Daily Archives: November 19, 2014

Σκίτσο αναπαράστασης του νεκρού που βρέθηκε

Στους μήνες που προηγήθηκαν οι αρχαιολόγοι κατάφεραν να αποκαλύψουν όλα όσα είχε να δείξει ο τάφος, αναζήτησαν και, τελικά, βρήκαν και τον σκελετό του «ενοίκου», αλλά και όσα στοιχεία είχαν μείνει και τα οποία μπορούν να συνδράμουν στον εντοπισμό της ταυτότητας του νεκρού του τάφου αλλά και τη χρονολόγηση του τύμβου. Τώρα, το λόγο έχουν τα ειδικά εργαστήρια. Και οι καλλιτέχνες που επιχειρούν να αναπαραστήσουν τη μορφή του νεκρού.

Με βάση τις πρώτες εκτιμήσεις ειδικών παλαιοανθρωπολόγων, ειδικών οδοντιάτρων και με τη συνδρομή ειδικών σε αναπαραστήσεις και σκιτσογραφίες, επιχειρήθηκε ήδη μια πρώτη προσέγγιση, ένα πρώτο σκίτσο του νεκρού συνοδευόμενο από τα πιθανά σενάρια για το παρουσιαστικό του.

Σύμφωνα με την εφημερίδα «Τα Νέα», που δημοσιεύει τα σχετικά σκίτσα, ο νεκρός της Αμφίπολης είχε μέτριο ανάστημα, έως 1,65 μέτρα, λευκό δέρμα και καστανά ή κόκκινα μαλλιά.

Επισήμως, βέβαια, το κατά πόσον αυτό το σενάριο ευσταθεί θα μπορούμε να το μάθουμε σε περίπου έξι μήνες! Κι αυτό γιατί τόσος χρόνος θα χρειαστεί ωσότου τα ειδικά εργαστήρια DNA στο Μάντσεστερ της Αγγλίας μπορέσουν να καταλήξουν στο ποιος είναι ο νεκρός στην Αμφίπολη. Κλειδί γι’ αυτό θα αποτελέσει η σύγκριση γενετικού υλικού από τους τάφους της Βεργίνας, αλλά και από αντίστοιχο υλικό από τράπεζες δεδομένων στην Αίγυπτο και σε χώρες της Ασίας.
Ήδη, από τον περασμένου Αύγουστο, έχει σταλεί στο Ινστιτούτο Γενετικής και Βιοτεχνολογίας του Μάντσεστερ γενετικό υλικό από τον τάφο ΙΙ του Φιλίππου και από τον τάφο του Πρίγκιπα στη Βεργίνα, ενώ σημαντική μπορεί να είναι και η προσπάθεια αποκρυπτογράφησης του σκελετού που βρέθηκε στον τύμβο Καστά, αν σταλεί γενετικό υλικό του.

«Αν αποδειχθεί ότι υπάρχει συγγενική σχέση των νεκρών της Βεργίνας με αυτόν της Αμφίπολης θα περιοριστεί ο κατάλογος των υποψηφίων «ενοίκων» του τύμβου Καστά» δήλωσε στην εφημερίδα «Έθνος» ο ανθρωπολόγος και μέλος της Ομάδας Ανθρωπολογικών Ερευνών, Θόδωρος Αντίκας, προσθέτοντας ότι τα αποτελέσματα θα είναι γνωστά σε περίπου έξι μήνες.

Το κατά πόσον οι απαντήσεις που δίνουν αυτές οι έρευνες είναι ορθές, το απέδειξε το λεγόμενο «Πείραμα του Μάντσεστερ»! «Στις αρχές του 2013 βρέθηκαν τα οστά του βασιλιά της Αγγλίας Ριχάρδου Γ’ σε πάρκινγκ του Λονδίνου και πολύ σύντομα μέσω τράπεζας δεδομένων εντοπίστηκε συγγενής του στην Αυστραλία»…

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Στον ομογενή εστιάτορα επιχειρηματία, Κώστα Χριστόπουλο, που θεωρείται από τους πλέον ειδήμονες του χώρου σε παναυστραλιανό επίπεδο απονεμήθηκε φέτος από το Ελληνοαυστραλιανό Εμπορικό Επιμελητήριο το Βραβείο του Καλύτερου Επιχειρηματία της χρονιάς. Στη φωτογραφία του Κώστα Ντεβέ ο κ. Χριστόπουλος με τον κ. Τακτικό, διευθυντή της Delphi Bank που ήταν και ο κύριος χορηγός της εκδήλωσης.

Την Παρασκευή το βράδυ στο Savoy Ballroom του ξενοδοχείου Grand Hyatt στη Μελβούρνη έγινε η απονομή των βραβείων επιχειρηματικότητας του Ελληνοαυστραλιανού Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (HACCI).
Η εκδήλωση που έλαβε χώρα στα πλαίσια του ετήσιου χορού του Επιμελητηρίου συνεχίζει για πάνω από 20 χρόνια τώρα να προσελκύει μεγάλα ονόματα του ομογενειακού επιχειρηματικού χώρου.

Εκτός από το πλήθος επιχειρηματιών και ομογενών που παραβρέθηκαν στην εκδήλωση το παρών έδωσαν και ο υπουργός Χωροταξίας της Βικτώριας κ. Matthew Guy, και η Πρόξενος της Ελλάδας στη Μελβούρνη, κ. Χριστίνα Σημαντηράκη.

Ως καλύτερος επιχειρηματίας της χρονιάς ανακηρύχθηκε φέτος ο κ. Κώστας Χριστόπουλος, ιδιοκτήτης εστιατορίων και καφέ στην Μελβούρνη, ο οποίος θεωρείται ως ένας από τους πλέον επιτυχημένους επιχειρηματίες στο χώρο της εστίασης στη Βικτώρια αλλά και σε ολόκληρη την Αυστραλία. Στην κατηγορία της Διά Βίου Προσφοράς στον επιχειρηματικό χώρο το βραβείο δόθηκε στον γνωστό επιχειρηματία και φιλάνθρωπο, Στέλιο Κουκουβιτάκη.

Η κ. Καλλιόπη Παξινού, μία γυναίκα που αφιέρωσε τη ζωή της στον αγώνα κατά του στίγματος των ατόμων με ψυχικές παθήσεις δόθηκε το Βραβείο Κοινωνικής Προσφοράς.
Οι άλλοι διακεκριμένοι ομογενείς που βραβεύτηκαν ήταν ο καθηγητής του Τμήματος Πολιτισμού και Επικοινωνίας του Μελβούρνης κ. Νίκος Παπαστεργιάδης, στον οποίο απονεμήθηκε το βραβείο της Επαγγελματικής Υπεροχής και η Νικόλ Κόντου, που δραστηριοποιείται στο χώρο των Δημοσίων Σχέσεων και η οποία πήρε το πρώτο βραβείο στην κατηγορία των Νέων Ανερχόμενων Επιχειρηματιών.

Πηγή: Νέος Κόσμος

Nicole Papasavas (nee Kostandakopoulos) accepting her plaque from Lord Mayor Robert Doyle.

When you consider one in six businesses fail in their first five years, longevity is something to be awarded.

That’s the purpose of the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s commendations, to acknowledge the commitment and contribution independent small business owners have had to the City of Melbourne municipality.

Six Greek Australian business owners from a number of industries have been named in the mayor’s commendations this year, with special mention going to late night souvlaki restaurant Stalactites.

The Kostandakopoulos family, owners and operators of the 24 hour business on Lonsdale Street, were one of two families named in the Generational recipients category.

The restaurant opened in 1978, and has operated continuously, seven days a week, for 34 years.

Currently managed by a third generation Konstandakopoulos, the restaurant serves more than 7,000 customers a week who consume a whopping six tonnes of meat.

Always popular with the commendations every year, the Queen Victoria Market wasn’t short of nods, with Shear Wool proprietor Xenia Charalambous taking out a silver award, and husband and wife duo Peter and Michelle Kalegeratos, from the stall The Breadbox, taking out a bronze prize.

The Kalogeratos duo quit their job at Crown Casino to take on their uncle’s bread shop in 2001, and deal with 13 different bakers on a daily basis to stock their stall.

Ms Charalambous has been selling shear wool products at the market for 35 years after coming to Australia as a refugee from Cyprus.

The business has grown from a weekend job to a full time job for Xenia, who was able to support her growing family.

Prestige car mechanic and salesman Lee Tambouras was also counted in the silver category, being part of Triple S Motors for 27 years.

He’s never advertised and has relied on word of mouth to keep his business alive.

New to the list is bronze recipient Vivian Dourali. Her clothing boutique, Eimai, located in Carlton, has catered to fashionable ladies over 40 for 12 years.

Dourali is a fourth generation dressmaker and learnt how to sew at the age of six from her mother, who worked as a machinist after migrating to Australia.

She works seven days a week at her shop “happily” because she loves what she does.

The recipients were awarded in a special ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall on October 1, with Lord Mayor Robert Doyle giving them a commemorative booklet containing their biographies and photographs.

Each year the recipients are featured in a photographic exhibition at the Block Arcade on Collins Street.

Archbishop Demetrios of America (C) with One World Trade Centre in the background. Photo: AP Photo/Craig Ruttle.

Greek Americans are rejoicing at the announcement of the imminent rebuild of St Nicholas Greek Orthodox church at New York’s Ground Zero, 13 years after its predecessor’s fateful fall on September 11.

The original church was established in an old row house in 1916, and was flattened by falling debris from the collapsing twin towers which stood beside it, after hijackers piloted two planes into the buildings.

Neos Kosmos spoke to Archdiocese spokesperson Fr. Evagoras Constantinides about the church’s rebuild, which after a great deal of hard work and planning on the sensitive site, has an expected completion date of 2016.

“This isn’t a normal building project. This is something that happened on the site of the biggest tragedy that’s ever occurred on American soil, so obviously there are a lot of nuances in the processes, there’s a lot of sentimentality that went into it,” he says.

The rebuild has been welcomed by the Greek American diaspora, with an awe-inspiring wave of support and funding donations throughout the project.

“All of us at the Archdiocese were overwhelmed on October 18 when we were at the site where St Nicholas is going to be built; we were joined by over 3,000 people of the Greek community from up and down the east coast. I think the community in general and the Greek press here in America, the Greek communities and organisations, everyone has responded overwhelmingly that they’re on board and a part of this project.”

The church rebuild will be funded privately, through a “multifaceted fundraising appeal”.

“It’s been humbling to be here and to watch donations come from parishes. There was a parish in New London, Connecticut on 9/11 this year, which hosted a gyro-festival and raised something like US$13,000. They sent all of that money for the rebuild. Parishes are coming up with creative ideas.”

“We are very lucky and blessed in this country to have people in the Greek Orthodox community who have been very blessed in life and they have in turn responded with donations.

“We are finding ourselves in a very good spot where we will be able to fund this project with absolutely no problem.”

The church’s new location, which is roughly a football pitch-and-a-half away from the old site, forms part of the new Liberty Park. The church was moved to accommodate the Vehicle Security Centre for the New York Port Authority, which acquired the site of the old church as part of the screening process for all vehicles entering the new One World Trade Centre.

Its design is modelled off Agia Sophia and the Church of Holy Saviour in Chora, Constantinople, Fr. Constantinides explains.

“Our architect, Mr Santiago Calatrava, is not just an architect, he’s also an artist. He spends his mornings sketching paintings and he looked at icons of the Virgin Mary enthroned in the Agia Sophia, and he looked at iconography and pictures of Chora. There’s no question that this is going to be a true Byzantine church.”

Fr. Constantinides says the completion of the new church will serve as a place to mourn the sacred land and events which characterise the area.

“I don’t know if there ever will be a moment of closure or a symbol of closure for us as Americans. But I do think the church is a sign of resurrection and a sign of hope and peace and reconciliation.

“For us as Orthodox Christians it’s a sign that even through the worst there is resurrection and that’s what we see in St Nicholas.”

And he says it will also serve as an interfaith house of God for people of all faiths.

“The Archbishop likes to talk about the area as like a cemetery, because that day it wasn’t just office buildings and supplies that completely perished, it was human beings and souls that were crushed to pieces and obliterated. We’re very sensitive that pieces of the people and of those buildings still remain in that place. So the fundamental thing to understand is that St Nicholas is a place of worship for Orthodox Christians absolutely without a doubt, but at the same time it has an extended mission. We are called to provide this expanded mission for visitors, for residents of New York, for victims’ families and that will come through on the second-floor bereavement centre – a non-sectarian interfaith section – that will be a place where people can go and sit and have that moment of silence and reflection, thought and understanding.”

Despite the ‘flattening’ of the previous church some of its artefacts were saved. They include two icons – an 18 x 24 inch canvas of the ‘life giving fountain’ and a paper icon of St Dionysius of Zakynthos. Also saved were two bibles, which are still filled with the soot and dirt that blanketed New York on September 11, a mangled candelabra, a flattened bread bowl, twisted candles, an embroidered cloth that was used on the altar table to cover the gospel and a solid brass bell that was bent in half, which are all stored at the Archdiocese.

St Nicholas involvement a ‘very high honour’

Father Evagoras Constantinides is the son and grandson of priests. He says he followed in the “family business”, following “some soul searching”, after graduating from university with a degree in communications.

He followed “in seminary” in Boston and is now involved in a number of projects within the Archdiocese in the United States. His main focus, he says, is a yearly summer camp run in Greece, ‘Ionian Village’ – off the west coast of the Peloponnese. It is a 40-year-old tradition for American teens and young adults to base themselves in (and travel across) Greece, visiting significant historical and cultural sites, paying homage to important ecclesiastical saints and Apostles.

Fr. Constantinides says he was approached to serve as a spokesperson for the St Nicholas rebuild, describing it as a “very very high honour” to be involved in such a momentous development in the Greek American narrative – having spent his whole life in the church through his forefathers, and now as a priest.

“This is history in the making, this is American history in the making, and I think for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to be at the epicentre of that is a very, very special moment for me and it’s something that I am humbled and honoured to be a part of.”

source: Neos Kosmos

Homer

Today one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, US, encompasses a collection of nearly 450,000 works of art.

Amongst them is a fine collection of art and artefacts of the ancient world, ranking among the premier encyclopedic collections in the world, with over 83,000 works of art from Egypt, Nubia, the Near East, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and Anatolia. The objects in the collection range in date from about 6500BC to AD600.

While for many years few areas of the Museum of Fine Arts’ (MFA) permanent collection were more poorly presented to the public than its Greek and Roman holdings, with the relevant galleries having almost no climate control, recently three contiguous galleries devoted to aspects of ancient Greece have been opened to the public.

The difference they make is enormous, according to Sebastian Smee, of the Boston Globe, who recently wrote a piece calling for Americans and those living in Boston – the ‘Athens of America’ – to support the MFA.

The installation was planned and executed by Christine Kondoleon and Phoebe Segal, the MFA’s curator and assistant curator, of Greek and Roman art respectively, with each of the three galleries arranged by theme.

The first is devoted to Homer and the Epics. The second focuses on Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, and the Symposium. The third, called Theatre and Performance, explores Greek theatre, including comedy, tragedy, and music.

“These themes are all interconnected,” Smee writes, “but as distinct categories, they make excellent sense. Not only do they answer to basic aspects of our curiosity about the culture of ancient Greece, but they also play to the MFA’s strengths.”

In his review, Smee regards the MFA’s collection of Homeric material as probably the best in the United States. One of its star objects is a bust of Homer himself, widely considered to be the world’s finest.

“Carved from Greek marble, it dates to around the time of Christ, so it’s younger than many of the other objects here. But the tangled knots of the poet’s beard and hair, his blind eyes, his animated brow and his craggy face all convey an inward intensity that establishes him instantly as the gallery’s presiding genius.

“Homer’s centrality to the Greeks had crystallised by about the sixth century BC, and in the later stages of the Archaic Period (800-400BC), representations of events relating to his Iliad, and to other lost epics concerning the Trojan War, appeared with increasing frequency.”

A stunning mixing bowl, from about 490-480BC, depicts two violent scenes from the war. One side shows Achilles stabbing Memnon, the king of Ethiopia. Memnon fought on the Trojan side, and here falls into the arms of his mother, Eos, goddess of the dawn. The other side shows Diomedes, the greatest of Greek warriors after Achilles. He is shown wounding Aeneas, the Trojan prince who, according to Virgil, went on to found Rome. Just as Memnon falls into the arms of Eos, Aeneas falls into the arms of his mother, Aphrodite.

“There are other extraordinary things here – too many to mention. A red figure mixing bowl (about 470-460 BC) shows atrociously violent scenes from the fall of Troy. On the other side of the room, various objects depict lurid or fantastical characters from the Odyssey. There is an impressive sculpted head of the fearsome Cyclops, Polyphemus, whose one, centred eye connects him, strangely, with the blind bust of Homer across the gallery.”

In the gallery devoted to Dionysus and the Symposium, Smee writes, visitors are gently ushered away from the heady realm of the epics into a more social one, presented with a fitting blend of theatre and anthropological curiosity.

The layout of the gallery, with a big central table holding a giant, brass mixing bowl, invites the visitors to imagine a typical symposium.

There is a fourth century BC marble head of Dionysus, as crucial to this gallery as the bust of Homer is to the earlier one.

“There are also satyrs, erotic scenes, and references to wine and drinking. Look out for the small decorated cups, which were designed as presents for young boys and used to give them their first taste of wine.”

The third and final gallery, dedicated to theatre, is as compelling and various as the first two. There is a herm-bust of Menander, the great dramatist who wrote more than 100 comedies. There are wonderful masks, grotesque heads, and a small selection of the MFA’s extraordinary collection of small Greek terracottas, many of them showing comic actors in character.

Plans are now in place to overhaul and rationalise the rest of the MFA’s classical galleries, Smee writes, so that Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art, along with the recently installed ancient coins gallery, will all be on the same level.

“Unfortunately, it seems the project will depend on the unpredictable availability of money,” Smee says.

“So come, generous donors of Boston! Get on that phone. You live in the Athens of America, after all. We are talking about objects and a culture that occupy a central place in Western civilisation, objects that have arrived in our presence after a very long journey indeed.

“Do not betray them now. Pick up a copy of The Iliad or look into the blind eyes of the MFA’s Homer. Straightaway, you will see why it matters.”

* The review by Sebastian Smee was published in the Boston Globe on 23 October 2014.

source: Neos Kosmos

The new discovery: a grave made of limestone.

Culture Ministry official Lina Mendoni says it could take more than eight months for experts to complete test on the human remains found in the ancient tomb being excavated in Amphipolis, northern Greece.

The ministry’s general secretary told Skai TV that authorities have not yet assigned the task of conducting the tests to a university or other organisation.

Mendoni said that most of the field work at Amphipolis has been completed but that archaeologists still had plenty of work ahead in terms of assessing what has been found at the site.

Archaeologists are discussing the possibility of comparing the DNA of the remains from the tomb in Vergina of Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, with the remains found in Amphipolis.

Mendoni said the challenge was no easy one as the bones found at Amphipolis had been burned and the remains at Vergina were discovered more than 50 years ago, when conservation procedures were less thorough.

The grave was found 1.60 metres beneath the third chamber floor. The outer dimensions are 3.23 metres by 1.56 metres and inside the grave there is a hollow part 0.54 metres wide and 2.35 metres long. It is estimated that the height of the grave was 1.80 metres. Also, the total height from bottom to ceiling is 8.90 metres.

Archaeologists have announced that inside the grave there was a wooden coffin containing a whole human skeleton. The implication of the coffin derives from the fact that inside the grave there were about 20 iron and copper nails and several coffin decorations made of bone and glass.
Inside the grave, the human skeleton found was almost intact. The skeleton will be transferred to a laboratory for a DNA test to determine the sex and age of the dead.

According to the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Kasta hill burial monument is the biggest ever built in Macedonia, made of the largest quantity of marble ever used. It is an extremely expensive public work, impossible to have been funded by a civilian.

It is certain that the person buried inside the tomb was considered a hero at the time. He or she was a prominent member of Macedonian society. This is the only explanation considering the tremendous cost of the monument.

Source: Kathimerini, Greek Ministry of Culture

Professor John Boyages with his mother. In her 80s, she still gets her breasts checked regularly.

Participation rates for breast screenings are some of the worst among ethnically diverse women, which is why the Breast Cancer Network of Australia (BCNA) is pushing for daughters to encourage their mothers to get tested.

The BCNA will be hosting a special information day for Greek women at the new Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture in Melbourne, to better educate Greek women about the benefits of early screening and dispel any fears they might have on the topic.

To be held on Sunday 30 November, the four-hour information session will include talks by Greek Australian professionals, including renowned professor of breast oncology John Boyages and St Vincent’s Hospital social worker Voula Kallianis.

The talk is the first initiative created after the BCNA uncovered critical research showing women with breast cancer from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are faced with more challenges on their breast cancer journey than English speaking patients.

The report found that “Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek and Arabic speaking communities have both relatively high reported levels of low English proficiency and a relatively high incidence of breast cancer”.

It’s something Professor John Boyages has seen first hand, treating many women in those communities, especially in Greek women.

He has witnessed Greek women avoid getting tested because of the fears and stigma they carry towards breast cancer and cancer in general.

“It’s a very personal part of their body, it is fear that the mammography might hurt them, there is fear if there is something there they might make it worse, we do not want to remove something that might kill them, these are the sorts of things I heard through the years,” he told Eugenia Pavlopoulou of the Greek edition of Neos Kosmos.

“In general there is fear that something might be there, so they avoid screening.”

Yet, while he has dealt with these excuses for years, Professor Boyages has noticed a positive trend. He is seeing fewer women coming in for screening where the disease has advanced. Women are heeding the call to get checked.

Having the information translated into their mother tongue is imperative in reducing the number of women coming in with advanced cancer, Professor Boyages says.

“All the current science shows that conservation is just as effective as mastectomy,” he says.

That’s why the BCNA is encouraging mothers to attend the information session with their daughters to open the discussion and push each other to keep up to date with their screenings.

“The modern young Greek girl is connected, more in-tune in being proactive,” Professor Boyages says.

“The role of the younger woman is to inform them and if the older woman has a lump they have to persuade them to see a doctor straight away.”

As a doting son and a physician, Professor Boyages has made sure he’s there to help his mother and remind her of keeping up to date with her tests.

“My mother is in her early eighties, and I still encourage her to have a mammogram,” he says.

The network expects around 100 women to attend the information session with their partners, friends and supporters.

The event will provide an opportunity to meet and share stories with other Greek-speaking women.

Those wanting to attend must register and can call the Australian Greek Welfare Society on (03) 9388 9998. The event is free and will include refreshments and lunch.

The Breast Cancer Information Day for Greek-speaking Women will be held on Sunday 30 November 2014 for 12.00 pm-4.30 pm at the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, 168 Lonsdale St, Melbourne, VIC.

Visit www.bcna.org.au for more information.

source: Neos Kosmos