Monthly Archives: August 2015

From The National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

‘The Golden Legend’ exhibition set to kick off in October

The Central Archaeological Council of Greece has agreed to loan 147 artefacts from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens to be hosted at the National Museum of Western Art (NMWA) in Tokyo and two other venues in Japan.

The temporary exhibition, entitled ‘The Golden Legend’, focuses on gold works of art of ancient Mediterranean civilisations, and will be displaying a total of 225 exhibits from participating museums in Austria, Italy, France, Spain, UK and Greece.

The artefacts, as living objects of witness, tell the story of how the art related to gold originated and developed from the prehistoric period until the late antiquity among the civilisations of Pontus region and the Mediterranean sea.

Golden jewellery such as necklaces, rings, buckles, earrings as well as tools are among the artefacts to be shown.

Apart from the NMWA, ‘The Golden Legend’ exhibition will also travel to the Miyagi Museum of Art in Sendai and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Nagoya and will run from 16 October 2015 to 29 May 2016.

According to reports, the Central Archaeological Council of Greece is in discussions with the NMWA for a collaboration which can possibly bring Japanese artefacts to the Museum of Asian Art at Corfu.

source:Neos Kosmos

Translator’s error sees Victorian MP ‘quoted’ by Golden Dawn

Last month Victoria’s newest minister Phillip Dalidakis was in Athens to attend a conference of the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association (WHIA) – a body of parliamentarians from around the world of Greek heritage.

It was during this assembly that the Labor MP, grateful for an opportunity to share his thoughts on the debt crisis, spoke in English about its damaging side-effects and the growing polarisation of political expression in the country.

To his horror, the speech surfaced days later – incorrectly translated into Greek – on the website of Golden Dawn, Greece’s ultra-right political party, which described him as supportive of the neo-Nazi organisation.

“To my misfortune there was a translation error during my address, [suggesting] that I had used ‘warm words’ to praise the party and their policies,” said the minister in a statement this week. “This is completely untrue.”

Minister Dalidakis added that he was “disappointed that the translator could get it so wrong and that the Hellenic Parliament allowed the wrong translation to be distributed, permitting my Greek colleagues to think that I could support the policies of a neo-Nazi fascist party that prey on the most vulnerable people in our society”.

“It disgusts me to think that this incident has allowed Golden Dawn to further pedle their policies of hatred.”

Mr Dalidakis became aware of the misquoting on July 25 through posts made to his Twitter account.

Footage of the speech clearly shows that Mr Dalidakis made a robust attack on Golden Dawn during his address. The minister has written formally to the Hellenic Parliament to ensure the public record of his speech reflects the correct translation.

source:neos Kosmos

Take a look through Australia’s post-war migration history with this short video slideshow.

You can find more information, including a book on the complete history of the department, at http://www.border.gov.au/about/corpor…

source:border.gov.au/about/corporate/history

Παραμυθένιος γάμος στην… Κεφαλονιά

Πηγαίνουν και Αυστραλοί εκεί για να παντρευτούν

Όρκους αιώνιας αφοσίωσης με φόντο το γαλάζιο της Κεφαλονιάς ανταλλάσσουν ολοένα και περισσότερα ζευγάρια από κάθε γωνιά του κόσμου, δίνοντας στο νησί μια θέση ανάμεσα στους τοπ γαμήλιους προορισμούς για φέτος.

Είναι ενδεικτικό ότι, σύμφωνα με τους υπευθύνους διοργάνωσης γάμων στο νησί, οι καλοκαιρινοί μήνες του 2015 είναι «sold out», ενώ οι κρατήσεις φτάνουν σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις έως και το 2018! Η Κεφαλονιά μετατρέπεται σε νέα Σαντορίνη κερδίζοντας προς το παρόν κυρίως Βρετανούς, Κύπριους και Έλληνες του εξωτερικού, χωρίς ωστόσο να λείπει το ενδιαφέρον από Αυστραλία και ΗΠΑ!

Τα γραφεία διοργάνωσης γαμήλιων τελετών στην Κεφαλονιά μιλούν για ραγδαία ανάπτυξη του κλάδου στην περιοχή. «Σε εμάς οι περισσότερες κρατήσεις αφορούν ζευγάρια από τη Βρετανία, ενώ στη δεύτερη θέση έρχονται Έλληνες και Κύπριοι του εξωτερικού» αναφέρει η υπεύθυνη διοργανώτρια του γάμου των Λόρεν και Άντριου, από το γραφείο Mythos Wedding.

Πηγή:Νέος Κόσμος

US actress Nia Vardalos is backing The Hellenic Initiative crowdfunding campaign. Photo: AAP/AP.

The goal is to raise US$1 million within the next month

In a response to Greece’s economic crisis, The Hellenic Initiative (THI) in the United States has launched its first global crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo.

Just past the two-week mark, the campaign is gaining momentum, with Greek American actress Nia Vardalos also getting behind the initiative.

People around the globe are being asked to make a contribution within their budget, regardless of the amount and to share the campaign with others.
So far US$5,550 has been raised. The goal is to raise US$1 million within the next month.

THI was established in the United States in 2012 to assist crisis relief and encourage business entrepreneurship in Greece.

Since then it has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to NGOs in Greece which provide assistance to some of those most severely affected by the economic crisis.

In June the Australian division of THI was launched in Melbourne.

source:neos kosmos

A year after being hailed as one of Greece’s greatest archaeological finds and a possible resting place of Alexander the Great, the largest tomb ever discovered in the country lies almost forgotten in the blazing summer sun.

The buzz of cicadas and wasps gives no hint that Amphipolis, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the northern city of Serres, drew a media stampede in August 2014 after authorities declared it a “unique” find.

“No one works here any more. The project is frozen, like everything else in Greece,” says a young guard, referring to the country’s economic crisis that in addition to mass layoffs and revenue cuts has also hit spending on cultural projects.

“We still don’t know if the country is going to run out of money,” he adds, refusing to give his name.

At the time of its discovery, there was speculation that archaeologists had found the tomb of Alexander the Great (356 BC to 323 BC) — or perhaps someone close to him like his mother Olympias or wife Roxana.

But a room-by-room search of the massive box-like tomb has failed to give conclusive answers to date.

Though the remains of an elderly woman were found — raising hopes it could be Alexander’s mother — the bones of two men, a newborn baby and animals including a horse were also discovered.

Out of 550 bone fragments found, 157 had been matched to specific bodies so far — including that of a fifth person whose sex has not been identified.

Culture Minister Nikos Xydakis has publicly criticised the previous conservative administration over its handling of the excavation.

“The way the excavation was carried out and (its) promotion… had elements of a show,” Xydakis said in a televised interview in March.

On Tuesday, the ministry said significant sums of money and time would be required to make the monument accessible to visitors.

“The work required to protect, rehabilitate and highlight the monument is enormous,” it said.

The ministry said 200,000 euros ($220,000) had been earmarked after the excavation work was carried out, but the imposition of capital controls in June linked to the economic crisis has delayed the release of funds.

As the scientific world awaits further clarification, a dispute has arisen over whether the tomb is actually Macedonian or was built under the Romans.

Leftist daily Avgi, the newspaper of the ruling SYRIZA party, on Sunday said a group of experts had dated the tomb to the first or second century BC — up to 300 years after Alexander’s death, and it dismissed efforts to link the monument to his family as a “fiasco”.

The head archaeologist at Amphipolis, Katerina Peristeri, fired off an angry letter to the newspaper to defend her evaluation.

“The tomb complex was built in the final quarter of the fourth century BC (325-300 BC)… and was used until Roman times,” Peristeri said.

“The Macedonians sealed it for protection in the second century BC,” she said, adding that a full evaluation would be made in the autumn.

The tomb, measuring 500 metres (1,640 feet) in circumference and dug into a 30-metre hill — was found to contain sculptures of sphinxes and caryatids, intricate mosaics and coins featuring the face of Alexander the Great.

Built on the banks of the river Strymon, Amphipolis was an important city of the ancient Macedonian kingdom under Alexander.

Alexander built an empire stretching from modern Greece to India. He died in Babylon and was buried in the city of Alexandria, which he founded. The precise location of his tomb is one of the biggest mysteries of archaeology.

The Amphipolis tomb’s location was known in antiquity, and it is believed to have been repeatedly looted following the conquest of the ancient Macedonian kingdom by Rome in the second century BC.

No funerary offerings were found, and the culture ministry has confirmed that even the single grave found inside the tomb had been searched.

Historians had dismissed from the start the possibility that the tomb’s occupant could be Alexander himself, who conquered the Persian empire and much of the known world before his death in Babylon at the age of 32 in 323 BC.

source:ekathimerini.com