Stories: Greece

Stories connected to Greece.

• Ancient gears from a shipwreck.The Antikythera mechanism used gears to model astronomical cycles. Surviving fragments from a Greek shipwreck…
• An old tower was compared to bird droppings.A medieval tower once stood on the Acropolis in Athens. As opposition grew in the 19th century, a Greek archi…
• One of Europe's oldest legal disputes was about land.Around 1180 BCE, the Mycenaean priestess Eritha disputed the status of her land with a local community. Clay…
• A doctor lost his books in a fire. His account was lost too.After a fire in Rome in AD 192 destroyed his books and medical tools, the physician Galen wrote about facing…
• An object that looks like cookware turned up in a Bronze Age tomb.At Chalandriani on the Greek island of Syros, graves dating roughly to 2700–2200 BCE contained ceramic object…
• The ancient tear bottle probably held perfumeSmall vessels from ancient tombs were once interpreted as containers for mourners’ tears. The name lacrymator…
• Two church communities exchange fireworks across the townIn Vrontados on the Greek island of Chios, an Easter tradition has two church communities firing rockets towa…
• The tragic boot was contrasted with the comic shoeHigh-heeled buskins were worn by Athenian tragic actors to appear taller. The footwear could consequently sym…
• A tie mark helped identify a single wordIn ancient Greek texts written without spaces, a tie mark could indicate that letters belonged to one word. A…
• A damaged home and a fleetA mob attacked British subject David Pacifico’s home in Athens in 1847. The unresolved compensation dispute b…
• A stone device selected jurorsAncient Athens used the kleroterion to select citizens for offices and juries. Identification tokens fitted i…
• Greek signalling synchronised two separate water vesselsAn ancient Greek system placed matching water vessels on separate hills, with coded rods floating inside. Tor…