figs). Olive oil, but no butter. Soft cheese,
like cottage cheese. Meat only on special occasions. Cucumbers and pumpkin were
a kind of novelty, honey instead of sugar, diluted wine - the only beverage.
They sometimes anointed themselves by olive oil instead of washing. But they
knew to produce soap from the same olive oil. We all brought several pieces from
there. It has nice olive color. And now I give you away a great business
idea: import such soap for
IDF (Israeli Defense Forces)! It has a
protective masking color like military fatigues. I even gave it to my daughter
in army.
Modern Democracy
Modern history of Greece is not smooth also. Greece had a
revival after it freed itself from The Ottoman Empire of Turkey after the Greek
War of Independence (1821–1831). It was originally a monarchy in 1834, but the
king was forced to give Constitution and Parliament in 1846. Then there was
series of periods - constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy, republic,
military dictatorship, civil wars. Since 1970-th - Democracy rules.
Pictures of Modern Greece
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One religion almost,
Eastern Orthodox Christianity |
But there not
many believers |
Backgammon on
streets |
Ethnic dance
with knives, local "Sabre
Dance" |
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Memories of the distant
past - Icarus monument
near hotel |
Less distant past -
Pittacus
street,
after one of
Seven
Greek Sages |
Some words can
be guessed "Dermatina"
- from "skin" |
How we won this bottle
of Ouzo? Today
nobody
knows
anything,
we knew a bit. |
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Pedestrian only. People volunteer
help. One well dressed
man helped to find synagogue and told that his father saved
10 Jews in Thessalonica during Holocaust.
Almost single observant Jewish women in the city today. |
Transportation is good, cheap taxi,
practical metro, trolleys.
They say that city much improved after Olympics 2004.
The previous was the first modern in 1896. |
Once big Eastern Orthodox Church of Byzantium is now much
smaller than Russian, no comparison to Roman. In 1919-1922 they had a
conflict with
Turkey on Izmir and lost. Young Hemingway took part. Then conflict was
solved by League of
Nations with exchange of populace. All Greeks left Turkey, and all Turks left Greece.
This original solution brought Nobel Peace Prize to
Fridtjof Nansen (he did also
other things, like "Nansen
passport" for refugees)
During WW2 Greece was against Axis, they defeated Fascist Italian army, which
tried to occupy it, but fell to Germans. Nazis very soon captured lists of
Jewish people and started
Holocaust
in Thessaloniki. One of SS
commanders was the future UN general secretary
Kurt Waldheim from Austria. When Greek people
understood, what was going on, they distributed false papers and saved many
Jewish people. 86% of Jews of Greece perished though.
Greece had also a
conflict with Turkey on Cyprus in 1970-th and lost. This
freed the country from the military junta, though. The country remains rather
poor, out of 20 million Greeks, 9 live abroad in Diaspora, biggest center in
Melbourne. Out of 11 millions inside Greece, 4 live in the capital. Athens
suffered a lot from too fast growth. Greece is a member of Common European
Market, euro substituted drachmas.
