Daily Archives: November 4, 2014

The authorities may have turned their back on Akrotiri, but locals are aware of its huge significance.

A barefoot Chinese woman with the train of her wedding dress trailing along the narrow footpath struck a posed in front of the caldera and took a selfie. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and, in this case, also thousands of yuan, considering the hefty price of traveling to the Aegean island of Santorini all the way from the distant Asian country. However, most visitors don’t just come for the sunsets – glorious as they may be. They also expect to soak up a bit of ancient culture, for which Greece is famed, and where better to find it than the Akrotiri archaeological site? After all, here they can see one of the world’s best-preserved prehistoric settlements, destroyed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption circa the spring of 1615 BC.

People of all ages and nationalities were queuing outside the entrance to the archaeological site on a recent Sunday. According to early estimates regarding the current season, 2,000-3,000 people have been visiting the site every day. Ticket revenues go straight into the coffers of the state which then covers operational costs and staff salaries.

However, state funding to the Akrotiri site basically stopped four years ago. This means that excavation work only takes place every now and then these days. Meanwhile, the fresco conservation laboratory, which was set up in 1967 by leading experts including the late Tassos Margaritoff, has remained shut for most of this year due to lack of funding.

The images in these frescoes have become visual trademarks that virtually every gift shop and business on Santorini has capitalized on. Poor imitations of these fine artworks depicting people, animals and flowers can be seen on plastic bags, restaurant menus and in the form of kitsch souvenirs. Archaeologist Christos Doumas who first set foot in Akrotiri in 1968 knows the area like the back of his hand. He guides us around the site and we ask him whether he thinks that digging here should continue. After all, archaeologists have already unearthed the top parts – and in some cases entire floors – of 35 buildings.

“We must finish work at what is known as ‘Xeste 4,’ the largest and most luxurious building in the Akrotiri settlement,” Doumas says. Archaeologists have uncovered the fragments of frescoes that belong to a spectacular over-50-meter-long composition which adorned the walls on either side of the staircase at the entrance to the building depicting life-size male figures ascending the steps in procession. “More research has to be made at the point where archaeologists found the golden goat idol,” he says.

Dozens of frescoes that have been restored are protected there between styrofoam sheets. “Mice love styrofoam. Who can guarantee that the place will not be invaded by rodents if there are no people left to work here?” Doumas says.

The authorities may have turned their back on Akrotiri, but locals are aware of its huge significance – not only as a tourist attraction but also as part of Santorini’s heritage, just like the island’s unique morphology.

The people of Santorini, tourism professionals as well as ordinary citizens, support the Society for the Promotion of Studies on Prehistoric Thera. A large number of people attended an event organized last month under the auspices of the municipality, featuring music, food as well as a silent auction and lottery. The aim was to collect money to resume the operations of the lab, even if that meant with fewer staff. The event was organized by chef Giorgos Hatzigiannakis with the help of the Estia cultural center, the Santorini of the Past cultural village and La Ponta tsambouna (Greek bagpipe) workshop. About 25,000 euros were collected that day.

Meanwhile, several Greek artists designed a series of beautiful souvenirs inspired by Akrotiri, including bags, bookmarks, mini frescoes and clay figurines. The cost was covered by the Society for the Promotion of Studies on Prehistoric Thera, which requested permission from the Archaeological Receipts Fund (TAPA) to make the items available at the now empty museum shop in Akrotiri. TAPA turned down the idea.

The society’s souvenirs have been made available at a makeshift stand near the site and organizers say they have been making 500 euros per day on average.

Meanwhile, the official Akrotiri gift shop makes an average of just 17 euros a day.

source: ekathimerini.com

A photograph taken by Eirini Vourloumis.

 “Depression Era,” a show of 250 photographs that opens on Wednesday at the Pireos Street annex of the Benaki Museum, documents the far-reaching impact of Greece’s brutal economic crisis on the country’s urban and social fiber.

The works of the exhibition, which also features a few video installations and an extended collage of texts and print media cutouts related to the crisis, are the product of the Depression Era Project, a collective of more than 35 local photographers, writers, curators, designers and researchers, over the past four years.

The show includes works by Panos Kokkinias, Spyros Staveris, Pavlos Fysakis, Dimitris Michalakis, Eirini Vourloumis and Yiannis Theodoropoulos. Running through January 11, the exhibition has been curated by Petros Babasikas, Pavlos Fysakis, Yorgos Prinos, Dimitris Tsoumplekas and Pasqua Vorgia.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, organizers said that the project aims to document the social, historical and economic transformation currently under way in the debt-wracked nation as a way of creating an “unofficial history” of recent developments. Among the objectives set out by the collective is to question the mainstream belief in progress and human improvement.

While personal styles may differ, a sense of gloom, defeat and discontinuity runs through most of the 250 images on the walls of the Benaki.

“The project was inspired by the need to forge a new narrative amid all the noise created by Greek crisis,” Fysakis, who masterminded the project, told journalists.

Parts of the project have already been showcased at the Bozar Center for Fine Arts in Brussels, at the Mois de la Photo in Paris, the PhotoBiennale of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography and the Ebros theater squat in Athens.

The Depression Era collective, and the KOLEKTIV8 non-profit group which supports it, were founded in 2011. The current project is funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Benaki Museum, 138 Pireos, tel 210 345 3111. Wednesday’s opening starts at 8 p.m. Regular visiting hours are Thursdays & Sundays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Fridays & Saturdays 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.

For more information visit: depressionera.gr/

source: ekathimerini.com

SYRIZA chief Alexis Tsipras (center) leaves the Presidential Palace in central Athens on Monday, after meeting with President Karolos Papoulias.

 Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Monday rejected calls by leftist SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras for snap polls, accusing the opposition chief of seeking to destabilize the country amid the first signs of recovery, and expressing his conviction that Parliament will elect a president early next year despite the odds.

“Mr Tsipras once again sought early elections, precisely what the Greek people do not want and what international markets fear,” Samaras said following a meeting with President Karolos Papoulias who earlier had received Tsipras. “I had the chance to repeat… that there will be no early elections,” Samaras said, adding that it was his “deep conviction” that MPs would elect a president when Papoulias’s term ends in March, averting snap polls.“We have come far, way too far, to throw everything away,” Samaras said.

Earlier on Monday, Tsipras asked Papoulias to call a meeting of party leaders to decide on a date for early general elections and agree on a new presidential candidate that could be approved by MPs after the snap polls. “There needs to be a strong government with a powerful popular mandate,” Tsipras said, noting that a new administration could better negotiate with Greece’s creditors.

Papoulias, for his part, remarked that a “minimum consensus” for economic and political issues was required.

The government has been lobbying for an early exit from the memorandum, saying Greece can go it alone on capital markets and use some 11.5 billion euros in residual funding from the recapitalization of banks as an emergency cash reserve. On Monday a high-ranking European official indicated that new assistance would not be without conditions. “A completely clean exit is highly unlikely,” the official told reporters. “Whatever options we may be adopting, it will be a contractual relationship between the euro area institutions and the Greek authorities,” he said.

Officials are expected to reach a decision on this new relationship at a Eurogroup summit on December 8 though the matter is likely to be addressed at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Thursday.

Troika auditors are set to return to Athens once the government has sent them its final positions on pension and labor market reforms.

source: ekathimerini.com