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Sassanid art in pictures
The Sassanids ruled over Iran from 224 AD until the Arabs took over in the 7th century AD. This is a far cry from the empire of Darius IIIthat Alexander conquered. Yet, it is an interesting time frame...
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The Royal Palace of Pella will open to the public in 2021
At last! The announcement is made official that the Royal Palace of Pella will open for visitors in the summer of 2021. It is only a postponement of ten years. The birthplace (we hope) of Alexander was...
View ArticleThe Getty Villa, an invitation to Roman life
The Getty Villa in Malibu, California is more than a museum. The premises offer a priceless insight in daily life as it was during the 1st century AD in the Roman Empire.The Villa is a reconstruction...
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How to dig up your own mosaic floor
The discovery of a mosaic floor found underneath a house or a vineyard in Italy seems to be recurrent news. I have read a couple of such articles over the past months. Just dig deep enough under the...
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The rescue of five ancient silver coins
It is always a pleasure to read good news. The Archaeology News Network has a great article about five rare coins rescued from being auctioned off in Munich and Zurich but now returned to Greece. The...
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A masterpiece of Hellenistic art
A while ago, the bronze statue of The Boxer at Rest made headlines in The Greek Reporter. It certainly is one of the most lifelike and realistic masterpieces from antiquity that has survived the...
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ΟΡΝΙΘΕΣ, THE BIRDS. From Aristophanes to Hadjidakis
Aristophanes was a rather prolific comedy writer, who lived from ca. 446 to ca. 386 BC. An amazing eleven of his forty plays have survived and the best-known is probably The Birds created in 414 BC.The...
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Remembrance Day
Each year again the British celebrate their Remembrance Day with great pride. Inevitably my thoughts drift of to Alexander and what he would have thought of this tradition. I truly believe he would...
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Unique Hellenistic heritage in Pakistan
Alexander’s death triggered the beginning of the Hellenistic era. On several occasions, I lingered on the representations of Buddha in human form (see: Indo-Greek art or the influence of Hellenism on...
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Alexander’s Macedonians introducing rice to Greece
Driving around in northern Greece, roughly between Thessalonikiand Seres on the Turkish border, I often came across rice fields. I couldn’t help wondering whether those rice fields had been familiar to...
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It’s amazing to hear what fishermen can catch in their nets, but nobody would imagine hauling up a heavy bronze statue from antiquity.This memorable operation took place south of Marmaris on the...
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Alexander the Great was here, and so was I by Leonidas Argyraspid
Alexander the Great was here, and so was I by Leonidas Argyraspid (ISBN 9789090339016) is obviously my own work.The book, as a matter of fact, was conceived in the wake of my travels and the stories I...
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About the Olympian gods
Walking through the history of Greece, we cannot escape the ever presence of the gods – in this case, the Olympian gods. Beside the written history, they all came to us in many shapes and forms such as...
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Link between Egypt and Gandhara under Ptolemy Philadelphus
As we know, after Alexander’s death, Egypt was ruled by Ptolemy and his descendents. Among them, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, his son, still carried on in the footsteps of this father. He was pharaoh of...
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Aratus of Soli, poet and astronomer
Aratus was an astronomer and poet, who was born in Soli (near modern Mersin) in 315 BC. He came in the news after this year’s ongoing excavations in Soli, the Roman Pompeiopolis as archaeologists...
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About ancient trade between India and Rome
On my earlier blog Link between Egypt and Gandhara under Ptolemy Philadephus, I received an interesting comment referring to the article which I am sharing hereafter.Ancient trade between India and...
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Exploring the walls of Halicarnassus
Once again, Turkey is trying to promote tourism (in spite of the pandemic!) to their many archaeological sites and this time they are concentrating on Halicarnassus, today’s Bodrum. This kind of news...
View ArticleIthaca, a poem by C.P. Cavafy
The poet Cavafy most probably doesn’t ring a bell with most of us. I must confess I hadn’t heard of him until the death of Sean Connery on October 31, 2020. There is no obvious link between both names...
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Project for a virtual Museum of Alexander the Great in Vergina
The renewed excavations around the Royal Palace of ancient Aegae and the adjacent theater seem to have reached completion (see: At last, the Palace of Aegae reopens to the public).For many years, this...
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The ancient city of Tenea
Together with NemeaandTegea in the Greek Peloponnese, Tenea is one of the lesser known names although the site has been discovered back in the 1850s.Over the past seven years, excavations at Tenea have...
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