1.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens
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The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world, the first national archaeological museum in Greece was established by prime minister of Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias in Aigina in 1829. The initial name for the museum was The Central Museum and it was renamed to its current name in 1881 by Prime Minister of Greece Charilaos Trikoupis. In 1887 the important archaeologist Valerios Stais became the museums curator, during World War II the museum was closed and the antiquities were sealed in special protective boxes and buried, in order to avoid their destruction and looting. In 1945 exhibits were displayed under the direction of Christos Karouzos. The south wing of the houses the Epigraphic Museum with the richest collection of inscriptions in the world. The inscriptions museum expanded between 1953 and 1960 with the designs of Patroklos Karantinos. The museum has an imposing neo-classical design which was popular in Europe at the time and is in accordance with the classical style artifacts that it houses. The initial plan was conceived by the architect Ludwig Lange and it was modified by Panagis Kalkos who was the main architect, Armodios Vlachos. At the front of the museum there is a large neo-classic design garden which is decorated with sculptures, the building has undergone many expansions. These expansions were necessary to accommodate the growing collection of artifacts. The most recent refurbishment of the museum more than 1.5 years to complete. The Minoan frescoes rooms opened to the public in 2005, on May 2008 the Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis inaugurated the much anticipated collection of Egyptian antiquities and the collection of Eleni and Antonis Stathatos. Today, there is a discussion regarding the need to further expand the museum to adjacent areas. A new plan has made for a subterranean expansion at the front of the museum. The museums collections are organised in sections, The prehistoric collection displays objects from the Neolithic era, Early and Mid-Bronze age, objects classified as Cycladic and Mycenaean art. There are ceramic finds from various important Neolithic sites such as Dimini and Sesclo from middle Helladic ceramics from Boeotia, Attica, some objects from Heinrich Schliemann excavations in Troy are also on display. Cycladic collection features the famous marble figurines from the Aegean islands of Delos and Keros including the Lutist, of great interest are the two golden cups from Vafeio showing a scene of the capture of a bull
2.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
3.
Virgin
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Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. Like chastity, the concept of virginity has traditionally involved sexual abstinence, the concept of virginity usually involves moral or religious issues and can have consequences in terms of social status and in interpersonal relationships. Although virginity has social implications and had significant legal implications in some societies in the past, the term virgin originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern, and ethical concepts. The social implications of virginity still remain in societies. The word virgin comes via Old French virgine from the form of Latin virgo, genitive virgin-is. As in Latin, the English word is often used with wider reference, by relaxing the age. In this case, more mature women can be virgins, men can be virgins, and potential initiates into many fields can be colloquially termed virgins, for example, in the latter usage, virgin means uninitiated. The Latin word likely arose by analogy with a suit of lexemes based on vireo, meaning to be green, fresh or flourishing, mostly with botanic reference—in particular, virga meaning strip of wood. The first known use of virgin in English is found in a Middle English manuscript held at Trinity College, Cambridge of about 1200, martirs, and confessors, and uirgines maked faier bode inne to women. By about 1300, the word was expanded to also to Mary. These are three of the eighteen definitions of virgin from the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, most of the OED1 definitions, however, are similar. The German word for virgin is Jungfrau, Jungfrau literally means young woman, but is not used in this sense. Instead junge Frau can be used, the rather dated German word for a young woman, without implications regarding sexuality, is Fräulein. Fräulein was used in German as a title of respect, equivalent to current usage of Miss in English, Jungfrau is the word reserved specifically for sexual inexperience. As Frau means woman, it suggests a female referent, unlike English, German also has a specific word for a male virgin Jüngling. It is, however, dated too and rarely used, Jungfrau, with some masculine modifier, is more typical, as evidenced by the film, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, about a 40-year-old male virgin, titled in German, Jungfrau, männlich, sucht…. Note that the used for the starsign virgo also is Jungfrau. German also distinguishes between young women and girls, who are denoted by the word Mädchen, the English cognate maid was often used to imply virginity, especially in poetry - e. g. Maid Marian, the love interest of the legendary outlaw Robin Hood in English folklore
4.
Chryselephantine sculpture
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Chryselephantine sculpture is sculpture made with gold and ivory. Chryselephantine cult statues enjoyed high status in Ancient Greece, in some cases, glass paste, glass, and precious and semi-precious stones were used for detail such as eyes, jewellery, and weaponry. The origins of the technique are not known and it is, however, not clear whether the Greek chryselephantine tradition is connected with them. Chryselephantine sculpture became widespread during the Archaic period, later, Acrolithitic statues, with marble heads and extremities, and a wooden trunk either gilded or covered in drapery, were a comparable technique used for cult images. The technique was used for cult statues within temples, typically. Construction was modular so that some of the gold could be removed and melted for coin or bullion in times of financial hardship. For example, the figure of Nike held in the hand of Pheidias Athena Parthenos was made from solid gold with this very purpose in mind. Chryselephantine statues were not only visually striking, they displayed the wealth. The creation of such a statue involved skills in sculpture, carpentry, jewellery, once completed, the statues required constant maintenance. It is known that at Olympia, skilled personnel were employed to ensure the upkeep of the statue, in the second century BC, the prominent sculptor, Damophon of Messene was commissioned to make repairs on it. Due to the value of some of the materials used and the perishable nature of others, most chryselephantine statues were destroyed during antiquity. For example, of the statue of Athena Parthenos, only the hole that held its central wooden support survives today in the floor of her temple. The appearance of the statue is known from a number of miniature marble copies discovered in Athens. Pausanias also described Pheidias statue of Zeus at Olympia, here, some of the clay moulds for parts of Zeus garments made of glass or glass-paste have been discovered in the building known as the Workshop of Pheidias. They are the only finds directly associated with the sculptors most famous works. Few examples of sculpture have been found. The most prominent surviving examples are fragments of several burnt statues from the Archaic period, unfortunately, it is not known whom they depict, although they are assumed to represent deities. The term chryselephantine is also used for a style of sculpture fairly common in European 19th century art, especially Art Nouveau
5.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
6.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
7.
Athena
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Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is the goddess of wisdom, craft, and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena, Athena is known for her calm temperament, as she moves slowly to anger. She is noted to have fought for just reasons. Athena is portrayed as a companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her city, Athens. Veneration of Athena was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes, in her role as a protector of the city, many people throughout the Greek world worshipped Athena as Athena Polias. While the city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear the same name, Athena is associated with Athens, a plural name, because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood, the Athenai, in earliest times. Mycenae was the city where the Goddess was called Mykene, at Thebes she was called Thebe, and the city again a plural, Thebae. Similarly, at Athens she was called Athena, and the city Athenae, Athena had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. According to mythical lore, she competed with Poseidon and she won by creating the olive tree, the Athenians would accept her gift and name the city after her. In history, the citizens of Athens built a statue of Athena as a temple to the goddess, which had piercing eyes, a helmet on her head, attired with an aegis or cuirass, and an extremely long spear. It also had a shield with the head of the Gorgon on it. A large snake accompanied her and she held Nike, the goddess of victory, therefore, Mylonas believes that Athena was a Mycenaean creation. On the other hand, Nilsson claims that she was the goddess of the palace who protected the king, a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja is also found in Linear A Minoan, the final part being regarded as the Linear A Minoan equivalent of the Linear B Mycenaean di-u-ja or di-wi-ja. Divine Athena also was a weaver and the deity of crafts, whether her name is attested in Eteocretan or not will have to wait for decipherment of Linear A. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean she who knows divine things better than others. Thus for Plato her name was to be derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Plato also noted that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neith, and which was identified with Athena. Neith was the war goddess and huntress deity of the Egyptians since the ancient Pre-Dynastic period, in addition, ancient Greek myths reported that Athena had visited many mythological places such as Libyas Triton River in North Africa and the Phlegraean plain
8.
Phidias
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Phidias or Pheidias was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Phidias was the son of Charmides of Athens. The ancients believed that his masters were Hegias and Ageladas, Phidias is often credited as the main instigator of the Classical Greek sculptural design. Today, most critics and historians consider him one of the greatest of all ancient Greek sculptors, although no original works exist that can be attributed to Phidias with certainty, numerous Roman copies of varying degrees of fidelity are known to exist. Almost all classical Greek paintings and sculptures have been destroyed, and only Roman copies or notes of them exist, the ancient Romans frequently copied and further developed Greek art. In antiquity Phidias was celebrated for his statues in bronze and his chryselephantine works, in the Hippias Major, Plato claims that Phidias seldom, if ever, executed works in marble, though many of the sculptures of his times were executed in marble. Plutarch tells us that he superintended the works ordered by Pericles on the Acropolis. Ancient critics take a high view of the merits of Phidias. What they especially praise is the ethos or permanent moral level of his works as compared with those of the later so called pathetic school, demetrius calls his statues sublime, and at the same time precise. Of his life we know little apart from his works and his first commission created a group of national heroes with Miltiades as a central figure. Pericles used some of the money from the maritime League of Delos, to rebuild, inscriptions prove that the marble blocks intended for the pedimental statues of the Parthenon were not brought to Athens until 434 BC, which was probably after the death of Phidias. It is therefore possible that most of sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was the work of Phidias workshop including pupils of Phidias, such as Alcamenes, the Golden Ratio has been represented by the Greek letter φ, after Phidias, who is said to have employed it. The Golden Ratio is an irrational number approximating 1.6180 which has special mathematical properties, the golden spiral is also said to hold aesthetic values. The earliest of the works of Phidias were dedications in memory of Marathon, at Delphi he created a great group in bronze including the figures of Greek gods Apollo and Athena, several Attic heroes, and General Miltiades the Younger. On the Acropolis of Athens Phidias constructed a bronze statue of Athena, the Athena Promachos. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and warriors and the protector of Athens, at Pellene in Achaea, and at Plataea Phidias made two other statues of Athena, as well as a statue of the goddess Aphrodite in ivory and gold for the people of Elis. Both sculptures belong to about the middle of the 5th century BC, a number of replicas and works inspired by it, both ancient and modern, have been made. Phidias left Athens in about 438 BC, on completion of the Athena Parthenos, accused by a fellow worker of embezzlement, and unable to account for the amount of gold used in separate parts of the statue, he voluntarily underwent exile rather than face public humiliation
9.
Parthenon
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The Parthenon is a former temple, on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power and it was completed in 438 BC although decoration of the building continued until 432 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the zenith of the Doric order and its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and western civilization. The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a programme of restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially ruined structure. The Parthenon itself replaced a temple of Athena, which historians call the Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon. The temple is aligned to the Hyades. While a sacred building dedicated to the patron goddess, the Parthenon was actually used primarily as a treasury. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, in the final decade of the sixth century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s, on 26 September 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. From 1800 to 1803, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the sculptures with the alleged permission of the Ottoman Empire. These sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, since 1983, the Greek government has been committed to the return of the sculptures to Greece. The Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon states that this room was the western cella of the Parthenon, jamauri D. Christopher Pelling asserts that Athena Parthenos may have constituted a discrete cult of Athena, intimately connected with, but not identical to, that of Athena Polias. According to this theory, the name of the Parthenon means the temple of the virgin goddess and it has also been suggested that the name of the temple alludes to the maidens, whose supreme sacrifice guaranteed the safety of the city. Parthénos has also applied to the Virgin Mary, Parthénos Maria. The first instance in which Parthenon definitely refers to the building is found in the writings of the 4th century BC orator Demosthenes. In 5th-century building accounts, the structure is simply called ho naos, because the Parthenon was dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, it has sometimes been referred to as the Temple of Minerva, the Roman name for Athena, particularly during the 19th century
