The First Sacred Olive Tree | Maria Elaia, Gift of the Goddess Athena

The olive tree that Athena planted on the Acropolis was still there when the Persians burned it. This is not a detail that belongs only to the mythological dimension of…

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The Epiphany Blessing of the Waters | The Ritual That Sealed the Cosmic Boundary

On the morning of January sixth the priest walked to the water. In the coastal…

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The Greek Dress Tradition | The Chiton, the Himation, and the Philosophy of the Draped Form

The Greeks did not cut their clothes. This single fact is the one modern engagement…

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The Antikythera Mechanism | The Object That Changed What We Know About the Greeks

In 1900 a group of sponge divers sheltering from a storm near the small island…

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The Face Apollo Gave the Buddha | Greek Art and the Long Journey East

For five hundred years after Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree in the…

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The Olive Tree of Greece | From the Linear B Tablets to the Tree That Outlived the Parthenon

There is a tree in the village of Vouves in the Chania region of Crete…

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The Fifteenth of August | Panagia, Demeter, and the Harvest That Never Changed Its Calendar

The fifteenth of August is the most important day in the Greek religious year after…

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