Plouton and his dog return to "Gate of Hell"

Short one today, but it made me happy: As part of a restoration project, a replica of the marble statue of Plouton, the Ouranic incarnation of Hades, and his three-headed dog Kerberos has been placed in its original place in the Gate of Hell in Pamukkale’s ancient city of Hierapolis. The statue is known to have been there in ancient times.

Hierapolis (Ἱεράπολις, "Holy City") was an ancient city located on hot springs in classical Phrygia in southwestern Anatolia. Its ruins are adjacent to modern Pamukkale in Turkey and currently comprise an archaeological museum designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The so-called "Gate of Hell" is not a gate as such, it's a grotto near the Ploutonium which was sacred to Plouton and which could be quite deadly, especially for birds.

• Wednesday, October 31, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs Hades Kerberos Plouton

Everyday Life in Ancient Athens

The Greek Reporter did an interesting write-up about daily life in ancient Athens recently. I didn't want to withhold it from you, in case you had missed it.

Everyday life in Ancient Athens of the Hellenistic era was more exciting than in most ancient cities mainly due to the fact that Greeks had theater, great philosophers, were involved in politics, many were into athletics, and had developed the art of the discourse at the agora.

Men, if they were not training as soldiers, were discussing politics or went to the theater to watch tragedies or comedies for entertainment. They could relate to the plays, that often involved current politics and gods in some form. Men also had full citizen status and could vote, something women were not allowed to do. Regarding theater, women were not allowed to watch plays, much less act in them. The theater was a manly affair and the roles of women were played by men.

Men also played games that did not involve physical activity also, such as marbles, dice, and checkers. The Ancient Greek version of checkers was similar to what the current game of backgammon — however, the Ancient Greek version of Checkers involved a board, stones and dice.
The life of women in Ancient Greece was closely tied to domestic work, spinning, weaving, cooking, and other domestic chores. They were not involved in public life or in politics. They were mostly confined to the house although one public duty for them was to be priestesses at temples.

Ancient Athenians had to eat, too. It was natural that the majority of them made their living and put food on the table from farming. Citizens often had land outside the city which provided their income. The Greek landscape and climate was difficult to farm. In September it was the time to pick the grapes, which were either kept for eating or to make wine. Making wine was done by treading and kept in jars to ferment.

Olives were either picked by hand or knocked out of the tress with wooden sticks. Some were crushed in a press to produce olive oil and some were kept to be eaten. Olive oil was very important to ancient Athenians as it had many uses, such as cooking, lighting, beauty products and for athletic purposes. Uprooting an olive tree was a criminal offence.

Grains were usually harvested around October to ensure they would grow during the wettest season. The farmer would use a plough driven by ox while a second man would follow behind and sow the seeds behind. In Spring the Crops were harvested using sickles. After harvesting the grain, it was then thrashed, using mules and the help of the wind to separate the chaff from the grain, the husks were then removed by pounding the grain with a pestle and mortar.

Ancient Athenians ate bread made of barley or wheat and porridge, accompanied with cheese, vegetables, fish, eggs and fruit. Animas sch as deer, hare, and boars were hunted only as addition to the food staples. Seasoning usually involved coriander and sesame seeds. Honey was probably the only sweetener that existed at the time, and honey’s importance in Ancient Greece is shown as the beehives were kept in terracotta cases.

Athenian boys played games similar to today’s hockey and they were also participating in a lot of athletics and calisthenics. Since they usually played naked, girls were forbidden to watch.
Overall women and girls were not expected to do much physical activity for recreation purposes.

Children in ancient Greece usually occupied their time playing with toys and games. They played with balls, miniature chariots, rattles, yo-yos, rocking horses, and dolls and animals made from clay. Boys were taught at home by their mothers until they were 6 or 7 years old. In Athens the education was left up to the father. Students were taught by private schoolmasters. The boys from wealthy families were taken to school by a trusted slave. The students learned to write on wax-covered tablets with a stylus. Books were very expensive, so they were rare.

The students in Athens learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. They also learned about fractions. Students learned the words of Homer and how to play the lyre. Wealthy children learned to ride horseback. Other sports included wrestling, using a bow and a sling, and swimming. At age 14 boys attended a higher school for four more years. Then, at age 18 boys went to military school from where they graduated at age 20.

• Tuesday, October 30, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology Athens bloggers I admire

PAT ritual announcement: the Khalkeia

The 29th of Pyanepsion is the date for the Khalkeia. It's the only festival to be held on a Deipnon and we will be celebrating it on 7 November, 10 am EDT.

The Khalkiea was the festival of bronze workers, a religious festival devoted to the God Hēphaistos and the Goddess Athena Ergane (Εργανη, Worker). In ancient Hellas, this was the day priestesses of Athena started work on a special peplos to be presented to Her during the Panathenaia. This festival involved a procession of workers with baskets of grain for offerings as well as meat sacrifices. Originally, it seems to have been a festival for Athena solely but over the centuries the focus shifted to Hēphaistos instead.

Elaion is holding a PAT ritual for the Khalkeia on 20 October, EDT. You can find the ritual here and join the community here. Also, make sure to celebrate the day by doing something crafty!

• Monday, October 29, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture Athena current affairs Elaion Hēphaistos Hera PAT Zeus

Free will and Hellenismos

Hellenismos believes in free will of humanity; not even the Gods can end the will of a human being, but they can certainly influence the lives we live and instil in us through our environment a need to serve, a need to find Them, a need to honour Them. They might have been doing that since the reign of the ancient Hellenes, but we have only restored the ancient practices a few decades ago, and before that, I doubt anyone really knew what to do with that wiring and just channelled it into Christianity, or in beautiful poetry like from those who were later remarked on as being 'pagan' because they related so well to the societies of years past.

The concept of free will was a grateful one to the ancient Hellenic philosophers. After all, free will in a religious world poses a problem: if you believe in the Gods, and that the Gods have powers beyond ours--foresight, mostly, and a claim to the end of our lives--how can you make the case for free will? If I believe my fate has been foretold at birth by the Moirae, then how can I claim to have full control over my own actions?

In the early days, a form of compatibilism was found where the idea that causal determinism and logical necessity are compatible with free will. Yes, the Moirae predict our deaths, but we are free to do whatever we want in between, and the way we die is of our choosing as well, it has simply been foretold when/what will happen. Because we are not privy to that information, we are not influenced by it.

As time and philosophy progressed, great thinkers like Anaximander and Heraclitus around the sixth century BC--who collectively came to be known as 'physiologoi' or 'cosmologists'--came up with theories to grapple with the supernatural as it ruled over the natural while leaving free will intact. Their resolution was to assign earthy causes to physical events like floods, taking them out of the realm of the supernatural and into the realm of the natural. Their thinking lead to a dualism: it separated the mind from the body and left both open to be influenced by different forces.

In a quest to give humanity back a sense of responsibility for their own actions, materialist philosophers Democritus and Leucippus posed a new theory: that everything--including humans--existed from atoms from the same source. The way these atoms moved and reacted to each other controlled causal laws. This is an incredibly simple explanation of a mechanism I might devote an entire blog post on soon, so just take it as is: we are all made of the same stuff, and the way all that stuff reacts together causes us to experience certain things.

Interestingly enough, this way of thinking led Leucippus to create two dogmas of determinism that go entirely against the concept of free will: the dogma of physical determinism and the dogma of logical necessity. Especially the latter is interesting. It reads:

"Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity." 

οὐδὲν χρῆμα μάτην γίνεται, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἐκ λόγου τε καὶ ὑπ’ ἀνάγκης

In light of Democritus theory of the atoms and their causal connection, the dogma makes sense: everything has a cause, which means there is a single source where all action originated from. This way of thinking also paved the way for later idea of a single God who put into motion the universe.

It were great thinkers like the Pythagoreans, Socrates,  Plato, and Aristotle who attempted to reconcile an element of human freedom with material determinism and causal law, in order to hold man responsible for his actions. Aristotle, especially, introduced the notion of 'accidents' into Leucippus' thinking, paving the way for an element of chance to be introduced into the theory. He was aware of the human need for repetition and predictability, but also felt that some things just happened, without anyone having a hand in it. It was still a causal connection, but it was an unintended one; an accident. In his Physics and Metaphysics he states the following:

"It is obvious that there are principles and causes which are generable and destructible apart from the actual processes of generation and destruction; for if this is not true, everything will be of necessity: that is, if there must necessarily be some cause, other than accidental, of that which is generated and destroyed. Will this be, or not? Yes, if this happens; otherwise not." (Book VI, 1027a29)

Aristotle's views were the foundation for a slew of new theories that built upon his, the most famous, perhaps, being Epicurus, who thought human agents had the ability to transcend necessity and chance. He argued that as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would 'swerve' from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains. We now know that atoms do now swerve, but they do move unpredictably whenever they are in close contact with other atoms. Only very large objects are not bound by this unpredictable behaviour because their momentum is too great to veer them off course before collision. Epicurus' intuition of a fundamental randomness was thus correct, and paved the way for Lucretius, who saw the randomness as enabling free will.

"If all motion is always one long chain, and new motion arises out of the old in order invariable, and if first-beginnings do not make by swerving a beginning of motion so as to break the decrees of fate, whence comes this free will?"

It was the Stoic school of philosophy that solidified the idea of natural laws controlling all things, including the mind. Their influence persists to this day, in philosophy and religion, even though most of their work on free will has been lost--most likely to the Christian church, who preached a dogma of determinism by way of an omnipotent God.

There is much more to say about the concept of free will--especially in view of philosophy--but perhaps it's interesting to look at the practical side a moment. Mythology dictates that our fate is pre-destined, although we can fail to live up to it. Fate, here, is often a promise of greatness; heroes are told they will be heroes but must work for it, requiring the help of the Gods to rise above their own potential. Others have been granted potential by becoming kings and queens, but squander it by petty human behaviour. Often, these mythological figures end up punished by the Gods. We don't know if this was pre-determined, but the Gods never give us the idea they were aware of the coming failures of these men and women.

Free will is powerful: it gives us the agency we need to aspire to greatness. It gives us a sense of control over our lives. We choose to become servants to the Gods--we are not forced to do so, even though it might be destined we become servants; this makes all the difference in our joy of the execution of the Divine will. If we felt pressured and ordered into it, we would not find the same joy in it as we do now we are free to choice our path--or believe we are free to choose our path. Personally, I believe in accidents, and I think that sometimes, the universe drops the ball on us. Sometimes, things go wrong. We are then put at the mercy of the Gods to fix the ramifications of whatever pothole our lives hit, and this is why we built kharis with Them. My life may have been mapped out in advance, but I need help along the way to get to the destination the Gods have in store for me. This is a large reason why I serve, and while this way of thinking is not for everyone, it's my (free) will to do so--and I do so gladly.

• Sunday, October 28, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture Aristotle Democritus Epicurus Hellenismos 101 kharis Leucippus Lucretius Moirae personal Stoicism

Mysterious structure discovered during excavations at the Laona tumulus in Cyprus

Cyprus Department of Antiquities, Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works announces the completion of the University of Cyprus annual field campaign on the tumulus of Laona at Palaepaphos which took place in June and September and lasted four weeks.  The Laona tumulus is monumental in size (100m. x 60m. x 10m.) and as such remains unique in Cyprus to this day. The man-made mound was identified for the first time in 2012 in the context of the Palaepaphos Urban Landscape project carried out by Professor Maria Iacovou of the Department of History and Archaeology since 2006.

The low hillock of Laona, on which the tumulus was raised, lies at a distance of one kilometer to the east of the sanctuary of Aphrodite from where it is clearly visible. At the beginning of the 5th century BC, the royal dynasty of the city-state of Ancient Paphos implemented an ambitious building programme on the plateau of Hadjiabdoulla, where a royal residence and an extensive economic complex were constructed. At the same time, 70m north of the Hadjiabdoulla citadel, they had a monumental rampart built on Laona. Over 65 m. of the rampart have now been revealed on the east side of the hill. This impressive defensive project of the Cypro-Classical period was buried under 13.700 cubic meters of marl and red soil, which had been transported for the construction of the tumulus. The Laona fortress was, therefore, well preserved under the tumulus; its NE corner survives to a height of six meters, and this makes it one of the most significant monuments of the “Age of the Cypriot Kingdoms”.

The ceramic evidence suggests that the construction of the mound dates to the third century BC. Since 2013, the excavations are concentrated in the SE quarter (FIG.1). About 12m. south of the summit, which rises to 114 above sea level, the UC team found at a depth of over six meters a small square (4mx4m) monument. Although its east wall stands to a height of 3,5m., the building was already half destroyed when the mound was constructed. It has a foundation ledge made of unworked stones and red clay. However, there is no relation between the external and internal building plan of the monument; the only part that would have been visible above ground are the external walls made of worked blocks.

The completion of the investigation has established that this peculiar monument was not made for internal use. It contained no objects and no burial chamber. The stone walls formed a shell around a solid homogeneous filling made of worked marl. The preparation of the marl must have taken place in a long channel cut to the east, which communicates with the center of the foundation ledge.

The mystery of the absence of the west wall was solved when the research team identified on the south section of the mound that had covered the building a man-made cutting terminating where the west wall was meant to be. The cutting was subsequently “mended” with a different type of soil. The west wall was thoroughly destroyed down to its foundation base, which rests on bedrock. There is little doubt that this was the work of ancient tomb robbers. They expected to loot a burial chamber but, apparently, they had relied on the untrustworthy information or assumption.  Maybe this was the main role of the small building: to divert attention away from the position of the burial chamber. Looted or not, the burial chamber or the cenotaph, in the name of which the tumulus of Laona was raised, continuous to evade ditection.

The Department of Antiquities of Cyprus has reburied the foundation ledge on the east side and has installed a protective cover over the monument as a temporary preservation measure against weather conditions. The excavations on Laona will be resumed in the summer of 2019; the goal will be the north and north-west contour of the Cypro-Classical rampart.

More images here.

• Saturday, October 27, 2018
  Aphrodite archeology current affairs cyprus modern Greece

Excavation of Lord Elgin’s shipwrecke yields more passenger items

More underwater news! Underwater exploration this September of the historic wreck of “Mentor”, a brig which belonged to Lord Elgin and sank off Kythira Island in 1802 carrying antiquities of the Acropolis, revealed more information about the brig’s construction, Greece’s Ministry of Culture said on Tuesday, according to ANA.

The excavation was carried out by the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and archaeologist Dimitris Kourkoumelis. The Ministry of Culture noted,

"The Mentor, which belonged to Lord Elgin, sank during a storm in the St. Nicholas cove in southeastern Kythira in 1802, while transporting part of the antiquities Lord Elgin’s team had removed from the Parthenon, the Acropolis and other Athens monuments."

The underwater exploration took place from September 7 to 23, the ministry explained, and focused on the area of the stern, to determine how much of it survives. But in the 2 x 2 m trench the team dug it did not find parts of the stern or other significant objects. Most appeared to be items belonging to passengers: glass vials, buttons from clothing, a bronze furniture knob, lead bullets, sections of ropes and other small objects.

Another trench, along the well-preserved keel of the ship, revealed new data on the two-mast ship's construction. Participating archaeologist Marine Jaouen of the Departement des Recherches Archeologiques Subaquatiques et Sous-Marines of the French Culture Ministry, an expert on ships and shipping of this era, helped explain the way the ship was built, apparently in America, the Greek ministry added.

The excavation and research team also included several archaeologists and staff from the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens. Support for the excavation came form Peter Maneas, Stathis Trifyllis and Als, an urban nonprofit company.

For many more images, go here.

• Friday, October 26, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs

World’s oldest intact shipwreck found in Black Sea

An ancient Hellenic trading ship dating back more than 2,400 years has been found virtually intact at the bottom of the Black Sea, the world’s oldest known shipwreck, researchers said on Tuesday. The vessel is one of more than 60 shipwrecks identified by the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project including Roman ships and a 17th-century Cossack raiding fleet.

During the three-year project, researchers used specialist remote deep-water camera systems previously used in offshore oil and gas exploration to map the sea floor.

"A small piece of the vessel has been carbon dated and it is confirmed as the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind."

The ship, which is lying on its side with its mast and rudders intact, was dated back to 400 BC — a time when the Black Sea was a trading hub filled with Hellenic colonies. The team said the vessel, previously only seen in an intact state on the side of ancient Greek pottery, was found at a depth of more than 2,000 meters (6,500 feet). The water at that depth is oxygen-free, meaning that organic material can be preserved for thousands of years. Professor Jon Adams from the University of Southampton in southern England, the project’s main investigator, said:

"A ship, surviving intact, from the Classical world, lying in over two kilometers of water, is something I would never have believed possible. This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world,"

Helen Farr, a project team member, said:

"We have bits of shipwreck which are earlier but this one really looks intact. The project as a whole was actually looking at sea level change and the flooding of the Black Sea region… and the shipwrecks are a happy by-product of that."

• Thursday, October 25, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs

PAT ritual announcement: The Apatouria

The Apatouria was a paternity festival. The first day was celebrated with a communal feast within the brotherhood, the second day sacrifice were made to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria, and the third day young boys admitted to their father's brotherhood. We don't have these kinships anymore and we won't be celebrating all days of the festival because of it. What we do want to do is sacrifice to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria in gratitude of the kinship we have found in Hellenismos and Elaion. Will you join us on 25th of October at the usual 10 AM EDT?

The Apaturia (Ἀπατούρια) was an ancient Hellenic festival held annually by all the Ionian towns, except Ephesus and Colophon. In Athens, the Apatouria was the central element in the ritual calendar of the phratries, the kinship organizations crucial for determining Athenian citizenship. The three-day festival occurred in the autumn in the month Pyanepsion and was celebrated at the separate phratry shrines throughout Attica.

On the first day of the festival, called Dorpia or Dorpeia (Δορπεία), banquets were held towards evening at the meeting-place of the phratries or in the private houses of members.

On the second, Anarrhysis (from ἀναρρύειν, 'to draw back the victim's head'), a sacrifice of oxen was offered at the public cost to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria.

On the third day, Kureōtis (κουρεῶτις), children born since the last festival were presented by their fathers or guardians to the assembled phratores, and, after an oath had been taken as to their legitimacy and the sacrifice of a goat or a sheep, their names were inscribed in the register. The name κουρεῶτις is derived either from κοῦρος, 'young man', i.e., the day of the young, or less probably from κείρω, 'to shear', because on this occasion young people cut their hair and offered it to the gods. The children who entered puberty also made offerings of wine to Herakles. On this day also it was the custom for boys still at school to declaim pieces of poetry, and to receive prizes.

Ancient scholarship links the Apatouria to the myth of the ritual combat between the Athenian Melanthos (the 'dark one') and the Boiotian Xanthos (the 'fair one') for the kingship of Attica, which Melanthos won through a trick (apate). Although some modern scholars have therefore seen a connection to the ephebes and to rites of passage involving social inversion, the rituals of the festival have no apparent connection to the narrative of the myth, and most modern scholars now link the Apatouria to the control, maintenance, and affirmation of kinship and of membership in society at every level.

Will you join us for this event? The ritual can be found here, the community page here.

• Wednesday, October 24, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture Apatouria Athena Athena Phratria current events Elaion festivals PAT Zeus Zeus Phratrios

Piece of olive tree found on Thirasia changes Santorini volcano explosion date

The dating of a piece of olive tree found on Thirasia will move the dating of the eruption of Santorini’s volcano a few decades later than current estimates, the Ministry of Culture and Sports said on Friday.

The wood was found in the area “Kimissi Thirassias”, the prehistoric settlement which lies on a hillside of the island once connected to Thira, or Santorini, at least up to the Middle Bronze Age, before the volcano exploded.

The settlement is on top of a hill on the southern side of Thirasia, and on the edge of the caldera that existed before the volcano explosion, that is variously dated from 1627 BC to 1600 BC. The wood belongs to the last stratigraphic phase before the explosion, the ministry said.

The University of Arizona at Tucson team that tested the wood show that “the wood dates absolutely to the early 16th century BC, therefore places the Minoan-era blast some decades after the date supported until now.”

In recent years, excavations had revealed a large elliptical-shaped building and smaller constructions “ingenuously built into the volcanic rock face,” the ministry’s statement said. Excavations this year focused in an area where research had shown possible architectural remains squeezed between layers of the explosion levels of the volcano. “From the start of the excavation, lying in the ash and pumice layers were found very strong walls, built carefully and in straight lines, one of which was nearly seven meters long,” the ministry said.

The most important excavation area found so far goes down to a depth of two meters, to a platform running along the whole length of the south wall, raising new possibilities about the use of the space in the bronze age.

The large walls and numerous Middle Cycladic pottery found in undisturbed layers indicate a dating of about 2000 to 1700 BC and may incorporate earlier, Protocycladic strong constructions, the ministry said, adding that it is still early to figure out whether the walls were for defence or surrounded housing.

Dating was further clarified this year, bringing the ranges of dates of Thirasia on par with the corresponding Aegean Island communities, both on Santorini (the Akrotiri site), as well as Ios (Skarkos) and Keros (Daskalio).

The excavation is carried out by the Ionian and Cretan Universities, the Cyclades Ephorate of Antiquities, an international research team, the city of Thera, the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) and the General Secretariat for Aegean and Island Policy.

• Tuesday, October 23, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology Atlantis current affairs

German citizen returns stolen Ancient Hellenic mosaics

The Greek Embassy in Berlin received an unexpected and heavy parcel a few weeks ago, the sender was a German citizen. On opening the suspicious parcel, authorities and experts were met with a surprise, three fragments of ancient Hellenic mosaics stolen from Greece decades ago, as a note clarified.

Two of the fragments were removed from the island of Delos in the Cyclades and the other one had been extracted from the Hadrian Liberality in Athens back in the 1960’s. According to a first examination by pharmacologists the two mosaics from Delos, had most likely been detached from the floor of a Hellenistic house dating back to 323 – 31 BC and the pieces are measured between 7 x 8 cm. Meanwhile, the mosaic from Athens, a 10 x 9 cm piece has been removed from the floor of the four-story building which dates back to back to the fifth century AD.

All three mosaics were sent back to Greece on 10 October and were handed to the Antiquities Departments in Cyclades and Athens respectfully.

• Monday, October 22, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology Athens current affairs Delos modern Greece

Random Aelian

Claudius Aelianus (Κλαύδιος Αἰλιανός), commonly called Aelian, was born at Praeneste around 175 AD. He was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who spoke Greek so perfectly that he was called "honey-tongued" (meliglossos). He preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself. "On the Nature of Animals" (Περὶ Ζῴων Ἰδιότητος) is a collection of seventeen books. Aelian has written some really weird things. One of the strangest is 4.8, the groom and the mare, or the groom who fell in love with the mare. I think about this passage sometimes and I ponder...

"Eudemus records how a groom fell in love with a young mare, the finest of the herd, as it might have Mare been a beautiful girl, the loveliest of all thereabouts. 

And at first he restrained himself, but finally dared to consummate a strange union. Now the mare had a foal, and a fine one, and when it saw what was happening it was pained, just as though its mother were being tyrannically treated by her master, and it leaped upon the man and killed him. 

And it even went so far as to watch where he was buried, went to the place, dug up the corpse, and outraged it by inflicting every kind of injury."

• Sunday, October 21, 2018
  Aelian ancient Hellenic culture Roman

Ancient Palaestra discovered in Greece’s Eretria

A new public building that dates back to the 4th century BC was discovered in the archaeological site of Eretria, in Greece’s Evia island.

The Swiss archaeological school of Greece conducted the research under the supervision of Evia’s Ephorate of Antiquities and its head, Angeliki Simosi.

The site was first revealed in 1917 by the Greek archaeologist Constantine Kourouniotis, but it took 101 years for the first efforts to start in order to reveal the building. It is one of the very few palaestras that have been discovered, something that gives valuable information to the scientists about the ancient Greek’s physical education in the area.

A sanctuary dedicated to goddess Eileithyia was also found attached to the north-western part of the palaestra. Eileithyia was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery.

Back in 1917, Kourouniotis had discovered in the same area a water well with around one hundred pottery cups dating to the 3rd century B.C.

• Saturday, October 20, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs Eileithyia Kourotrophoi Kourotrophos

PAT ritual announcement: Sacrifice to the Heroines

Will you be joining us at 10 AM EDT on 23 October to celebrate the female heroes that we have so plentifully in our religion?

The ancient Erkhians honoured the Heroines twice a year, once on the 19th of Metageitnion, and once on the 14th of Pyanepsion. Certain heroines--like Basile--were worshipped separately from the group as well, most likely because they were local heroines instead of universally accepted heroines like Atalanta, who hunted the Calydonian boar, slew Centaurs, and defeated Peleus in wrestling, or Kallisto, who was an Arcadian princess and hunting companion of the Goddess Artemis. The Heroines received a white sheep in sacrifice, of which the meat was partly sacrificed and partly eaten by those who came out to sacrifice. The skin of the animal went towards the priestess.

Heroes and heroines have a special place in Hellenismos, as they had in ancient Hellas. These were humans--most with at least a part divine heritage--who were considered so brave, so skillful, so extraordinary in their lifetime that they became revered. Some were priests or priestesses of a temple, some excelled in battle, others were skilled healers or good rulers. Once they passed to the realm of Hades, their names were remembered at least once a year on a special occasion, because the ancient Hellenes believed that if the name and deeds of a person were remembered, they would live forever and potentially look out for those they had looked out for before.

Archaeological evidence suggests that hero worship was closer to Khthonic sacrifices in execution than Ouranic ones the further back in time you go; especially in the archaic period, it seems that hero worship consisted of destructive sacrifices--sometimes in the form of a holókaustos where the entire animal was burned, sometimes in a sacrifice where only a part (most often 'a ninth' of the animal) was burned and the rest remained on the altar for the heroes to eat from until gone. The sacrifices were generally burned in an offering pit known as a bothros. The food offered to heroes consisted of meat, blood, and 'food eaten by men' like grains, fruits and other every-day dishes. These were usually offered to the heroes on a table--known as a trapeza--and the heroes were sometimes offered chairs or a bench to sit on. As time went on, the living began to eat part of the meal laid out for the heroes, joining them in celebration.

You can find the ritual here, and join our community page here. We have added some of the other main Hellenic Goddesses to the ritual as well. Feel free to add more of our Goddesses and heroines to your own ritual, especially if you feel close to Them! This ritual will be a celebration of the feminine power in our religion! 

• Friday, October 19, 2018
  current affairs Elaion Erkhia festivals Heroes PAT

A woman to know: Timoclea of Thebes

Timoclea or Timocleia of Thebes is a woman whose story is told by Plutarch in his Life of Alexander, and at greater length in his Mulierum virtutes ("Virtues of Women"). According to Plutarch's biography of Alexander the Great, when his forces took Thebes during Alexander's Balkan campaign of 335 BC, Thracian forces pillaged the city, and a captain of the Thracian forces raped Timocleia. After raping her, the captain asked if she knew of any hidden money. She told him that she did, and led him into her garden, and told him there was money hidden in her well. When the Thracian captain stooped to look into the well, Timoclea pushed him into the well, and then hurled heavy stones into the well until the captain was dead. Timoclea was seized by the Thracian soldiers and brought before Alexander the Great. She comported herself with great dignity and told Alexander that her brother was Theagenes, last commander of the Theban Sacred Band, who died "for the liberty of Hrllas" at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, defeated by Alexander's father Philip of Macedon. Alexander was so impressed with Timocleia that he ordered her and her children released and she was not punished for killing the Thracian captain.

Rejected Princesses recently turned the story of Timoclea int a comic, which is quite impressive. Creator Jason Porath used to work at DreamWorks Animation but now gives a voice to women in history who are not getting a Disney deal, including Timoclea.

• Thursday, October 18, 2018
  a woman to know series ancient Hellenic culture bloggers I admire Thebes Timoclea

Five new ancient shipwrecks found near Greece’s Fourni Islands

A Greek-U.S. team of marine archaeologists has located three more ancient shipwrecks with pottery cargoes, including 1,900-year-old branded designer lamps, and two from much later times in a rich graveyard of ships in the eastern Aegean Sea, a project official said Tuesday.

All were found last month off Fourni island and its surrounding islets that lie at the junction of two main ancient shipping routes, in notoriously treacherous waters between the larger islands of Ikaria and Samos.

The older wrecks date to the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C. and the 5th-6th centuries A.D., while the more recent ones are from the 18th or 19th century, said archaeologist George Koutsouflakis, joint leader of the project.
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He said they were discovered at depths of 10-40 meters (33-130 feet). Because that is relatively shallow, the wrecks bore traces of looting by illegal antiquities hunters or of damage by fishing nets.
The five new finds, all trading ships, raise to 58 the total number of ancient, mediaeval and more recent wrecks located since 2015 around the lobster-shaped Fourni complex. Two of its 13 islets bear the ominous name Anthropofas, or Man-eater, in reference to the seamen who drowned off them.

The project started in 2015, in cooperation with the U.S.-based RPM Nautical Foundation, a non-profit organization involved in several Mediterranean underwater projects. Archaeologists received significant help from local fishermen, who provided information on wreck sites.

Apart from the cargoes of amphorae — jars that contained wine, oil and foodstuffs — found in September, divers also recovered a group of 2nd-century A.D. terracotta lamps, incised with the names of the Corinthian artisans who made them, Octavius and Lucius.

They may have been slave workers who later gained their freedom and set up their own pottery workshops, a Greek Culture Ministry statement said.

The project is planned to continue over the next five years, the ministry said.

• Wednesday, October 17, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs

PAT ritual announcements: The Thesmophoria

The Thesmophoria was another harvest festival tied to the Eleusinian Mysteries and the mythology surrounding Demeter and Persephone. This is another female only festival. Will you join us for it from 20-22 October, all at 10 am EDT?

Two days after the Stenia, the three day festival of Thesmophoria took place. There was a male and female encampment at the Thesmophorian and the division was clearly set; no men were allowed in the female encampment, and no women in the male encampment. Sex was not allowed. From what I have been able to gather, the three days in the female encampment followed a strict regime.

On the first day, called Anodos ('ascent') and Kathodos ('descent'), the women sacrificed the rotting piglets to Demeter and Persephone. The remains were mixed with seeds and would be ploughed into the earth after the festival to assure a good harvest. The piglets were fertility symbols, but also related to the myth of Demeter, Persephone and Hades, because it is said that, when Hades opened a chasm to swallow up Persephone, a swineherd called Eubouleus was grazing his pigs and they were swallowed up in the chasm as well. The women ate on this day, but only food which would not upset Demeter. Pomegranate fruits were off the menu.

The second day was called Nēsteia ('feast of lamentation'). On this day, the women did not eat. They recreated the time before Demeter taught humankind to cultivate the fields. It was a dark time, a time of hunger and pain. At the same time, this day was also used to remember the time when Demeter sought her daughter and neglected her duties as a harvest Goddess. This had also been a time of great hunger.

The third day, Kalligeneia ('she who is of beautiful birth'), was a happy one. The women prayed to Demeter and Persephone for fertility for themselves, their loved ones and the earth. They celebrated the magic of new life, fertility and the kindness of the Gods.

Needless to say, this festival was huge. All free women, except for maidens, were allowed to participate. While we can never be entirely sure why this is, I dare to wager an educated guess. The Stenia and Thesmophoria were festivals in honour of Demeter Thesmophoros, the law-giver. She was seen as the foundation of law and society: agriculture allowed settlements to thrive, allowed societies to be built, and humanity to evolve into what it was now. In short, Demeter was at the root of modern life. A huge part of that modern life was the institution of marriage, which was far more important then as it was now.

Demeter is, perhaps, ancient Hellas' most famous mother, and marriage allowed for the continuation of the family line. Children born out of wedlock were frowned upon, and as such, maidens were excluded from a festival intended to raise fertility in the ground and the women who took part in it. As women married young, maidens were often teens, and they would represent Persephone more than Demeter--and since the Stenia and Thesmophoria commemorated Demeter's separation from her daughter, the inclusion of maidens was most likely discouraged because of that fact.

The Stenia and especially the Thesmophoria were festivals intended for mothers, for those who sought to bear children. They acknowledge the powerful position of women in a patriarchal society. It was because of that that women could say no to their husbands when it came to sex, and why they all left their marital homes. Many women rarely left their homes, and never overnight. To do so for not one but two nights was huge. These were powerful festivals for women because they celebrated their fertility: the one thing they were always respected and honoured for by the men in their lives.

We don't know what happened for the men on these days (sorry), so this is another female only festival. You can find the rituals here and the Facebook page here.

• Tuesday, October 16, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture Demeter Elaion festivals Mythology 101 PAT Persephone Thesmophoria

Travelers can now publish their sketches and drawings of Greece online

Greek-born architect Elias Messinas, who has been travelling and sketching through Greece since the 1980s, invites travelers, architects and artists, to share their sketches and drawings of Greece on his unique new site, EliasBlue.

"For centuries, travelers have explored the beauties of Greece and have recorded them on paper, bringing home unique images of towns, landscapes and people. In the age of smart phones and social media, Greece is still a source of inspiration to architects and artists who choose sketch in their travels. Here we host and share sketches and drawings from Greece, and invite you to explore Greece in a different way. Then, share your sketches online."
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What is EliasBlue? It is the color that Elias uses in his sketches, inspired by the Greek sky and Aegean sea. The name was coined by Elias' peers at the Yale School of Architecture to express the unique blue color that Elias painted the walls of the Yale Art & Architecture front gallery for his travel sketchbooks exhibition in 1992. The color can be technically defined as Pantone 293 or Pantone Uncoated 293U. 

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"I use the color to enhance my sketches when I travel in Greece. This color symbolizes the unique sky of Greece, and what Greece is about: inspiration, relaxation and spiritual renewal."

• Monday, October 15, 2018
  bloggers I admire current affairs modern Greece

Solon's prayer to the Gods

Those who visit this blog on a regular basis know that I'm a fan of Solon and his reformations of the political landscape of Athens in the sixth century BC. Solon (Σόλων) was an Athenian statesman and lawmaker who lived from 638 BC to 558 BC. He spent most of his adult life trying to legislate against political, economic, and moral decline in archaic Athens. His ideologies are often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy. Solon's reforms created a system where the power was in the hands of the people, because instead of leaving justice to be administered by the aristocracy. He was also a poet and some of his work has miraculously survived. Today, I would like to share one of the fragments of his work that have survived.

O ye fair children of Memory and Olympian Zeus,
ye Muses of Pieria, hear me as I pray.
Grant, that I may be blessed with prosperity by the Gods,
and that among all men I may ever enjoy fair fame ;
that I may be as a sweet savor to my friends and
a bitterness in the mouth of my enemies,
by the ones respected, by the others feared. 

Wealth I do indeed desire, but ill-gotten wealth I will not have :
punishment therefor surely cometh with time.
Wealth which the gods give, cometh to a man as an abiding possession,
solid from the lowest foundation to the top;
but that which is sought with presumptuous disregard of right and wrong,
cometh not in the due course of nature. 

It yields to the persuasion of dishonest practices and followed against its will ;
and soon there is joined thereto blind folly which leadeth to destruction.
Like fire, it taketh its beginning from small things;
but, though insignificant at first, it endeth in ruin. 

For the works of unprincipled men do not continue long.
Zeus watcheth all things to the end.
Often, in the spring season, a
wind riseth suddenly and disperseth the clouds,
and, stirring up the depths of the surging, barren sea,
and laying waste the fair works of the husbandman
over the surface of the corn-bearing earth,
cometh to the lofty habitation of the gods in heaven
and bringeth the blue sky once more to view ;

the sun shineth forth in his beauty over the fertile earth,
and clouds are no longer to be seen.
Like such a sudden wind is the justice of Zeus.
He is not, like mortal men, quick to wrath for each offense ;
but no man who hath an evil heart ever escapeth his watchful eye,
and surely, in the end, his justice is made manifest.

One man payeth his penalty early, another late.
If the guilty man himself escape and the fate of the gods come not upon him
and overtake him not, it cometh full surely in aftertime :
the innocent pay for his offense —
his children or his children's children in later generations. 

[Fragment 13]

• Sunday, October 14, 2018
  hymns poetry blogging Solon

Santorini excavation brings to light impressive new findings

The ongoing research in Akrotiri on Santorini gradually has revealed a place of rituals, very close to Xesti 3, an important public building with rich fresco decorations on the southern boundary of the settlement.

According to archaeologists, the excavation finds are undoubtedly related to the perceptions and beliefs of the ancient society of Thera — as is the official name of Santorini — and generate essential questions about the ideology and possibly the religion of that prehistoric Aegean society.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Culture, during the ongoing excavations in Akrotiri, Thera, the findings have brought new valuable information to light. The project is being executed under the aegis of the Archaeological Society of Athens and the direction of Professor Emeritus Christos Doumas, with a sponsorship by the Kaspesky Lab.

In the interior of an important building, probably a public building known by the conventional name “House of the Thrania” — where the famous golden goat was found in 1999, now exhibited at the Museum of Prehistoric Thera — a clay urn was found, next to a set of horns. There are also several amphorae and small rectangular clay shrines.

After the gradual revelation and cleaning of a small shrine in the NW corner of the area, archaeologists found a marble protocycladic female figurine placed diagonally in the bottom of the clay shrine.

From the group of clay shrines found in the SE corner of the site, three were fully recovered containing oval clay vessels and two marble pre-Cycladic vessels, a marble vessel and an alabaster vessel.

Many more images of the finds here.

• Saturday, October 13, 2018
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs modern Greece