1.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens
–
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world, the first national archaeological museum in Greece was established by prime minister of Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias in Aigina in 1829. The initial name for the museum was The Central Museum and it was renamed to its current name in 1881 by Prime Minister of Greece Charilaos Trikoupis. In 1887 the important archaeologist Valerios Stais became the museums curator, during World War II the museum was closed and the antiquities were sealed in special protective boxes and buried, in order to avoid their destruction and looting. In 1945 exhibits were displayed under the direction of Christos Karouzos. The south wing of the houses the Epigraphic Museum with the richest collection of inscriptions in the world. The inscriptions museum expanded between 1953 and 1960 with the designs of Patroklos Karantinos. The museum has an imposing neo-classical design which was popular in Europe at the time and is in accordance with the classical style artifacts that it houses. The initial plan was conceived by the architect Ludwig Lange and it was modified by Panagis Kalkos who was the main architect, Armodios Vlachos. At the front of the museum there is a large neo-classic design garden which is decorated with sculptures, the building has undergone many expansions. These expansions were necessary to accommodate the growing collection of artifacts. The most recent refurbishment of the museum more than 1.5 years to complete. The Minoan frescoes rooms opened to the public in 2005, on May 2008 the Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis inaugurated the much anticipated collection of Egyptian antiquities and the collection of Eleni and Antonis Stathatos. Today, there is a discussion regarding the need to further expand the museum to adjacent areas. A new plan has made for a subterranean expansion at the front of the museum. The museums collections are organised in sections, The prehistoric collection displays objects from the Neolithic era, Early and Mid-Bronze age, objects classified as Cycladic and Mycenaean art. There are ceramic finds from various important Neolithic sites such as Dimini and Sesclo from middle Helladic ceramics from Boeotia, Attica, some objects from Heinrich Schliemann excavations in Troy are also on display. Cycladic collection features the famous marble figurines from the Aegean islands of Delos and Keros including the Lutist, of great interest are the two golden cups from Vafeio showing a scene of the capture of a bull
2.
Ancient Greek
–
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
3.
Sculpture
–
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
4.
Eleutherae
–
Eleutherae is a city in the northern part of Attica, bordering the territory of Boeotia. 6m thick. A circuit of wall 860 m contained towers,6 of them standing along the northern edge of the site. The foundations of towers are present. Although not as well preserved, the line of the remainder of the circuit is clear, as is the location of the one large, double gate. There are two small sally-ports located on the north side, the fortified area is irregular and c.113 by 290m in extent. Eleuther, in mythology, son of Apollo and Aethusa, was regarded as the founder of Eleutherae, the feast of the Dionysia is believed to have been established throughout Greece when Eleutherae chose to become part of Attica and presented a statue of the god Dionysus to Athens. It was rejected by the Athenians, and, soon after, out of fear for Dionysus, the Athenians celebrated the Dionysia by running a procession of people carrying phalloi, and saved the city from further destruction. In the 2nd century CE, the periegetic writer Pausanias wrote, When you have turned from Eleusis to Boeotia, you come to the Plataean land, which borders on Attica. Formerly Eleutherae formed the boundary on the side towards Attica, the reason why the people of Eleutherae came over was not because they were reduced by war, but because they desired to share Athenian citizenship and hated the Thebans. In this plain is a temple of Dionysus, from which the old wooden image was carried off to Athens, the image at Eleutherae at the present day is a copy of the old one. Indeed Eleutherae, like neighboring Plataea, was an independent polis on the border between Attica and Boeotia, given the geopolitical significance of the town, the Athenians eventually acquiesced and the cult of Diónysos Eleuthereús was symbolically transferred to Athens. Famous historical figures originate from here, such as Myron of Eleutherae and his son, Lycius, was also a renowned sculptor
5.
Boeotia
–
Boeotia, sometimes alternatively Latinised as Beotia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece and it was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its largest city is Thebes, Boeotia lies to the north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It also has a coastline on the Gulf of Euboea. It bordered on Megaris in the south, Attica in the southeast, Euboea in the northeast, Opuntian Locris in the north and Phocis in the west. The main mountain ranges of Boeotia are Mount Parnassus in the west, Mount Helicon in the southwest, Cithaeron in the south and its longest river, the Cephissus, flows in the central part, where most of the low-lying areas of Boeotia are found. Lake Copais was a lake in the center of Boeotia. It was drained in the 19th century, lake Yliki is a large lake near Thebes. The earliest inhabitants of Boeotia, associated with the city of Orchomenus, were called Minyans, pausanias mentions that Minyans established the maritime Ionian city of Teos, and occupied the islands of Lemnos and Thera. The Argonauts were sometimes referred to as Minyans, also, according to legend the citizens of Thebes paid an annual tribute to their king Erginus. The early wealth and power of Boeotia is shown by the reputation and visible Mycenean remains of several of its cities, especially Orchomenus, the origin of the name Boeotians may lie in the mountain Boeon in Epirus. Some toponyms and the common Aeolic dialect indicate that the Boeotians were related to the Thessalians and they moved south and settled in another rich plain, while others filtered across the Aegean and settled on Lesbos and in Aeolis in Asia Minor. Others are said to have stayed in Thessaly, withdrawing into the hill country, many ancient Greek legends originated or are set in this region. The older myths took their form during the Mycenean age when the Mycenean Greeks established themselves in Boeotia. Many of them are related to the myths of Argos, and others indicate connections with Phoenicia, Boeotia was also notable for the ancient oracular shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea. Graea, an ancient city in Boeotia, is thought to be the origin of the Latin word Graecus, from which English derives the words Greece. The major poets Hesiod and Pindar were Boeotians, on the other hand, the lack of good harbours hindered its maritime development. The importance of the legendary Minyae has been confirmed by archaeological remains, the Boeotian population entered the land from the north possibly before the Dorian invasion
6.
Attica
–
Attica is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea, the modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes the Saronic Islands, Cythera, and the municipality of Troizinia on the Peloponnesian mainland. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, Attica is a triangular peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea. It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the 10 mi long Cithaeron mountain range, to the west, it is bordered by the sea and the canal of Corinth. The Saronic Gulf lies to the south, and the island of Euboea lies off the north, mountains separate the peninsula into the plains of Pedias, Mesogaia, and Thriasion. The mountains of Attica are the Hymettus, the portion of the Geraneia, the Parnitha, the Aigaleo. Four mountains—Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus —delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens-Piraeus metroplex now spreads, Athens water reservoir, Lake Marathon, is an artificial lake created by damming in 1920. Pine and fir forests cover the area around Parnitha, Hymettus, Penteli, Myrrhinous and Laurium are forested with pine trees, whereas the rest are covered by shrubbery. The Kifisos is the longest river of Attica, according to Plato, Atticas ancient boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, and, toward the continent, they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes. The boundary line came down toward the sea, bounded by the district of Oropus on the right, during antiquity, the Athenians boasted about being autochthonic, which is to say that they were the original inhabitants of the area and had not moved to Attica from another place. The traditions current in the classical period recounted that, during the Greek Dark Ages, Attica had become the refuge of the Ionians, who belonged to a tribe from the northern Peloponnese. Supposedly, the Ionians had been forced out of their homeland by the Achaeans, supposedly, the Ionians integrated with the ancient Atticans, who, afterward, considered themselves part of the Ionian tribe and spoke the Ionian dialect. Many Ionians later left Attica to colonize the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, during the Mycenaean period, the Atticans lived in autonomous agricultural societies. The main places where prehistoric remains were found are Marathon, Rafina, Nea Makri, Brauron, Thorikos, Agios Kosmas, Eleusis, Menidi, Markopoulo, Spata, Aphidnae, all of these settlements flourished during the Mycenaean period. According to tradition, Attica comprised twelve small communities during the reign of Cecrops, strabo assigns these the names of Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia, and possibly Phaleron. These were said to have been incorporated in an Athenian state during the reign of Theseus. Modern historians consider it likely that the communities were progressively incorporated into an Athenian state during the 8th. Until the 6th century BC, aristocratic families lived independent lives in the suburbs, only after Peisistratoss tyranny and the reforms implemented by Cleisthenes did the local communities lose their independence and succumb to the central government in Athens
7.
Natural History (Pliny)
–
The Natural History is an early encyclopedia in Latin by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and naval commander who died in 79 AD. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the works subject area is thus not limited to what is today understood by natural history, Pliny himself defines his scope as the natural world, or life. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into ten volumes, the Natural History became a model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index. The work is dedicated to the emperor Titus, son of Plinys close friend and it is the only work by Pliny to have survived and the last that he published. He began it in 77, and had not made a revision at the time of his death during the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius. Plinys Natural History was written alongside other substantial works, Pliny combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother, Hail to thee, Nature. And do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, the Natural History is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia. However, it does have structure, Pliny uses Aristotles division of nature to recreate the world in literary form. The work is unified but varied, My subject is the world of nature, or in other words, life, he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy which underlies much of his thought. But the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race, nature, that is life is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography, Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race and this teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History. The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value, the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture, sculpture, painting and jewellery. Plinys premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the sentiment of his time. Pliny repeated Aristotles maxim that Africa was always producing something new, natures variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite, When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible. This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on the edges of the world and these monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae, whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi, who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – shaped like an umbrella pine, according to his nephew – rising from the mountain
8.
Bronze
–
These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability. The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time, everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, the discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC. Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the process could be more easily controlled. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic, the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik. Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Africa, Susa and some ancient sites in China, Luristan, ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together, so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall. In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artefacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value, in Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes, are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources and these were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings. Pure iron is soft, and the process of beating and folding sponge iron to wrought iron removes from the metal carbon. Careful control of the alloying and tempering eventually allowed for wrought iron with properties comparable to modern steel, Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day. Among other advantages, it does not rust, the weaker wrought iron was found to be sufficiently strong for many uses. Archaeologists suspect that a disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. The population migrations around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean, limiting supplies, there are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Myron". Encyclopædia Britannica. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 114.
