1.
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
2.
Crete
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Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, 88th-largest island in the world and the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete and a number of surrounding islands and islets constitute the region of Crete, the capital and the largest city is Heraklion. As of 2011, the region had a population of 623,065, Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits. It was once the centre of the Minoan civilization, which is regarded as the earliest recorded civilization in Europe. The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and it was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island. The current name of Crete is thought to be first attested in Mycenaean Greek texts written in Linear B, through the words
3.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
4.
Phoenix theophrasti
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In Europe, with Chamaerops humilis are the unique native palm trees in the continental Europe. In Turkey, it is the native palm species, all the others—although much more common—were introduced. Apart from the usually inedible dates and upright fruit clusters, the Cretan species can appear similar to the cultivated date. Phoenix theophrasti grows up to 15 m tall, usually several slender stems. The leaves are pinnate, 2–3 m long, with numerous rigid greyish-green linear leaflets 15–50 cm long on each side of the central rachis, dead leaves are marcescent, remaining attached to the stem for years after withering. The fruit is an oval yellowish-brown drupe 1, sites on Crete include Vai in the Lasithi Prefecture, Ayios Nikitas in Heraklion Prefecture, and Preveli gorge and Souda near Plakias, both on the south coasts of Crete in Rethymnon Prefecture. Trees are also found on Amorgos island, and the south coast of Anafi island, recently, around 10 trees, the only natural stand on the mainland, were found in an ancient palm forest in the Epidaurus area in Peloponnese. It has been proposed that its range was more widespread in ancient Greece, growing from Crete to Thebes. Its presence in Turkey was not described scientifically until the 1980s, there are four stands in southwest Turkey, especially on the Datça and Bodrum Peninsulas in Muğla Province and in Kumluca-Karaöz in Finike Bay. The plants from a grove in the village of Gölköy in northern Bodrum are considered by some as a subspecies, having a shorter stem, areas forested with Phoenix theophrasti, Phoenix canariensis and Chamaerops humilis constitute Europes only palm forests. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, international Union for Conservation of Nature. Davis, P. H. ed. Flora of Turkey, Phoenix theophrasti - information, genetic conservation units and related resources
5.
Hippie
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The word hippie came from hipster and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into New York Citys Greenwich Village and San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury district. The term hippie was first popularized in San Francisco by Herb Caen, the origins of the terms hip and hep are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant sophisticated, currently fashionable, fully up-to-date, the Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation. In the United Kingdom in 1970, many gathered at the gigantic Isle of Wight Festival with a crowd of around 400,000 people, in later years, mobile peace convoys of New Age travelers made summer pilgrimages to free music festivals at Stonehenge and elsewhere. In Australia, hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973 Aquarius Festival, piedra Roja Festival, a major hippie event in Chile, was held in 1970. Hippie fashion and values had an effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature. Since the 1960s, many aspects of culture have been assimilated by mainstream society. The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance, lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, the principal American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, argues that the terms hipster and hippie derive from the word hip, whose origins are unknown. The term hipster was coined by Harry Gibson in 1944, by the 1940s, the terms hip, hep and hepcat were popular in Harlem jazz slang, although hep eventually came to denote an inferior status to hip. In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, New York City, young counterculture advocates were named hips because they were considered in the know or cool, as opposed to being square. In the April 27,1961 issue of The Village Voice, An open letter to JFK & Fidel Castro, Norman Mailer utilizes the term hippies, in questioning JFKs behavior. In a 1961 essay, Kenneth Rexroth used both the hipster and hippies to refer to young people participating in black American or Beatnik nightlife. According to Malcolm Xs 1964 autobiography, the hippie in 1940s Harlem had been used to describe a specific type of white man who acted more Negro than Negroes. Andrew Loog Oldham refers to all the Chicago hippies, seemingly in reference to black musicians, in his rear sleeve notes to the 1965 LP The Rolling Stones. The word hippie was also used in reference to Philadelphia in at least two songs in 1963, South Street by The Orlons, and You Cant Sit Down by The Dovells. In both songs, the term is applied to residents of Philadelphias South Street, in that article, Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn Cafe, using the term hippie to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district. New York Times editor and usage writer Theodore M. Bernstein said the paper changed the spelling from hippy to hippie to avoid the ambiguous description of clothing as hippy fashions. Even the counterculture of the Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics were also early forms of hippie culture
6.
Matala, Crete
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Matala is a village located 75 km south-west of Heraklion, Crete, Greece. Matala is part of the community of Pitsidia within the unit of Festos. The artificial caves in the cliff of the Matala bay were created in the Neolithic Age, Matala was the port of Phaistos during the Minoan period. Matala was occupied by the Gortynians, and during the Roman period, in the 1st and 2nd centuries, the caves were used as tombs. One of the caves is called Brutospeliana because according to the legend it was frequented by the Roman general Brutus, Matala was then a fishing village. In the 1960s, the caves were occupied by hippies who were driven out by the church. Now Matala is a village living mainly from tourism. Canadian folk singer Joni Mitchells experiences with the Matala hippies were immortalised in her 1971 song Carey, when Zeus seduced the princess Europa in the form of a white bull, he crossed the sea and brought her to the beach of Matala. There he changed into an eagle and flew her to Gortys where he had sex with her. In Command & Conquer, Generals Zero Hour, the USS Ronald Reagan, along with the support group docked in Matala. In Simon Scarrows historical adventure novel, The Gladiator, the protagonists beach their ship just outside Matala after it is damaged by a tsunami
7.
Preveli
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Preveli is a location on the south coast of the Greek island of Crete, in the Rethymno regional unit, notable for its historic monastery. The monastery was founded in the Middle Ages, during the occupation of Crete by the Republic of Venice. It developed over centuries as a religious and cultural centre for the local population. In 1866 and 1878, the monastery was active in organising rebellions against the Turks. In the Battle of Crete in 1941, Agathangelos Lagouvardos helped supply British, Australian and New Zealand troops on the island, a group of Australian soldiers protected by the monastery managed to secure their rescue by submarine from the island at Preveli Beach. After this was discovered, the Lower Monastery was destroyed by German forces, the upper monastery contains numerous religious relics and icons, and many of its buildings, now heavily restored, are open to the public. There are also a number of monuments to the work of the monastery during the Second World War, among the Allied soldiers to receive shelter and assistance from the monastery of Preveli during WWII was Australian Corporal Geoff Edwards. In commemoration, he settled the seaside hamlet of Margaret River in Western Australia calling it Prevelly, a small producer of premium wines from the Margaret River region also bears the name Preveli. Preveli beach and lagoon, sometimes locally as Palm Beach, is located below the monastery. Behind the beach is a glade of palm trees. The beach is served by tourist boats from the nearby resort of Plakias. On August 22,2010, a proportion of the palm grove was destroyed in a fire. Preveli Monastery Prevelly Park Preveli Beach
8.
Toplou Monastery
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Toplou Monastery is a 15th-century monastery located in a dry and barren area in the Lasithi regional unit, on the eastern part of the island of Crete in Greece. It is about 6 km north of the village of Palekastro and 85 km east of Agios Nikolaos, the monastery was originally called Panagia Akrotiriani, after the nearby Sidero cape. Its current name means with the cannonball, thus called by the Turks for the cannon. Toplou monastery is one of the most significant monasteries in Crete, dedicated to Panagia and it was founded around the mid 15th century, probably on the ruins of an earlier convent. The monastery was plundered by the knights of Malta in 1530, due to its strategic position, the senate of the Republic of Venice, then ruler of Crete, decided to financially aid in rebuilding it. The monastery flourished until the surrender of eastern Crete to the Turks in 1646, in 1704, it acquired special protection privileges from the Patriarch and was re-inhabited. After its monks were slaughtered by Turks in 1821 during the Greek Revolution of Independence, in 1866, during the massive Cretan revolt against the Turks, it was once again devastated. During the German occupation of 1941-44, Toplou was providing shelter to resistance fighters, when this was discovered by the Germans, the abbot and two monks were tortured and executed. Having to defend itself from pirates and invaders, Toplou monastery is heavily fortified, being laid out around a courtyard paved with sea pebbles, in its present form it extends to about 800 square meters in three floors, divided into cells, guest houses, kitchens and warehouses. The main church is built as a basilica and the belltower dates back to 1558. Despite its turbulent history, Toplou has many works of art to its possession, the monastery possesses a series of about 20 portraits of monks, despotes and igoumens painted by the famous portraitist Thomas Papadoperakis. Many of them have written the recent tragical history of the place, the walls of the monks dining hall, the trapezaria, are also adorned with remarkable fresco paintings by the icon painter Manolis Betinakis. UK-based Minoan Group plans a €1. 2bn construction project on the 25.9 km2 Cavo Sidero peninsula that is located in the part of Crete. This land is owned by Toplou monastery and is leased for 80 years, backed by strong political support, the so-called Cavo Sidero project is advertised as one of the largest tourist investments in Greece. It includes the construction of six tourist villages with 7,000 beds, serious doubts about the intentions and the financial strength of the investors have also been raised. According to the Court, the licensing of the project was not legitimate since the land use planning foresees only a mild tourist development for the area. Kapsa Monastery Toplou monastery, History, description, icons
9.
Palekastro
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Palekastro is a small village at the east end of the Mediterranean island Crete. Already in Minoan times the region was a centre of trade, the port of Itanos, today several meters below sea level, is mentioned in ancient times. The Palaikastro Kouros is a figure of a youth that was recovered in fragments between 1987 and 1990. The village remains free from mass tourism, the main business of the approximately 1100 inhabitants continues to be agriculture. Olives and grape vines are cultivated and a few fisherman remain, commercial fishing however is difficult these days because of the substantial over fishing of the Mediterranean Sea. Tourism is an important source of income and is likely to remain so. At the east edge of the village, visible from a distance and this hill gave Palekastro its name in the Middle Ages when the region was dominated by the sovereign power of Venice. On its flat summit the Venetians established a fortress, in the course of the centuries the stones were cleared away and used by the people of the region to build houses. Finnish progressive rock band Kingston Wall have a song titled Palékastro on their album II, Palaikastro Archaeological Site The Palaikastro kouros
10.
Sitia
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Sitia is a port town and a municipality in Lasithi, Crete, Greece. The town has 9,912 inhabitants, the municipality has 18,318 and it lies east of Agios Nikolaos and northeast of Ierapetra. Sitia port is on the Sea of Crete, part of the Aegean Sea and is one of the centers of the Lasithi region. European route E75, which ends in Vardø, starts in Sitia, Sitia is served by the Sitia Public Airport. Sitia has not experienced the effects of mass tourism even though there is a beach along the road leading to Vai and several places of historical interest.091 km2. The province of Siteia was one of the provinces of Lasithi and its territory corresponded with that of the current municipality Siteia and the municipal unit Makry Gialos. The are a number of sites in the municipality of Sitia that are protected as National Parks, Aesthetic Forests, in addition, there are several Minoan settlements unearthed in the various archaeological sites in the municipality, such as in Itanos and in Mochlos. According to Diogenes Laertius, Sitia was the home of Myson of Chen, the name Σητεία may come from the ancient Ητεία, written as Itia or Etea in English. The town was expanded and fortified by the Venetians who used it as a base of operations for the Eastern Mediterranean. During the Venetian occupation, the town was destroyed three times, by an earthquake in 1508, by an attack in 1538 and finally by the Venetians themselves in 1651. Sitia was then conquered by the Ottoman Empire, after the Venetians moved out of Crete, the town was abandoned for two centuries until it was resettled by farmers in 1869. The main remnant of the Venetian occupation is the Kazarma, the old fortress overlooking the harbour. The municipality of Sitia is served by Sitia Public Airport with several destinations, the first landing was on June 7,1984. Construction of new building facilities that included a tower was completed in May 1993. Runway and apron extension works were finished in May 2003, recently, the local authorities have completed negotiations with international travel agents for organizing regular charter flights starting from May 2012. The town also has a marina which accommodates smaller fishing boats and yachts, Vai forest and beach, the largest natural palm forest in Europe. Moni Toplou, founded in the mid 15th century, is one of the most significant monasteries in Crete, Kazarma fortress, in the town of Sitia. Richtis Gorge and Waterfall at Exo Mouliana village, various archeological sites with Minoan civilization settlements from the Bronze Age, such as in Itanos and Mochlos
