1.
Thessaloniki
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Its nickname is η Συμπρωτεύουσα, literally the co-capital, a reference to its historical status as the Συμβασιλεύουσα or co-reigning city of the Eastern Roman Empire, alongside Constantinople. The city is renowned for its festivals, events and vibrant cultural life in general, Thessaloniki was the 2014 European Youth Capital. The city of Thessaloniki was founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, an important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire. It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1430, and passed from the Ottoman Empire to modern Greece on November 8,1912, the citys main university, Aristotle University, is the largest in Greece and the Balkans. Thessaloniki is a popular tourist destination in Greece, among street photographers, the center of Thessaloniki is also considered the most popular destination for street photography in Greece. All variations of the name derive from the original appellation in Ancient Greek, i. e. Θεσσαλονίκη. The alternative name Salonica derives from the variant form Σαλονίκη in colloquial Greek speech, in local speech, the citys name is typically pronounced with a dark and deep L characteristic of Macedonian Greek accent. The name often appears in writing in the abbreviated form Θεσ/νίκη, the city was founded around 315 BC by the King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and 26 other local villages. He named it after his wife Thessalonike, a half-sister of Alexander the Great, under the kingdom of Macedon the city retained its own autonomy and parliament and evolved to become the most important city in Macedon. After the fall of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC, the city later became the capital of one of the four Roman districts of Macedonia. Later it became the capital of all the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire because of the importance in the Balkan peninsula. At the time of the Roman Empire, about 50 A. D. Later, Paul wrote two letters to the new church at Thessaloniki, preserved in the Biblical canon as First and Second Thessalonians. Some scholars hold that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians is the first written book of the New Testament, in 306 AD, Thessaloniki acquired a patron saint, St. Demetrius, a native of Thessalonica whom Galerius put to death. A basilical church was first built in the 5th century AD dedicated to St. Demetrius, in 379, when the Roman Prefecture of Illyricum was divided between the East and West Roman Empires, Thessaloniki became the capital of the new Prefecture of Illyricum. In 390, Gothic troops under the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, led a massacre against the inhabitants of Thessalonica, by the time of the Fall of Rome in 476, Thessaloniki was the second-largest city of the Eastern Roman Empire. From the first years of the Byzantine Empire, Thessaloniki was considered the city in the Empire after Constantinople. With a population of 150,000 in the mid-12th century, the city held this status until its transfer to Venetian control in 1423. In the 14th century, the population exceeded 100,000 to 150,000
2.
Macedonia (Greece)
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Macedonia is a geographic and historical region of Greece in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region, dominated by mountains in the interior, Macedonia is part of Northern Greece, together with Thrace and sometimes Thessaly and Epirus. It incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great, the name Macedonia was later applied to identify various administrative areas in the Roman/Byzantine Empire with widely differing borders. Even before the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1830, it was identified as a Greek province, by the mid 19th century, the name was becoming consolidated informally, defining more of a distinct geographical, rather than political, region in the southern Balkans. At the end of the Ottoman Empire most of the known as Rumelia was divided by the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913. Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria each took control of portions of the Macedonian region, with Greece obtaining the largest portion, Central Macedonia is the most popular tourist destination in Greece with more than 3.6 million tourists in 2009. Macedonia lies at the crossroads of human development between the Aegean and the Balkans, the earliest signs of human habitation date back to the palaeolithic period, notably with the Petralona cave in which was found the oldest European humanoid, Archanthropus europaeus petraloniensis. In the Late Neolithic period, trade took place from quite distant regions, one of the most important changes was the start of copper working. According to Herodotus, the history of Macedonia began with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name, there they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges who would later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor and become known as Phrygians. Macedonia was named after the Makednoi, accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to have been in use before that. Herodotus claims that a branch of the Macedonians invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the second millennium B. C, upon reaching the Peloponnese the invaders were renamed Dorians, triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organized in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, the Macedonians claimed to be Dorian Greeks and there were many Ionians in the coastal regions. During the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the region came under Persian rule until the destruction of Xerxes at Plataea, many Macedonian cities were allied to the Spartans, but Athens maintained the colony of Amphipolis under her control for many years. The kingdom of Macedon, was reorganised by Philip II and achieved the union of Greek states by forming the League of Corinth. After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon, for a brief period a Macedonian republic called the Koinon of the Macedonians was established. It was divided into four administrative districts and that period ended in 148 BC, when Macedonia was fully annexed by the Romans. The northern boundary at that time ended at Lake Ohrid and Bylazora, strabo, writing in the first century AD places the border of Macedonia on that part at Lychnidos, Byzantine Achris and presently Ochrid. Therefore ancient Macedonia did not significantly extend beyond its current borders, the Acts of the Apostles records a vision in which the apostle Paul is said to have seen a man of Macedonia pleading with him, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us
3.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
4.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
7.
Demetrius of Thessaloniki
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Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki is a Christian martyr of the early 4th century AD. During the Middle Ages, he came to be revered as one of the most important Orthodox military saints and his feast day is 26 October for Eastern Orthodox Christians following the Gregorian calendar and 8 November for those following the Julian calendar. In the Roman Catholic church he is most commonly called Demetrios of Sermium, the spelling Demetrius is a romanization of the ancient Greek pronunciation, the Byzantine and Modern Greek pronunciation is romanized as Dimitrios or Demetrios. See Demetrios for more on the etymology of the name, in Russian, he is called Димитрий Солунский and was a patron saint of the Rurik dynasty from the late 11th century on. Izyaslav I of Kiev founded the first East Slavic monastery dedicated to this saint, the name Dimitry is in common use. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church reveres St. Demetrios on 26 October as Димитровден, the Romanian Orthodox Church revers St. Demetrios on 26 October as Sf. The Serbian Orthodox Church reveres St. Demetrios as Димитрије, having a feast of Mitrovdan on 8 November, the Macedonian Orthodox Church reveres St. Demetrios on 8 November as Митровден He is known among Albanian-speakers in Kosovo as Shmitri, and in Albania as Shën Dhimitri. He is known in Lebanon as Mar Dimitri or Mitri for short and he is known in the Coptic Church as St. Demetrios of Thessalonica. He is venerated in the Coptic Church on 8 November, the earliest written accounts of his life were compiled in the 9th century, although there are earlier images of him, and the 7th-century Miracles of Saint Demetrios collection. According to these accounts, Demetrios was born to pious Christian parents in Thessaloniki. His very large church in Thessaloniki, the Hagios Demetrios, dates from the mid-5th century, Thessaloniki remained a centre of his veneration, and he is the patron saint of the city. Hence later traditions about Demetrius regard him as a soldier in the Roman army, unsurprisingly, he was extremely popular in the Middle Ages. Some scholars believe that for four centuries after his death, St. Demetrios had no physical relics, what are still purported to be his remains subsequently appeared in Thessaloniki, but the local archbishop John, who compiled the first book of the Miracles ca. 610, was dismissive of their authenticity. These are now kept in Hagios Demetrios. According to believers, these relics were ascertained to be genuine after they started emitting a liquid and this gave the saint the epithet Myrovlētēs. This day is known as Demetrius Saturday, St. Demetrios was initially depicted in icons and mosaics as a young man in patterned robes with the distinctive tablion of the senatorial class across his chest. But an icon of the late 11th century in Saint Catherines Monastery on Mount Sinai shows him as before and this may be due to iconic depiction customs on how saints are depicted
8.
Central Macedonia
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Central Macedonia is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece, consisting of the central part of the geographical and historical region of Macedonia. With a population of almost 1.9 million, it is the second most populous in Greece after Attica, the region was established in the 1987 administrative reform. With the 2010 Kallikratis plan, its powers and authority were redefined and extended, along with East Macedonia and Thrace, it is supervised by the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace, based in Thessaloniki. The region is based at its capital city of Thessaloniki and is divided into seven units, Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres. These are further subdivided into 38 municipalities, although geographically part of central Macedonia, Mount Athos is not administratively part of the region, but an autonomous self-governing state under the sovereignity of Greece. Central Macedonia is Greeces most visited region and accounts for 18. 2% of the total tourist flow in the country, with 3.21 million tourists in 2008. In 2011, the GDP per capita of Central Macedonia was €14,400, marking a 9th place of the 13 regions of Greece, alexandria Aridaea Edessa Giannitsa Katerini Kilkis Koufalia Litochoro Naoussa Nea Kallikratia Nea Moudania Polygyros Polykastro Serres Thessaloniki Veria Official website
9.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
10.
World Heritage Sites
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
11.
Thermae
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In ancient Rome, thermae and balneae were facilities for bathing. Thermae usually refers to the large bath complexes, while balneae were smaller-scale facilities, public or private. Most Roman cities had at least one, if not many, such buildings, which were not only for bathing. Roman bath-houses were also provided for private villas, town houses and they were supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or more normally, by an aqueduct. The water would be heated by a log fire before being channelled into the hot bathing rooms, the design of baths is discussed by Vitruvius in De Architectura. Thermae, balneae, balineae, balneum and balineum may all be translated as bath or baths, thus Cicero terms the baths at the villa of his brother Quintus balnearia. Balneae and balineae, which according to Varro have no number, were the public baths. Pliny also, in the sentence, makes use of the neuter plural balnea for public. Writers, however, use these terms without distinction, thus the baths erected by Claudius Etruscus, the freedman of the Emperor Claudius, are styled by Statius balnea, and by Martial Etrusci thermulae. In an epigram by Martial—subice balneum thermis—the terms are not applied to the whole building, a public bath was built around three principal rooms, the caldarium, the tepidarium and the frigidarium. Some thermae also featured baths, the sudatorium, a moist steam bath, and the laconicum. By way of illustration, this article describe the layout of Pompeiis Forum Baths adjoining the forum. The references are to the floor plan pictured to the right, the whole building comprises a double set of baths, one for men and the other for women. It has six different entrances from the street, one of which gives admission to the womens set only. Five other entrances lead to the department, of which two, communicate directly with the furnaces, and the other three with the bathing apartments. These together formed the vestibule of the baths, in which the servants waited and this atrium was the exercise ground for the young men, or perhaps served as a promenade for visitors to the baths. Within this court the keeper of the baths, who exacted the quadrans paid by each visitor, was also stationed. In this court, advertisements for the theatre, or other announcements of general interest, were posted up, one of which, announcing a gladiatorial show, at the sides of the entrance were seats
12.
Oratory (worship)
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An oratory is a Christian room for prayer, from the Latin orare, to pray. In the Roman Catholic Church, an oratory is an other than a parish church, set aside by ecclesiastical authority for prayer. It is for all intents and purposes another word for what is called a chapel, except a few oratories are set up for the Divine Office and prayers. Previously, canon law distinguished several types of oratories, private, semi-public, the term is used for instance in the Rule of St Benedict for the private communal chapel inside monasteries. The distinctions between public, semi-public, and private have been eliminated in the 1983 Code of Canon Law in favor of new terminology. Oratory now means a place of worship for a group or community which could be opened to the public at the discretion of the groups superior. This definition corresponds with the oratory of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The private oratory of the 1917 Code corresponds very closely with the 1983 Codes chapel, Oratories seem to have found their origin in chapels built at the shrines of martyrs, for the faithful to assemble and pray on the spot. The oldest extant oratory is the Archiepiscopal Chapel in Ravenna, the term can also refer to the local house of the Oratorians, the congregation of priests founded by St Philip Neri in Rome, Italy in 1575. Saint Josephs Oratory is the name of a Roman Catholic basilica in Montreal, oratorio de San Felipe de Neri in Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. Media related to Oratories at Wikimedia Commons
13.
Basilica
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The Latin word basilica has three distinct applications in modern English. The word was used to describe an ancient Roman public building where courts were held, as well as serving other official. To a large extent these were the halls of ancient Roman life. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the main forum, later, the term came to refer specifically to a large and important Roman Catholic church that has been given special ceremonial rights by the Pope. Roman Catholic basilicas are Catholic pilgrimage sites, receiving tens of millions of visitors per year. In December 2009 the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City set a new record with 6.1 million pilgrims during Friday and Saturday for the anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Roman basilica was a public building where business or legal matters could be transacted. The first basilicas had no function at all. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking aisles, the oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was Censor. Other early examples include the basilica at Pompeii, probably the most splendid Roman basilica is the one begun for traditional purposes during the reign of the pagan emperor Maxentius and finished by Constantine I after 313 AD. In the 3rd century AD, the elite appeared less frequently in the forums. They now tended to dominate their cities from opulent palaces and country villas, rather than retreats from public life, however, these residences were the forum made private. Seated in the tribune of his basilica, the man would meet his dependent clientes early every morning. A private basilica excavated at Bulla Regia, in the House of the Hunt and its reception or audience hall is a long rectangular nave-like space, flanked by dependent rooms that mostly also open into one another, ending in a semi-circular apse, with matching transept spaces. Clustered columns emphasised the crossing of the two axes, the remains of a large subterranean Neopythagorean basilica dating from the 1st century AD were found near the Porta Maggiore in Rome in 1915. The ground-plan of Christian basilicas in the 4th century was similar to that of this Neopythagorean basilica, the usable model at hand, when Constantine wanted to memorialise his imperial piety, was the familiar conventional architecture of the basilicas. In, and often also in front of, the apse was a platform, where the altar was placed. Constantine built a basilica of this type in his complex at Trier, later very easily adopted for use as a church
14.
Ciborium (architecture)
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In ecclesiastical architecture, a ciborium is a canopy or covering supported by columns, freestanding in the sanctuary, that stands over and covers the altar in a basilica or other church. It may also be known by the general term of baldachin. Early ciboria had curtains hanging from rods between the columns, so that the altar could be concealed from the congregation at points in the liturgy, smaller examples may cover other objects in a church. In a very large church, a ciborium is a way of visually highlighting the altar. The altar and ciborium are often set upon a dais to raise it above the floor of the sanctuary, a ciborium is also a covered, chalice-shaped container for Eucharistic hosts. In Italian the word is used for the tabernacle on the altar. The ciborium arose in the context of a range of canopies. Some of these were temporary and portable, including those using poles and textiles, examples can be seen on many coins, the Missorium of Theodosius I, the Chronography of 354, and other Late Antique works. This structure, erected under Constantine the Great, may itself have been important in spreading the idea of ciboria over altars. Ciboria were placed over the shrines of martyrs, which then had built over them. They also served to shelter the altar from dust and the like from high ceilings that could rarely be reached. This is described as a fastigium in the earliest sources, but was probably a ciborium, like most major early examples it was of silver, whose weight is given, presumably meaning that decorated silver plaques were fixed to a wood or stone framework. No early examples in precious metal have survived, but many are recorded in important churches, the ciborium commissioned by Justinian the Great for Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and described by Paulus Silentarius is now lost. The roof had eight panels rising to the globe and cross, an example of this type is in mosaic in the apse of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, under a very large standing Virgin. It is placed in the church in order to represent concisely the crucifixion, burial and it similarly corresponds to the ark of the covenant of the Lord in which, it is written, is His Holy of Holies and His holy place. Next to it God commanded that two wrought Cherubim be placed on either side —for KIB is the ark, and OURIN is the effulgence, or the light, of God. The example by the Cosmati in the gallery is similar to another 12th-century Italian ciborium now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and that in the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari. By the Romanesque, gabled forms, as at SantAmbrogio, or ones with a top, as at the Euphrasian Basilica or St Marks
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Hexagon
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In geometry, a hexagon is a six sided polygon or 6-gon. The total of the angles of any hexagon is 720°. A regular hexagon has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as an equilateral triangle, t. A regular hexagon is defined as a hexagon that is both equilateral and equiangular and it is bicentric, meaning that it is both cyclic and tangential. The common length of the sides equals the radius of the circumscribed circle, all internal angles are 120 degrees. A regular hexagon has 6 rotational symmetries and 6 reflection symmetries, the longest diagonals of a regular hexagon, connecting diametrically opposite vertices, are twice the length of one side. Like squares and equilateral triangles, regular hexagons fit together without any gaps to tile the plane, the cells of a beehive honeycomb are hexagonal for this reason and because the shape makes efficient use of space and building materials. The Voronoi diagram of a triangular lattice is the honeycomb tessellation of hexagons. It is not usually considered a triambus, although it is equilateral, the maximal diameter, D is twice the maximal radius or circumradius, R, which equals the side length, t. The minimal diameter or the diameter of the circle, d, is twice the minimal radius or inradius. If a regular hexagon has successive vertices A, B, C, D, E, F, the regular hexagon has Dih6 symmetry, order 12. There are 3 dihedral subgroups, Dih3, Dih2, and Dih1, and 4 cyclic subgroups, Z6, Z3, Z2 and these symmetries express 9 distinct symmetries of a regular hexagon. John Conway labels these by a letter and group order, r12 is full symmetry, and a1 is no symmetry. These two forms are duals of each other and have half the order of the regular hexagon. The i4 forms are regular hexagons flattened or stretched along one symmetry direction and it can be seen as an elongated rhombus, while d2 and p2 can be seen as horizontally and vertically elongated kites. G2 hexagons, with sides parallel are also called hexagonal parallelogons. Each subgroup symmetry allows one or more degrees of freedom for irregular forms, only the g6 subgroup has no degrees of freedom but can seen as directed edges. Hexagons of symmetry g2, i4, and r12, as parallelogons can tessellate the Euclidean plane by translation, other hexagon shapes can tile the plane with different orientations
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Mosaic
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A mosaic is a piece of art or image made from the assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It is often used in art or as interior decoration. Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of different colors, some, especially floor mosaics, are made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called pebble mosaics. Others are made of other materials, mosaics have a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. Pebble mosaics were made in Tiryns in Mycenean Greece, mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onwards were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics. Mosaic fell out of fashion in the Renaissance, though artists like Raphael continued to practise the old technique, Roman and Byzantine influence led Jews to decorate 5th and 6th century synagogues in the Middle East with floor mosaics. Mosaic was widely used on buildings and palaces in early Islamic art, including Islams first great religious building, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Mosaic went out of fashion in the Islamic world after the 8th century, modern mosaics are made by professional artists, street artists, and as a popular craft. Many materials other than stone and ceramic tesserae may be employed, including shells, glass. The earliest known examples of made of different materials were found at a temple building in Abra, Mesopotamia. They consist of pieces of colored stones, shells and ivory, excavations at Susa and Chogha Zanbil show evidence of the first glazed tiles, dating from around 1500 BC. However, mosaic patterns were not used until the times of Sassanid Empire, mythological subjects, or scenes of hunting or other pursuits of the wealthy, were popular as the centrepieces of a larger geometric design, with strongly emphasized borders. Pliny the Elder mentions the artist Sosus of Pergamon by name, describing his mosaics of the left on a floor after a feast. Both of these themes were widely copied, most recorded names of Roman mosaic workers are Greek, suggesting they dominated high quality work across the empire, no doubt most ordinary craftsmen were slaves. Splendid mosaic floors are found in Roman villas across North Africa, in such as Carthage. The tiny tesserae allowed very fine detail, and an approach to the illusionism of painting, often small panels called emblemata were inserted into walls or as the highlights of larger floor-mosaics in coarser work. The normal technique was opus tessellatum, using larger tesserae, which was laid on site, there was a distinct native Italian style using black on a white background, which was no doubt cheaper than fully coloured work. In Rome, Nero and his architects used mosaics to cover surfaces of walls and ceilings in the Domus Aurea, built 64 AD
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Iconoclasm
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Iconoclasm is the destruction of religious icons and other images or monuments for religious or political motives. Over time, the word, usually in the form, has also come to refer to aggressive statements or actions against any well-established status quo. It is a frequent component of political or religious changes. The term does not generally encompass the destruction of images of a ruler after his death or overthrow. Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called an iconolater, in a Byzantine context, Iconoclasm may be carried out by people of a different religion, but is often the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. The Church Fathers identified Jews and Judaism with heresy and they saw deviations from orthodox Christianity and opposition to the veneration of images as heresies that were essentially Jewish in spirit. The degree of iconoclasm among Christian branches greatly varies, Islam, in general, tends to be more iconoclastic than Christianity, with Sunni Islam being more iconoclastic than Shia Islam. Akhenatens actions are described thusly, In rebellion against the old religion, public references to Akhenaten were destroyed soon after his death. Comparing the ancient Egyptians with the Israelites, Jan Assmann writes, For Egypt, in the eyes of the Israelites, the erection of images meant the destruction of divine presence, in the eyes of the Egyptians, this same effect was attained by the destruction of images. In Egypt, iconoclasm was the most terrible crime, in Israel. It is more probable that these traditions evolved under mutual influence. In this respect, Moses and Akhenaten became, after all, the period after the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian evidently saw a huge increase in the use of images, both in volume and quality, and a gathering aniconic reaction. In the Eastern Roman Empire, government-led iconoclasm began with Byzantine Emperor Leo III, the religious conflict created political and economic divisions in Byzantine society. It was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, non-Greek peoples of the Empire who had to frequently with raids from the new Muslim Empire. On the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople, and also the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces, within the Byzantine Empire the government had probably been adopting Christian images more frequently. One notable change came in 695, when Justinian IIs government added an image of Christ on the obverse of imperial gold coins. The change caused the Caliph Abd al-Malik to stop his earlier adoption of Byzantine coin types and he started a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only. As a result, individuals attacked statues and images, however, in most cases, civil authorities removed images in an orderly manner in the newly reformed Protestant cities and territories of Europe
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Slavs
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Slavs are the largest Indo-European ethno-linguistic group in Europe. They are native to Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Northeastern Europe, North Asia, Slavs speak Slavic languages of the Balto-Slavic language group. From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of Central, states with Slavic languages comprise over 50% of the territory of Europe, therefore it is the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe by land area. Present-day Slavic people are classified into West Slavs, East Slavs, there are an estimated 360 million Slavs worldwide. The Slavic autonym is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural *Slověne, the oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest the autonym as Slověne. The word slovo and the related slava and slukh originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew-, cognate with Ancient Greek κλῆς, whence comes the name Pericles, Latin clueo, some other theories have limited support. The English term slave eventually derives from the ethnonym Slav, Slavs were captured and enslaved by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD. The Slavs under name of the Antes and the Sclaveni make their first appearance in Byzantine records in the early 6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a name in the remote past. He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy, and that believe in one god. They lived in scattered housing, and constantly changed settlement, regarding warfare, they were mainly foot soldiers with small shields and battleaxes, lightly clothed, some entering battle naked with only their genitals covered. And they live a life, giving no heed to bodily comforts. Jordanes described the Sclaveni having swamps and forests for their cities, another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions a Daurentius that slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I. The Avars asked the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars, he declined and is reported as saying, Others do not conquer our land. The relationship between the Slavs and a called the Veneti east of the River Vistula in the Roman period is uncertain. The name may refer both to Balts and Slavs, perhaps some Slavs migrated with the movement of the Vandals to Iberia and north Africa. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in great numbers, the Byzantine records note that grass would not regrow in places where the Slavs had marched through, so great were their numbers
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Mosque
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A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. There are strict and detailed requirements in Sunni jurisprudence for a place of worship to be considered a mosque, many mosques have elaborate domes, minarets, and prayer halls, in varying styles of architecture. Mosques originated on the Arabian Peninsula, but are now found in all inhabited continents, the mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together for salat as well as a center for information, education, social welfare, and dispute settlement. The imam leads the congregation in prayer, the first mosque in the world is often considered to be the area around the Kaaba in Mecca now known as the Masjid al-Haram. Others regard the first mosque in history to be the Quba Mosque in present-day Medina since it was the first structure built by Muhammad upon his emigration from Mecca in 622. The Islamic Prophet Muhammad went on to another mosque in Medina. Built on the site of his home, Muhammad participated in the construction of the mosque himself and helped pioneer the concept of the mosque as the focal point of the Islamic city. The Masjid al-Nabawi introduced some of the still common in todays mosques, including the niche at the front of the prayer space known as the mihrab. The Masjid al-Nabawi was also constructed with a courtyard, a motif common among mosques built since then. Mosques had been built in Iraq and North Africa by the end of the 7th century, the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala is reportedly one of the oldest mosques in Iraq, although its present form – typical of Persian architecture – only goes back to the 11th century. The shrine, while operating as a mosque, remains one of the holiest sites for Shia Muslims, as it honors the death of the third Shia imam. The Mosque of Amr ibn al-As was reportedly the first mosque in Egypt, serving as a religious, like the Imam Husayn Shrine, though, nothing of its original structure remains. With the later Shia Fatimid Caliphate, mosques throughout Egypt evolved to include schools, hospitals and it was the first to incorporate a square minaret and includes naves akin to a basilica. Those features can also be found in Andalusian mosques, including the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, still, some elements of Visigothic architecture, like horseshoe arches, were infused into the mosque architecture of Spain and the Maghreb. The first mosque in East Asia was reportedly established in the 8th century in Xian, however, the Great Mosque of Xian, whose current building dates from the 18th century, does not replicate the features often associated with mosques elsewhere. Indeed, minarets were initially prohibited by the state, mosques in western China were more likely to incorporate elements, like domes and minarets, traditionally seen in mosques elsewhere. In turn, the Javanese style influenced the styles of mosques in Indonesias Austronesian neighbors—Malaysia, Brunei, Muslim empires were instrumental in the evolution and spread of mosques. Although mosques were first established in India during the 7th century, reflecting their Timurid origins, Mughal-style mosques included onion domes, pointed arches, and elaborate circular minarets, features common in the Persian and Central Asian styles
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Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917
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The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 destroyed two thirds of the city of Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, leaving more than 70,000 homeless. The fire burned for 32 hours and destroyed 9,500 houses within an extent of 1 square kilometer, half the Jewish population emigrated from the city as their livelihoods were gone. Rather than quickly rebuilding, the government commissioned the French architect Ernest Hébrard to design a new plan for the burned areas Thessaloniki. His designs are still evident in the city, most notably Aristotelous Square, Thessaloniki was one of the largest and most modern cities in Europe by Balkan standards at the time of the fire. By European standards, the planning was chaotic and the unhygienic conditions that prevailed in the poorer areas were described as unacceptable by the government in Athens. The citys harbour was one of the most important centres of trade in the region, in 1912 the city, along with the biggest part of Macedonia and Epirus, was incorporated in Greece. The population of the city was maintained, the larger part of the population were Sephardi Jews, followed by Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Roma. As soon as World War I began in 1914, Greece officially maintained neutrality, with authorization by the Venizelos government, Entente Forces had landed troops in Thessaloniki in 1915, in order to support their Serb allies in the Macedonian Front. After King Constantine abdicated in June 1917, Greece was reunified again, Thessaloniki soon became a transit center for Allied troops and supplies, and the city filled with thousands of French and British soldiers, numbering up to 100,000. The population of the city at the time is dubious, with sources claiming around 150,000. French navy official Dufour de la Thuillerie writes in his report that I saw Thessaloniki, due to lack of water and indifference, the initial fire was not put out. Eventually, an intense wind carried the fire to the neighboring houses, initially the fire followed two directions, to the Residency via the road of Agiou Dimitriou, and to the market via the Leontos Sofou road. The Residency was saved by its employees, who hurried to help, the wind strengthened and continued to spread the fire towards the center of the city. In the early morning of the day, the wind changed direction. At 12,00, the fire passed around the grounds of the church of Haghia Sophia without burning it, and continued eastward up to the road of Ethnikis Amynis, on the evening of that day the fire completely died out. More significantly, the city government did not have a fire brigade. The private firefighters were found to be untrained and equipped with old or no equipment, in the afternoon of the first day of the fire, a French detachment exploded three houses next to the Diikitirio to create a buffer zone or area of safety. However, the French detachment did not continue and ended up withdrawing, leaving the fire to continue on its destructive course, the next morning, two British fire engines and teams stopped the fire near the White Tower
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Watercolor painting
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Watercolor or watercolour, also aquarelle, a diminutive of the Latin for water, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork, the traditional and most common support—material to which the paint is applied—for watercolor paintings is paper. Other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum, or leather, fabric, wood, Watercolor paper is often made entirely or partially with cotton, which gives a good texture and minimizes distortion when wet. Watercolors are usually translucent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolors can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white, in East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, india, Ethiopia, and other countries have long watercolor painting traditions as well. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in mainland China, however, its continuous history as an art medium begins with the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, who painted several fine botanical, wildlife, an important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol as part of the Dürer Renaissance. Despite this early start, watercolors were used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons. Notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck, Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, however, botanical illustration and wildlife illustration perhaps form the oldest and most important traditions in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular during the Renaissance, both as hand-tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with such as John James Audubon. Several factors contributed to the spread of watercolor painting during the 18th century, Watercolor artists were commonly brought with the geological or archaeological expeditions, funded by the Society of Dilettanti, to document discoveries in the Mediterranean, Asia, and the New World. This example popularized watercolors as a form of personal tourist journal, the confluence of these cultural, engineering, scientific, tourist, and amateur interests culminated in the celebration and promotion of watercolor as a distinctly English national art. William Blake published several books of hand-tinted engraved poetry, provided illustrations to Dantes Inferno, from the late 18th century through the 19th century, the market for printed books and domestic art contributed substantially to the growth of the medium. Satirical broadsides by Thomas Rowlandson, many published by Rudolph Ackermann, were extremely popular. Among the important and highly talented contemporaries of Turner and Girtin, were John Varley, John Sell Cotman, Anthony Copley Fielding, Samuel Palmer, William Havell, the Swiss painter Louis Ducros was also widely known for his large format, romantic paintings in watercolor. These societies provided annual exhibitions and buyer referrals for many artists, in particular, the graceful, lapidary, and atmospheric watercolors by Richard Parkes Bonington created an international fad for watercolor painting, especially in England and France in the 1820s
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Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
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Artifact (archaeology)
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An artifact or artefact is. something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest. In archaeology, however, the word has become a term of particular nuance and is defined as, an object recovered by archaeological endeavor, which may have a cultural interest. However, modern archaeologists take care to distinguish material culture from ethnicity, examples include stone tools, pottery vessels, metal objects such as weapons, and items of personal adornment such as buttons, jewelry and clothing. Bones that show signs of modification are also examples. Natural objects, such as fire cracked rocks from a hearth or plant material used for food, are classified by archeologists as ecofacts rather than as artifacts, natural objects that humans have moved but not changed are called manuports. Examples include seashells moved inland, or rounded pebbles placed away from the action that made them. For instance, a bone removed from a carcass is a biofact. Similarly there can be debate over early stone objects that could be either crude artifacts or naturally occurring and it can be difficult to distinguish the differences between actual man-made lithic artifacts and geofacts – naturally occurring lithics that resemble man-made tools. It is possible to authenticate artifacts by examining the general attributed to man-made tools. Artifact Collection at the Royal Military College of Canada Museum in Kingston, Ontario
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Crypt
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A crypt is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics, originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a church, such as at the Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre, but were later located beneath chancel, naves and transepts as well. Occasionally churches were raised high to accommodate a crypt at the level, such as St Michaels Church in Hildesheim. Crypt developed as a form of the Latin vault as it was carried over into Late Latin. It also served as a vault for storing important and/or sacred items, crypta, however, is also the female form of crypto hidden. The earliest known origin of both is in the Ancient Greek κρύπτω, the first person singular indicative of the verb to conceal, first known in the early Christian period, in particular North Africa at Chlef and Djemila in Algeria, and Byzantium at Saint John Studio in Constantinople. Where Christian churches have been built over mithraea, the mithraeum has often been adapted to serve as a crypt, crypts were introduced into Frankish church building in the mid-8th century, as a feature of its Romanization. Their popularity then spread widely in western Europe under Charlemagne. Examples from this period are most common in the early medieval West, for example in Burgundy at Dijon, after the 10th century the early medieval requirements of a crypt faded, as church officials permitted relics to be held in the main level of the church. By the Gothic period crypts were built, however burial vaults continued to be constructed beneath churches. In more modern terms, a crypt is most often a stone chambered burial vault used to store the deceased, crypts are usually found in cemeteries and under public religious buildings, such as churches or cathedrals, but are also occasionally found beneath mausolea or chapels on personal estates. Wealthy or prestigious families will often have a family crypt or vault in which all members of the family are interred, many royal families, for example, have vast crypts containing the bodies of dozens of former royalty. In some localities an above ground crypt is more commonly called a mausoleum, there was a trend in the 19th century of building crypts on medium to large size family estates, usually subtly placed on the edge of the grounds or more commonly incorporated into the cellar. After a change of owner these are often blocked up and the house deeds will not allow this area to be re-developed, catacomb Mausoleum Tumulus Ossuary Tomb Cemetery Media related to Crypt at Wikimedia Commons Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Crypt
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Relic
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In religion, a relic usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Shamanism. Relic derives from the Latin reliquiae, meaning remains, and a form of the Latin verb relinquere, to leave behind, a reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In ancient Greece, a city or sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the sanctuary of the Leucippides at Sparta claimed to display the egg of Leda. The bones were not regarded as holding a power derived from the hero, with some exceptions. Miracles and healing were not regularly attributed to them, rather, their presence was meant to serve a tutelary function, the bones of Orestes and Theseus were supposed to have been stolen or removed from their original resting place and reburied. Plutarch says that the Athenians were likewise instructed by the oracle to locate, the body of the legendary Eurystheus was also supposed to protect Athens from enemy attack, and in Thebes, that of the prophet Amphiaraus, whose cult was oracular and healing. As with the relics of Theseus, the bones are sometimes described in sources as gigantic. On the basis of their size, it has been conjectured that such bones were those of prehistoric creatures. The head of the poet-prophet Orpheus was supposed to have transported to Lesbos. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias reported that the bones of Orpheus were kept in a stone vase displayed on a pillar near Dion, his place of death and these too were regarded as having oracular power, which might be accessed through dreaming in a ritual of incubation. The accidental exposure of the bones brought a disaster upon the town of Libretha, according to the Chronicon Paschale, the bones of the Persian Zoroaster were venerated, but the tradition of Zoroastrianism and its scriptures offer no support of this. In Hinduism, relics are less common than in other religions since the remains of most saints are cremated. The veneration of corporal relics may have originated with the movement or the appearance of Buddhism. In Buddhism, relics of the Buddha and various sages are venerated, after the Buddhas death, his remains were divided into eight portions. Afterward, these relics were enshrined in stupas wherever Buddhism was spread, some relics believed to be original remains of the body of the Buddha still survive, including the much-revered Sacred Relic of the tooth of the Buddha in Sri Lanka. A stupa is a building created specifically for the relics, many Buddhist temples have stupas and historically, the placement of relics in a stupa often became the initial structure around which the whole temple would be based. Today, many also hold the ashes or ringsel of prominent/respected Buddhists who were cremated
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki
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The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki is a museum in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece presenting the history of Sephardic Jews and Jewish life in Thessaloniki. It is also known as, Museum of Jewish Presence in Thessaloniki, Jewish History Museum, Greek, Κέντρο Ιστορικής Διαδρομής Εβραϊσμού Θεσσαλονίκης, the museum is being run by the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki. The Museum is located on Ag, mina 13 str. in a building built in 1904 by the Italian architect Vitaliano Poselli. The restoration of the building lasted from 1998 to 2003 and was funded by the Organisation for the Cultural Capital of Europe Thessaloniki 1997. It was inaugurated on May 13,2001 by Evangelos Venizelos, then the Minister of Culture and Andreas Sefiha and it was Sefiha who had the idea of the establishment of the Museum and started working for this in 1994. On the ground level are monumental stones and inscriptions that were found in the great Jewish necropolis that lay to the east of the city walls. Accompanying these stones are a series of showing the cemetery. Central to the first floor is a history of the Jewish presence in Thessaloniki from the 3rd century BCE until the Second World War. A separate exhibit focuses on the Shoah, as it affected the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, the majority of the community - some 49,000 persons - was systematically deported to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen where most of them perished. The Museum provides special educational programs for schools and this gallery shows part of the collection as this was displayed before the Museums establishment in year 2001. More than 4000 people visited the Museum from September 2009 until June 2010, mainly Jews from around the world, but also researchers who wanted to access the Museums archives and library
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Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki
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Agios Athanasios is a town and a former municipality in the Thessaloniki regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Chalkidona, in 2011 the population was 14,753. The municipal unit Agios Athanasios has an area of 155.34 km2, Agios Athanasios is a small town in the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki. It is situated 20 km west of Thessaloniki, on the old road from Thessaloniki to Athens. According to the population census 2011, the population of Agios Athanasios is 4,932. Agios Athanasios is the biggest refugee town in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki and it is built on the old national road that linked, in the past, Thessaloniki to the Western Macedonia and to the Southern Greece. It is founded by refugees from 25 villages of Eastern Thrace and 7 villages of Asia Minor, the refugees moved in Agios Athanasios from October 1922 till 1924. The fist refugees settled in the manoir Kavakli in October 1922, the first 25 families came from Kermeni in Eastern Thrace. Apart from the manoir Kavakli, there were also the manoirs Paliocopi, Tsalkato, Kouloupantza, around 1850, the tenant farmers built the small church of Saint George, which is the oldest building of the town. The first refugees were settled in the few poorly built houses, in the storing places, till the autumn of 1924 about 600 families, that is about 2,800 inhabitants, settled in. The first name of the town was Perintos, after the ancient town in the Eastern Thrace, in 1928 the town was given the name of Agios Athanasios. The people were farmers and stock breeders and they never forgot the customs of their homeland, today, Agios Athanasios is a modern, nicely developed town with three nursery schools, two primary schools, a junior high school, a high school and a vocational high school
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Arch of Galerius and Rotunda
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The Arch of Galerius or Kamara and the Rotunda are neighbouring early 4th-century monuments in the city of Thessaloniki, in the region of Central Macedonia in northern Greece. The 4th-century Roman Emperor Galerius commissioned these two structures as elements of an imperial precinct linked to his Thessaloniki palace, archeologists have found substantial remains of the palace to the southwest. These three monumental structures were connected by a road ran through the arch, which rose above the major east-west road of the city. At the crux of the axes of the city, the Arch of Galerius emphasized the power of the emperor. The arch was composed of a masonry core faced with marble sculptural panels celebrating a victory over the Sassanid Persians, about two-thirds the arch is preserved. The Rotunda was a circular structure with a masonry core that had an oculus like the Pantheon in Rome. It has gone through periods of use and modification as a polytheist temple, a Christian basilica, a Muslim mosque. A minaret is preserved from its use as a mosque, Arch of Galerius, stands on what is now Egnatia & Dimitrios Gounari Street. The arch was built in 298 to 299 AD and dedicated in 303 AD to celebrate the victory of the tetrarch Galerius over the Sassanid Persians and capture of their capital Ctesiphon in 298. The structure was a forming an triple arch that was built of a rubble masonry core faced first with brick. The central arched opening was 9.7 m wide and 12.5 m high, the central arch spanned the portion of the Via Egnatia that passed through the city as a Decumanus. A road connecting the Rotunda with the Palace complex passed through the arch along its long axis. Only the northwestern three of the eight pillars and parts of the cores of the arches above survive, i. e. the entire eastern side. Extensive consolidation with modern brick has been performed on the masonry cores to protect the monument. The two pillars flanking the arched passageway retain their sculpted marble slabs, which depict the wars of Galerius against the Persians in broadly panegyric terms. Understanding of the program of the arch is limited by the loss of the majority of the marble panels. Four vertically stacked registers of sculpted decoration were carved on each pillar, a label for the Tigris River indicates that there were likely labels on other representations as the builders deemed necessary. Artistic license was taken in the representations, for instance, the Caesar Galerius is shown in combat with the Sassanid Shah Narses in one of the panels
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Navarinou Square
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Navarinou Square is a square in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece. The square dates back to the Roman period of the city, the square is beside the Hippodromus Square, where the Massacre of Thessalonica took place during the reign of Theodosius I. Today Navarinou is a meeting place, mainly amongst the student population of the city
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Agias Sofias Square
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Agias Sofias Square is a square in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece. The square dates back to the Byzantine period of the city, at the time it was also called Skalia. During a fire in 1890, it was damaged but was restored under the supervision of Charles Diehl
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Byzantine Bath (Thessaloniki)
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The Byzantine Bath of the Upper Town in Thesaloniki is one of the few and best preserved of the Byzantine baths that have survived from the Byzantine period in Greece. It is located on the Theotokopoulou Street in the Upper Old Town of Thessaloniki, the baths date to the late 12th/early 13th century, and functioned continuously until 1940, when they shut down probably due to World War II and the German occupation of Greece. The Byzantine sources do not mention it, hence it is likely that it belonged to a monastery complex. In Ottoman times, it was known as Kule Hammam, i. e. bath of the citadel, the baths long use led to numerous alterations of the original structure over time. The original architecture follows the conventions of Roman baths. The original entrance in the leads to the rectangular frigidarium rooms. Then came two vaulted rooms and finally two caldarium rooms. The latter were square in shape and featured hypocausts below the floor, one was covered by a dome supported by an octagonal base with eight windows, the other had a domed ceiling. To the north of the baths was the cistern that provided it with water, in 1988, it was included among the Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Following four years of work, the bath was re-opened to the public as a museum. Wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki, Kapon Editions, ISBN 960-7254-47-3
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Church of the Acheiropoietos
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The Church of the Acheiropoietos is a 5th-century Byzantine church in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. It is located in the centre, at Agias Sofias street opposite Makedonomachon square. The Acheiropoietos has been dated from its bricks and mosaics to ca, 450–470, making it perhaps the earliest of the citys surviving churches. It was modified in the 7th and again in the 14th–15th centuries, known as the Panagia Theotokos in Byzantine times, it is dedicated to Mary. Its current name is first attested in 1320, presumably after a miraculous icon of Panagia Hodegetria that was housed there. Byzantine sources also indicate that the cult of the patron saint. The building is a basilica, some 28 m wide and 36.5 m long. Its eastern end is a vault, while on the western side a narthex, flanked by towers. The three aisles are separated by columns, while the two aisles have galleries above them. At the eastern end of the side aisle, a middle Byzantine chapel dedicated to St. Irene is attached. On the northwestern corner of the basilica, the leading to the galleries survives. Another small adjoining building on the side has been identified as the churchs baptistery. The modern roof is lower than the original, where the section above the nave was elevated to allow light in. Fine but damaged early 13th-century frescoes depicting the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste adorn the southern side, underneath the north aisles current pavement, three kayers floor mosaics from an earlier Roman-era bath have been uncovered. After Ottoman conquest of the city in 1430, the Acheiropoietos was the first church to be converted into a mosque, throughout the Ottoman period, it remained the citys principal mosque under the name Eski Camii. An inscription by Murad survives in the colonnade, on the eighth column from the east. Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. Age of spirituality, late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century,587,1979, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ISBN9780870991790
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Church of the Holy Apostles (Thessaloniki)
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The Church of the Holy Apostles is a 14th-century Byzantine church in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. The church is located at the start of Olympou Street, near the western medieval walls. As evidenced by remnants of a column to the south of the church, consequently it appears that the church was originally built as the katholikon of a monastery. Another inscription on the wall commemorates the same patriarch and his pupil. Recent analysis using carbon-14 however points to a date for the entire structure. The building belongs to the type of the composite, five-domed cross-in-square churches and it also features a narthex with a U-shaped peristoon, with small domes at each corner. There are also two small side-chapels to the east, the exterior walls feature rich decoration with a variety of brick-work patterns. The interior gives a very vertical impression, as the ratio of height to width of the central bay is 5 to 1. The interior decoration consists of mosaics on the upper levels. These are particularly important as some of the last examples of Byzantine mosaics, frescoes complete the decoration on the lower levels of the main church, but also on the narthex and one of the chapels. These too show influence from Constantinople, and were executed by a workshop from the imperial capital. They were probably carried out under the patronage of the hegumenos Paul, with the conquest of the city by the Ottoman Turks, in ca. 1520–1530 the church was converted into a mosque with the name Soğuksu Camii, as was their usual practice, the Ottomans covered the mosaics and frescoes with plaster, after they removed the gold tesserae. The churchs modern name, Holy Apostles, was not attributed to the building until the 19th century, restoration and the gradual revealing of the frescoes began in 1926. After the 1978 earthquake, the building was strengthened, and in 2002, history of Roman and Byzantine domes Media related to Church of the Twelve Apostles, Thessaloniki at Wikimedia Commons
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Church of Hosios David
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The Church of Hosios David also referred to as the Latomou Monastery and Suluca Mosque, is a late 5th-century church in Thessaloniki, Greece. In Byzantine times, it functioned as the katholikon of the Latomos Monastery, and received a mosaic and fresco decoration. The surviving examples are of artistic quality. Under Ottoman rule, the building was converted into a mosque, until it was reconsecrated as a Greek Orthodox church in 1921, in 1988, included among the Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The original architecture of the Church of Hosios David was constructed in a pattern with squares as the main shape of the floor plan. This pattern would later become more popular, the structure contained square bays in the corners. The bays all connected to the main cross room via hallways, the bays also connected to the outside. Sometime during the middle Byzantine period the structure was damaged by earthquakes, parts of the structure collapsed including the tribelon. The middle Byzantine period also saw the addition of marbling and a round of fresco paintings. The marble decoration in the Church of Hosios David depicted crosses, vines and leaves in swirling detailing, the mosaic of the Theophany is a significant and detailed mosaic in the Church of Hosios David. It is in a naturalistic style depicting Christ holding a text saying in Greek, “Behold our God, in whom we hope and we rejoice in our salvation, the mosaic representing the Theophany is in a naturalistic style. The mosaic is very complex, with a border. The focus of the image is Christ as shown by his gaze, his position in the center, Byzantine murals were discovered under the plaster at the Church of Hosios David. These murals are what is left of extensive fresco paintings from the middle Byzantine period approximately 1160-70, the south barrel has the rest of the nativity and presentation in the temple. This area also depicts images of the baptism and transfiguration, the Church of Hosios David contains few borders between the different fresco scenes, which is an uncommon feature for this time period. Most of the frescos were created during the middle Byzantine period, the frescos, our lady of the passion, the entry into Jerusalem, and Christ on the Mount of Olives are likely later, during the Palaeologan period, approximately c. Many of the frescos today are damaged because of effects of such as, earthquakes, cracking, water damage. The Church of Hosios David has an exterior and is more removed from the heart of Thessaloniki
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Church of Panagia Chalkeon
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The Church of Panagia Chalkeon is an 11th-century Byzantine church in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. The church is located at Dikastirion Square, north of the Via Egnatia at the point where it crosses the Aristotelous Avenue, which leads to the Aristotelous Square. According to the inscription above the west entrance, the church was built in 1028 by the protospatharios Christopher, katepano of Longobardia, and his wife, son. Christophers tomb was located in an arcosolium on the churchs northern wall. The ground plan is that of a classic cross-in-square-form typical of Macedonian-period architecture, with four columns, the entire building is built of bricks, which gave it the popular nickname Red Church. The exterior is enlivened with a variety of arches and pilasters, the use of arches with several setbacks gives the building a sculpted appearance. A marble cornice runs around the church, giving the building distinctive upper and lower sections. The lower section is more spare, while the section is decoratively distinguished by half-columns between arches, and saw-tooth courses where the wall meets the roof. The interior of the church is divided into three sections, The narthex, the naos, and the sanctuary, the narthex is covered by three barrel vaults and has an upper gallery that was perhaps used as a sacristy. There was never, however, a stair leading up to it, Anna Tsitouridou speculates that it may have been accessed by a ladder through a now closed up arched window on the northwest corner of the church. In the naos, four light grey marble columns form a square, in the center of the square is the dome. Pendentives between the arches create a base for the dome above. The dome is 3. 8m wide and its height is 5. 3m and it is octagonal, containing sixteen windows in two rows, one atop the other. The arms of the cross can be seen on the exterior, with saddle back roofs over their great barrel vaults. Domical vaults cover the four bays between the arms of the cross, completing the square of the naos. Though founder’s tombs are placed in the narthex of their churches. The sanctuary is divided into three sections, The central main body of the sanctuary, the prothesis, and the diaconicon. The central section of the sanctuary has an apse, which is “semicircular within, and three-sided without. ”The other two bays have apses “semicircular inside and out. ”The church has some anomalies, the north wall is slightly longer than the south wall
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Church of Saint Catherine, Thessaloniki
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The Church of Saint Catherine is a late Byzantine church in the northwestern corner of the Ano Poli of Thessaloniki, Greece. The church dates to the Palaiologan period, but its exact dating, from its interior decoration, which survives in fragments and is dated to ca. 1315, it has suggested that it was the katholikon of the Monastery of the Almighty. It was converted to a mosque by Yakup Pasha in the reign of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II, in 1988, it was included among the Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. History of Roman and Byzantine domes Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou, E. Tourta, wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki, Kapon Editions, pp. 116–120, ISBN 960-7254-47-3
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Church of Saint Nicholas Orphanos
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The Church of Saint Nicholas Orphanos is an early 14th-century Byzantine church in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. The church is located in the corner of the old city, just inside the eastern wall. The churchs name, Saint Nicholas the Orphan, is first attested in the 17th and 18th centuries, from its interior decoration, the building is dated to the period 1310–1320. The church originally formed part of a monastery, traces of which survive to the east, the church was originally built as a simple, single-aisled edifice with a wooden gabled roof. Later, aisles were added on three sides and they form an ambulatory, under whose floor several graves have been found. The masonry features irregular layers of brick and stone, with a few ceramics on the eastern side, in the interior, the central aisle is connected to the others with double openings decorated with reused late antique capitals. The churchs original marble templon survives, the church is most notable for its frescoes, contemporary with the churchs construction, which cover almost the entire interior surface. The frescoes are an example of the Thessalonican school at the height of the Palaiologan Renaissance, clemens of Ohrid, a favourite motif of the Serbian churches. The monastery continued functioning throughout the Ottoman period, the frescoes were uncovered in 1957–1960 during restoration works. Media related to Church of Saint Nicolas the Orphan, Thessaloniki at Wikimedia Commons
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Church of Saint Panteleimon (Thessaloniki)
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The Church of Saint Panteleimon is a late Byzantine church in Thessaloniki, Greece, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The church lies in the part of the old city, near the Tomb of Galerius. Its current dedication to Saint Panteleimon was given to the church after the end of Ottoman rule in 1912, a counter-argument however supports the theory that the present church is unrelated to the Peribleptos Monastery, and that it was converted into a mosque ca. 1500, when the citys kadı, was Ishak Çelebi, whom the mosque was named after, however, the churchs architecture and decoration, which date to the late 13th/early 14th centuries, appear to support the former view. The church is of the tetrastyle cross-in-square type, with a narthex, very few of the buildings original wall paintings survive. Ottoman remains include the base of the minaret and a marble fountain. History of Roman and Byzantine domes Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou, E. Tourta, wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki, Kapon Editions, pp. 45–47, ISBN 960-7254-47-3 Ναός Αγίου Παντελεήμονα, Θεσσαλονίκη. Media related to Church of Saint Panteleimon, Thessaloniki at Wikimedia Commons
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Church of Prophet Elijah (Thessaloniki)
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The Church of Prophet Elijah is a 14th-century church in Thessaloniki, Greece, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The church is located in the quarter of the old city, and dates to the Palaiologan period. In Ottoman times, it was known as the Saraylı Mosque and it has been traditionally identified as the katholikon of the Nea Moni monastery, built ca. 1360–1370 on the site of a former palace destroyed in 1342 by the Zealot uprising, on the basis of its internal decoration, it has been suggested that the church was the katholikon of the important Akapniou Monastery. Its architectural style, a variant of cross-in-square church known as the Athonite type, is unique in the city, the careful masonry, of alternating courses of bricks and white ashlar, is also unusual for Thessaloniki and its region, it is copied from Constantinopolitan architecture. Fragments of the original decoration survive in the form of wall paintings, fine examples of late Palaiologan art. Wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki, Kapon Editions, ISBN 960-7254-47-3 Media related to Church of Prophet Elias of the City, Thessaloniki at Wikimedia Commons
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Hagia Sophia, Thessaloniki
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The Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki, Greece, is one of the oldest churches in that city still standing today. It is one of several monuments in Thessaloniki included as a World Heritage Site on the UNESCO list, since the 3rd century, there was a church in the location of the current Hagia Sophia. In the 8th century, the present structure was erected, based on the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. In 1205, when the Fourth Crusade captured the city, the Hagia Sophia was converted into the cathedral of Thessaloniki, after the capture of Thessaloniki by the Ottoman Sultan Murad II on 29 March 1430, the church was converted into a mosque. It was reconverted to a church upon the liberation of Thessaloniki in 1912 and its ground plan is that of a domed Greek cross basilica. The cross was substituted with the image of the Theotokos in 787-797 after the victory of the Iconodules, the mosaic in the dome now represents the Ascension with the inscription from Acts 1,11 Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven. The dome is ringed by the figures of all Twelve Apostles, Mary, between 1907 and 1909 byzantine historian Charles Diehl restorated the whole building that underwent many damages during a fire in 1890. Much of the decoration was plastered over after the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917. The dome was not restored until 1980, history of Roman and Byzantine domes Cathedral church of Holy Gods Wisdom of Thessaloniki Agia Sofia Thessaloniki Krautheimer, Richard. Agia Sofia of Thessaloniki Hellenic Ministry of Culture
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Walls of Thessaloniki
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The city was fortified from its establishment in the late 4th century B. O. T, but the present walls date from the early Byzantine period, ca. 390, and incorporate parts of an earlier, late 3rd-century wall, the walls consist of the typical late Roman mixed construction of ashlar masonry alternating with bands of brick. The northern part of the walls adjoins the acropolis of the city, which formed a fortified enceinte, and within it lies another citadel. Wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki, Kapon Editions, pp. 15–26, ISBN 960-7254-47-3 Media related to Walls of Thessaloniki at Wikimedia Commons
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Alaca Imaret Mosque
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Alaca Imaret Mosque or Ishak Pasha Mosque is a 15th-century Ottoman Mosque in Thessaloniki, Greece. It was built by order of Ishak Pasha in 1484 or 1487 and it consists of a mosque with an imaret. The mosque and imaret are not in use anymore, the mosque has a reverse T plan common to early Ottoman architecture, the prayer hall is covered by two large domes, it has a portico covered by five smaller domes. It had one minaret, which was destroyed after 1912, after Thessaloniki was liberated by the Greek Army and it is under restoration till now. Picture of the building from above
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