Stunning Archeological Finds: Part I

Today was the first time (this trip) that Ken and I visited a museum--and it was stunning!  We spent most of our time in two exhibits: The first contained many funerary objects from the Mycenean period--1600-1100 B.C. (the primary subject of this post--Part II will be about the Antikythera Shipwreck). 

Much of this exhibit focused on gold and included masks, crowns, buttons, cups, hair and dress ornaments, decorations on scabbards, knives--it was breathtakingly beautiful work, some of it incredibly detailed inlay. There's really no way to describe the effect of seeing it up close. 

I'll try to describe what you are seeing in these photos--but the small, flat images do NOT do these objects justice!!

The item at the top is a wreath or crown that is presented flat in the case, but would have gone around the head.  Clearly this would have been in the tomb of a rich and important person.  The smaller items are decorative.  Some might have been attached to clothing or hair or in some other way provided adornment. (The purple is the effect of lighting I couldn't avoid while taking the picture.)

 Here is that same case, but now you can see additional items and also get a sense of the size and scale.  To the right and left of the main panel, above, are delicately wrought flowers and leaves.  The bottom items would have been attached to clothing. (We don't know who the woman is...I included her for scale.)

Here's Ken looking at another crown that has been flattened out for display purposes.  You can also see buttons of various sizes, earrings, cups, pins, and jugs.  None of these were actually used--these items were 
all buried with the dead.







 

This isn't a funerary object--it's a spigot!  In some religious ceremony, liquid would flow through a hole in the bull's nose. What appears to be black is actually tarnished silver. The bull's head is about the size of a small cantaloupe--with the horns, the whole figure is about 8-10" high.

 These are four different cups--a little larger than a typical tea-cup but smaller than a mug. They are incredibly thin--probably just as well they weren't actually used!  I got a shot of the inside so you could see how beautifully worked the gold is.







 Below is a lovely, delicately drawn mural of a woman holding a snake in her right hand (possibly some devotional activity) while her left is held lightly in front of her. She's about 3/4 life size.

I took closeups of her hands because 
they were so exquisitely drawn.

And above is a ceremonial bonze knife with gold inlay on both sides of the blade.  The bronze has deteriorated over time, but the hunting scene is still crisp and clear--despite the fact that the length of the entire blade is about 7"!  Four hunters with spears drawn face a lion.  One hunter has fallen and can be seen just under the lion's front paws. Another lion is running away.  The display was mounted on a mirror so that we could see both sides, but it wasn't possible to see the underside without flash (which one is not permitted to use).   

 

 

Current commentary on Greece--by Greeks!

Working on the assumption that readers of this blog are not interested only in what Ken and I see and do, but also the bigger picture of what is happening here--about which neither of us has more than impressions to go on--I hereby share with you two intelligent commentaries by others.

The first is by a Greek-American scholar.  It's lengthy but eminently readable--and thorough in its exploration of historical and current economic policies.

Greece: The Crisis Behind the Crisis and the Challenges Facing the Left

Wednesday, 20 March 2013 12:06 By CJ Polychroniou, Truthout | News Analysis
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15232-greece-the-crisis-behind-the-crisis-and-the-challenges-facing-the-left

Here's a description of the author:
C. J. Polychroniou is a policy fellow at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Certain parts of the above article are included in a recent Policy Note (2013/1) published by the Levy Institute and titled "The Tragedy of Greece: A Case Against Neoliberal Economics, the Domestic Political Elite, and the EU/IMF Duo." The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the Institute's board nor its advisers

The second is a 9-minute interview by the Guardian (U.K.) with  Alexis Tsipras, the current leader of the Syriza party, which is rising in the polls and may win the next national election. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2013/mar/19/alexis-tsipras-syriza-greece-video-interview

Here's a brief description of the interview, copied from the web:
With the eurozone crisis flaring up again, the radical left party Syriza is leading in the Greek polls. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, tells Seumas Milne that Syriza offers a real alternative to Europe's failed neoliberal order. He says traditional parties are failing voters by colluding in austerity, creating opportunities for fascist parties such as Golden Dawn

Later today, I'll hold the first of a six-part seminar on Kegan with a group of experienced adult educators.  I've been busily preparing for that, so I'll try to catch up with other blog entries this weekend.

Play It Again, Samos

Given the current economic crisis, one often passes people on the street doing the Greek version of "spare change."  Most are sitting quietly with a paper cup in front of them.  (As compared with those in the US, who usually try to catch your eye, these folks are looking studiously at the ground.)  Others sit with an open pack of cigarettes or individual packets of tissues, silently offering to sell them one-by-one, presumably for a slight mark-up.

A few, however, are quite intrusive and come up carrying small children, or pictures of small children, explaining their presumed plight--usually the child is sick and needs help.  (Some of our Greek friends say that most of these in-your-face beggars are actually well-off, and this is their "job."-We don't quite know what to think about that.)   

Occasionally, there's an elderly person who (again, according to the locals) might in fact be trying to live on a much-reduced pension.  Many pensions have been cut in half, we're told.  (These are not the pensions that are sometimes reported in the US press as having been awarded to 50 year olds because they are trade unionists.)  

We hear further that some of the older pensioners are now being invited to move in with their relatives, not entirely for altruistic reasons.  Though the pension has been cut, it may be the only regular income in the household.  

Then there's a few folks--quite likely Roma--who bring their instruments on the metro and pass the hat.  Here are two brief videos.  I shot the first one over my shoulder, not realizing until they were almost done that there was a musician right behind me.  So when all four of them passed me (accordion, fiddle, guitar, and bass), I got up to get a better shot.  They must have remembered that Ken put a Euro in the tambourine (the fifth man, with "thumbs up") because as you will see in the second video, they played enthusiastically for us.

 . 

Police state?

As Ken and I walked home from the Metro around 10:30 last night, we saw a lot of commotion two blocks from our apartment.  Twenty or more people and at least a dozen uniformed police (some in flak jackets) were milling around an intersection.  Two police cars and a police motorcycle (blue lights flashing)  were also in the narrow street.  Over the next half hour, two other emergency vehicles arrived: one looked like a miniature fire truck (i.e. it was painted red, but was a little bigger than a pickup-truck and didn't have--or I didn't see--any ladders and hoses), and later an ambulance (lights flashing, but no siren).  Whatever action was going on was happening in the dark, somewhere down the cross-street being blocked by police cars.

We're not ordinarily rubber-neckers, but this is an unusual occurrence in a foreign country, so we stayed for a while to watch and I decided to take some Flip footage for this blog.  At first it seemed a bit like Keystone cops.  It took nearly a half-hour for the police to put up "crime scene" tape across the beginning of the cross-street.  Meanwhile, they had not blocked vehicular traffic to the through street.  So between the double-parked police cars and the already narrow one-way street, cars were still crawling by to see the action (there wasn't any to be seen--though about 15 minutes after our arrival, we heard the sound of a large sheet of glass breaking).  

This meant that the fire-truck took many minutes to slowly advance up the street, as it was following a continuous line of cars. Then, when it finally got to the intersection, we watched in amusement as it tried to negotiate what we have come to see as typical Greek parking habits (see below).  

[Here are stills taken at several other times of "typical" parking scenes.  

Ken walking around a car parked in what ought to be a pedestrian cross-walk. One street is single-lane, given the cars parked on both sides.  The other is two-lane and wide enough for two moving vehicles (assuming no one is stopped or double-parked--not always a good assumption).  Both are one-way streets, although motor scooters consider the "no entry" signs (red horizontal bar) to be merely advisory.

A mini-car parked perpendicular to all the others.  But at least this is a two-way, fairly wide street.

 What can one say?  What counts as being parked at a curb?  We're not sure.  But at least one of these street is wide and supports two-way traffic

This is at a four-way, angled "corner."   In case you can't tell, there is a second car parked behind the car on the right, narrowing the passage of cars in both directions!

We have also watched with amazement as fairly large trucks make turns that require several backs-and-forths to go from narrow street to narrow street with no curb clearance at any of the corners.] 

My first footage at last night's scene was of the fire-truck inching its way up the block. Then I shot how it tried to maneuver into place.  First it pulled forward, preparing to back up into the cross street opposite the problem.   Since there was still no traffic control, even in that intersection, more traffic surged immediately behind it making back-up impossible.  There followed several minutes of gridlock--fire truck, motorcycle, cars--none able or willing to move to give the others room. Finally, after considerable blaring of horns, somehow various vehicles went around, went through or--in the case of the cycle--went on the sidewalk, and there was enough room for the firetruck to back up.  Eventually, the ambulance arrived (still behind a line of cars, which never stopped). 


Since people were still milling around on both sides of the street, I (and several other pedestrians) walked closer to the action, which is when I saw how many police were wearing heavy duty equipment.  At one point, a Greek policeman sort of shooed us back, so I returned to the other side and took footage of the impending arrival ambulance.  

Then, to my surprise, a policeman came over to my side of the street and said something directly to me that I, of course, did not understand.  (Ken was somewhere else in the crowd, chatting with folks.) I smiled and said, "Hi," which is my way of letting people know I don't speak Greek--also because it is typically recognized as American. To be perfectly clear, I added, "I don't speak Greek."  

His response was immediate, "You must delete your camera."
"I don't know how," I said, "It's new."  It's not all that new, but I always have to look up the directions to do anything, so that seemed like the simplest answer, given his imperfect English. 
"You must delete!" he insisted, and took the camera from me.  Another policeman approached, "where you from?" 
"California." 
"Do you have passport."  
"Of course," and I handed it to him.   

Meanwhile, the first guy was busily deleting video of flashing lights, traffic, and emergency vehicles.  The second policeman came back, handed me my passport, and said something to the first one that included the word, "Ameriki"--at which point the Flip camera was handed back and both walked away from me without any further discussion. 

This "conversation" had taken place just outside a line of cars, so I walked to the curb where a couple of Greeks were sputtering--in English--at what had taken place.  "What is this, a military secret?" one asked.  
"The idiots," said another.  Similar unflattering characterizations followed. 
"You shouldn't have given him your camera," a third suggested, "he had no right."

Truth to tell, that had not occurred to me in the moment.  I don't know what the rules are in Greece.  Perhaps it is illegal to take photographs if the police say it is.  (That actually did happen to me when I was traveling in Hungary before the USSR imploded....it was apparently not OK to take photos of certain bridges!)

It was only after all this was over and Ken and I had returned home that the meaning of it began to sink in.  I had been on a public street that the police had made no effort to clear until the last five minutes or so.  I followed directions to move away.  I was taking innocuous photos of traffic. I was obviously an older woman and non-confrontive. 

What was it about photos that the police found so threatening?  Was there something going on in the darkened street with the sound of breaking glass that should not have taken place?  Or is it just a reflexive  exercise of power?  You can't do whatever I say you can't do!  Then I remembered the statistic reported by a Columbia University historian whose lecture we attended some weeks back, that 60% of the police force is known to be supporters of the "Golden Dawn"--neo-fascist--party.  Is this kind of incident the edge of something that is already occurring, but that most people are unaware of or choose not to notice?

Here is the only remaining footage....

 

...for some reason, in his haste to delete, he backed up past the very last shot.  First you see the lights of the ambulance, which has finally halted traffic simply by taking up all the space in the street.  Then I pan to the right and you can see, just above the roofs of the cars, the police tape which was just put up across the darkened street.  Then I pan to the left, and you see the lights of the fire-truck backed into the cross-street.  Then again to the right.  There are clearly people--police and pedestrians--milling everywhere.  Then you see a policeman notice me and begin to walk in my direction.  

Was that the man who deleted my pictures?  I'm not sure.  But the question remains, why?  Was I a threat?  Was I within my rights to be taking photos?  Was he correct that I "must delete"?  Did he have any right to do so?  What does this suggest about the role of the police in a country that is imploding in slow-motion?  Are there going to be "unforeseen consequences" that are currently not on the radar for the current directors of Greece's economic system?   
 

Saturday Night Fever

A couple Sundays ago, Kathleen and I passed Syngrou Park and saw a small group of folks in the park working on some traditional Greek dances.   I had one of those wonderful conversations with some older (even older than us) folks who fortunately passed us on the street who seemingly spoke no English (if they had, I suspect they would have used it, because every Greek I've met who speaks any English at all has chosen to have fun practicing their English, even in the rare cases in which my Greek is better than their English!--LOL).  They explained that the dancing happened every Saturday and Sunday at 5:00.  So on the following Saturday, Kathleen and I walked over at about 4:50.  There was already dancing going on, but this was a group of youngsters.  The two dances we saw them do were simple enough that we both felt like we could quickly learn to do them.

We watched until the 5:00 group of adults started, at which point I asked the instructor if it was open to all.  He was very patient with my clumsy Greek, and seemed pained to have to tell me that they were not an open group, but were preparing a performance for March 25, which (someone had told us just a couple days earlier) marks the start of the long revolutionary war against the Turks in 1821 that led to independence for Greece.  March 25 is also Annunciation Day--so, it's a big day for Greeks, with (we assume and hope) lots of performances, music, dancing.  We'll find out.

Anyway, we watched for almost an hour and took some videos.  It was great fun, only dampened by the fact that we couldn't jump in with our two left feet (each, that is).

Kathleen's additions to Ken's blog:  Here's a simple "grapevine" step--it's common in a lot of folk dances

 
 And here's a slightly more complicated dance.  The instructor is in it too, giving some directions.

And finally, this one includes men.  Note that the men and women dance in different lines (there are two circles painted on the stones--the men dance in the smaller, inner circle and the women dance in the outer circle) and in most cases, do not touch.  Perhaps that is a hold-over from of the years Greece spent as part of the Ottoman empire.  Modern-day devout Muslims and orthodox Jews have the same rules--adult men and women do not touch unless they are closely related.  Of course, for modern Greeks, that custom is not carried out in ordinary settings--it's just in the traditional dances.  That's one reason the women are holding handkerchiefs.  Though we didn't see them doing it, apparently there are times that men and women dance together holding the opposite ends.

Here's a clip of the instructor showing them a more complicated step.  Ken and I are fairly good dancers, but we found it very hard to find the beat.  For one thing, our time signature is usually based on 8 beats.  Ken's baglama lessons started with 9!  Rather than coming in on what we would consider the beat, they come in on what appears to be a hesitation between beats. Messes with our minds, let me tell ya'!

Ken's last word (re. the clarinet): At the museum where I take the baglama lessons, there are several examples of old oboe-like and clarinet-like instruments, but with far fewer holes that are covered directly by the fingers instead of by keys on levers.  The museum mentions that clarinets as we now know them are a fairly recent addition to the Greek instrument palette (in the last hundred-fifty years, if I remember correctly).  The interesting thing that I read was that, to get the microtones (the in-between notes) that is a part of the musical heritage here, the players developed a method of fingering that is completely different than what we're used to.  Having played clarinet, about the only thing I can imagine that refers to is that they perhaps used the one key that I remember that created sort of a sliding sound as you opened and closed it.  Maybe someone knows something more about this.  I'm curious.

Popular art & graffiti

There's a LOT of "street art" in Athens. Some of it is obviously political.  Though we don't always understand the slogans, Ken can usually recognize the names of the political parties.  

The one on the right protests the rise of the "Golden Dawn" (fascist-nativist) party which never had more than 3% of the popular vote, but since "austerity," jumped to 20% in the last election. 

And a lot is in English.  This tends to be the case in the tourist areas, such as in the picture below, but the legend above, FUCK THE NEW WORLD ORDER,  was on a street far from tourist attractions.

This is across from Syntagma Square, where a lot of the political protests originate, because it is a major hub and near a whole complex of government buildings.  In case you can't quite make out the writing:  CAPITALISM IS KILLING YOU.  And then, in a separate message: FASCISM WON'T SAVE YOU.  

Even though Ken knows the many forms of the type-set Greek alphabet (lower-case letters may have more than one form, depending on where they occur in the word), when people write informally, a non-native speaker may not be able to decipher them.  (Think of the variation in how we form our own letters.) It's even harder when the letters are cartoon-like and exaggerated. Apparently, when it's our native language, we have enough context to adjust as we read.   He couldn't figure out the word on the right.
 

 There are also a lot of murals. The one above is on the side of a several-story high building at one exit to a Metro station. At the other exit, a homeless man was sleeping.  (It's a little hard to align homelessness with hand-made rugs, but there it is!)  Apparently there's no "sit/lie" ordinance, because we've been there several time and his stuff is always there, even when he is not.  

   The mural on the right was featured in a local art show--we took the photo before we knew that.  It's just a block or so away from "Fuck the new world order"-- not a tourist area.  In case you can't tell the size, note the man wheeling a bicycle in the left side of that photo (which we took from across the street during a break in auto traffic). And the left side of the artwork appears to depict a spider-like electronic something-or-other  



And, of course, there's graffiti of the kind one sees in most metropolitan areas--on subway cars (but here, only on the line that is above-ground much of the time). 

And then there's the quasi-political(?)--not sure how to characterize it.  This is also a very non-tourist part of town.

The Crisis Gets Personal

A week or two after we arrived in Athens, Kathleen and I met a guy who owned a little store (veggies, nuts, beans, etc.--it was the oranges and mandarins that attracted us into the store).   Foreigners (at least our kind of foreigner--whatever that is) seem to be instantly recognizable to the Greeks, and he immediately wanted to know about us.  Within about 30 seconds he offered to give us some olive oil from his parents' farm in Crete if we would come back in 10 days (he said it's the best olive oil in Greece!).  We followed up on the day he suggested, and a wonderful scene ensued: as soon as he saw us, he said, "Wait here," abandoned his store to us, jumped on his motor scooter and disappeared.  About five minutes later, he reappeared with a plastic bottle (1.5 liters, maybe) of olive oil.  It was a marvelous dark-green, bursting with flavor and fairly acidic.  A fair amount of sediment has settled out of it, so it's not exactly what you'd call highly processed!  In short, it's wonderful.

Basilis's store is not quite in our neighborhood (a 10-15 minute walk, in a direction we seldom go), so we only got there one other time--until Wednesday 2/27, when I stopped by to propose to him that we spend some time together simply conversing in order to learn each others' language.  He replied that that would be impossible for him, because he was only a few daysaway from shutting down his shop and taking a job in a restaurant--"the crisis, you know," he said; "all the little stores like mine are going."   Now, we've heard stories from people about suffering under pay cuts and new/higher taxes, including a couple folks we know well, but most of those we've heard from are still hanging on (at least for now).  But this really case really saddened me.  Here was this sweet big-hearted guy whose dream is gone for who knows how long.  Not long ago he owned three-four shops of this sort in Athens; he had already closed the others, and now the last of them is going.  (The only good news in all this is that he did find a job!)

I wanted to get pictures of him as a way to remember him and his kindness, and to put a face on the effect of the crisis.

P.S. I had noticed in my two earlier visits that customers seemed few and far between, which probably led to the fact that, on my way to his shop this last time, I actually had what some would call a premonition that something like that would happen--make of that what you will.

P.P.S.  3/2: I wrote the above yesterday, 3/1.  At the time, we also asked Basilis if we could buy some of his olive oil.  He said that the family doesn't actually sell it commerically, but they do sell it to "friends," and he said he would find out from his parents what the "friend" price is, and that we should come back 3/2.  So, today we went back, and had two surprises.  One, Basilis had completely trimmed his beard.  I said that I figured I knew why: namely that he was going to do cooking in the restaurant and couldn't have a beard.  He said that that wasn't a problem at all.  He decided to shave off the beard because he looked too "angry" with it and so scared people!  :):):)    The second surprise was when he hopped on the motor scooter again to get our olive oil, and came back with a 5-liter container, which he quoted to us for 20 euros (about $26).   That's about half the price of moderately decent oil at home, so we were pleased.
Lastly, he told us that he was trained in (and has papers) that qualify him to be a chef, and that his job is in a small chain of pretty nice restaurants (one of them even is getting a Michelin star), so it looks like he will at least land on his feet.