Category: Greece
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Classic profiles
Classic profiles It catches the eye, that big head against a rock in the river. I don’t know why it was placed there, but it takes our thoughts back to the arts of Greek antiquity. And that’s always gratifying. The face in profile reminds me of a sculpture I had seen a few days before…
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Mannequins
Mannequins With the advance of modern technology the two meanings of the word ‘mannequin’ – in French as in English – have grown towards one another. The lifeless dummies on the photo, showing clothes in a shop-window, can hardly be distinguished anymore from the living dolls doing the same at a fashion show. Perfect bodies,…
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Tamata
Tamata τάματα is the Greek word for vows and votive offerings, referring to a popular practice among the faithful of most if not all religions. I have shown and written about this fascinating phenomenon earlier on this blog in a series of posts dedicated to the local Hindu god Golu Devta in Kumaon, India, and the…
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Ossuarium
Ossuarium In one of the orthodox churches of Paleochora I saw to my surprise a big open stone reservoir filled with human bones: an ossuary inside the church in full view! I have understood that ossuaries came into use in places where graveyard space is scarce. After a few years in the ground the remains…
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Aegina – Paleochora
Aegina – Paleochora The old town of Aegina had always been at the coast of the island, next to the harbour where it is situated now again. But in the 9th century the town was shifted inland where it could be defended better against the attacks of the Saracens. In the 18th century there were…
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3-D Devotion
3-D Devotion Going through the Herkyna gorge south of Livadia, a town in Boeotia, Greece, one passes the Fountain of Memory and the Fountain of Forgetfulness, the ancient Mnemosyne and Lethe of which Pausanias speaks. For me the water of Mnemosyne has done its work because I remember well first having seen from down the…
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Rolled, rubbed and rounded
Rolled, rubbed and rounded The rock and the stones, they look of the same soft make-up, only differing in colour. What a nice and quiet ensemble they make in the blazing sun. Till the tide comes in and the waves wash over them. Then the stones roll up and down in splashing water, rubbing against…
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A streak of yellow
A streak of yellow All I can say about this terrace is that I sat down there once with Theodora for a good meal, sea food of course. After a week of intensive work we thought we deserved it.* And why this photo? Right, because of the pleasant surprise of this bright streak of yellow…
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Ελαιώνας
Ελαιώνας Elaionas is the Greek word for olive grove. On the island of Aegina there is a genuine, centuries-old olive grove with trees that are 500 years old and one specimen that is even more than 1,500 years old. What astonishing creatures! The fact that they have reached such a venerable age, with all those…
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Sleeping beauty
Sleeping beauty The bacchante sleeps off her glow of last night’s pleasure under the attentive eyes of a row of men. Only they can see from their point of view that this Maenad is actually a hermaphrodite. The generous curves of her soft, feminine body are beyond their reach. The kouros stands tall in the…
καιρός remembered 