Free Republic

In Plato’s account of Atlantis, found in both Timaeus and Critias, the legendary island civilization supposedly fought a war against the Greeks. This is a vital part of the account, for it is the whole reason why Plato included it in these dialogues. However, is there any evidence that this legendary war between Atlantis and the Greeks really happened? Plato’s account of the war against Atlantis In Timaeus, written around 360 BCE, Socrates expresses his wish to hear an account about Athens in action. Critias responds that he knows of such an account. He then goes on to tell Socrates...

Olive oil, an essential part of culture and cuisine in Greece, is becoming a luxury good because of skyrocketing prices, the president of one of Greece’s major olive producers’ union said Saturday. The wholesale price of olive oil in Crete, one of the country’s biggest olive oil-producing regions, is currently around €8.40 ($9) per liter, which means its retail price would be around €12 to €15 during the winter, Myron Chiletzakis, vice president of the Heraklion Agricultural Cooperative (EASH) told major broadcaster OpenTV. Also speaking to public broadcaster ERT, he argued that 80 percent of the country’s olive oil production...

The discovery has revealed the Roman city of Neapolis, with its networks of submerged streets and monuments, was a crucial trading hub in ancient north Africa.The fourth century tsunami that partly destroyed Neapolis was well recorded at the time. It struck in Alexandria, one of the great seats of learning in the ancient world as well as the Greek Island of Crete...The further recovery of Roman food products, including roughly 100 tanks of fermented fish that was used as a condiment known as garum in the Roman empire, has told the archaeological team more about Neapolis's history...The Tunisian and Italian...

Pet owners who love to travel, as well those that live in Greece, will soon have a lot more places to take their beloved animal companions. This week, the country’s Culture Ministry announced that pets will soon be allowed into more than 120 archaeological sites—but not some of the most popular locations for tourists. The policy change was unanimously approved by Greece’s Central Archaeological Council. But pet owners shouldn’t rush to make plans, as the organization did not specify an implementation date for the new regulations. Pets still won’t be allowed at popular sites like the Acropolis in Athens, Knossos...

The ancient Greek historian Strabo referred to the presence of an important shrine located on the west coast of the Peloponnese some 2,000 years ago. Remains of such an Archaic temple have now been uncovered at the Kleidi site near Samikon, which presumably once formed part of the sanctuary of Poseidon.Researchers of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in collaboration with colleagues from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Kiel University, and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Elis unearthed the remains of an early temple-like structure that was located within the Poseidon sanctuary site and was quite possibly dedicated to the deity himself....

In the Anavlochos mountain range in eastern Crete, archaeologists have found hundreds of ancient terracotta fragments, mostly from female figurines, that were left as votive offerings in natural rock cavities in the seventh century B.C. Within one of these cavities was a more peculiar collection of well-worn objects, including a terracotta plaque of a woman and a steatite bead that likely both date to the eighth century B.C., as well as a seventh-century B.C. terracotta horse figurine. The cavity also contained a three-sided Minoan sealstone dating to between 1850 and 1700 B.C.—at least 1,000 years earlier than the other items....

Phalasarna was first mentioned in ancient texts by... Scylax, Strabo, Polybius, Livy and Pliny... The treaty with Polyrrhenia gives evidence that in the third century BC, the inhabitants were engaged in piracy, a common practice of the Cretan city-states.In 69-67 BC, the Roman Republic stormed the city, blocked the harbour with massive masonry and destroyed the whole city. The location of the city was then forgotten, and Phalasarna appears in Venetian records only as a lost city. The site was rediscovered in the 19th century by British explorers Robert Pashley and Captain T. A. B. Spratt.The Temple of Demeter was...

3,500 years ago, the island underwent a period of significant cultural transformations, namely the adoption of a new language and economic system, and major changes in burial customs and attire.Around the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion...Rather than looking at things like burial, art, or dress, practices that tend to shift with fashion, archaeologists have begun to look more closely at more mundane, everyday practices as a better insight...

JENA, GERMANY—Phys.org reports that a study of genetic material recovered from the teeth of people buried in the Hagios Charalambos cave on the Greek island of Crete between about 2290 and 1909 B.C. detected the presence of extinct strains of two pathogens. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the British School at Athens, and Temple University suggest that epidemics brought about by Y. pestis, which causes plague, and S. enterica, which causes typhoid fever, could have contributed to the collapse of Egypt’s Old Kingdom and the Akkadian...

The Nebraska Republican Party has decided to bar Matt Innis of Crete, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter who has been sharply critical of Gov. Pete Ricketts, from its state convention in Kearney this weekend. The decision has stirred traffic on Facebook and within GOP circles. Innis, a former Lancaster County Republican chairman who unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Ben Sasse in the 2020 GOP primary election and supported Charles Herbster in this year's Republican gubernatorial primary election, has aimed a steady stream of criticism at Ricketts on his Facebook page. Jim Pillen of Columbus, who won the GOP gubernatorial nomination in May,...

Believe it or not, but ideas of artificial intelligence and automata were alive and well over 2,000 years ago within Greek mythology. The myth of Talos (‘Τάλως’)—the first robot-like creature in mythology—is certainly a fascinating example. Its name is related to Zeus, as on the island of Crete, Talos was not a human being but an automaton made by Zeus himself. Another version of the Greek myth attributes his creation to Hephaestus, the god of fire and iron. In other versions, Talos was the son of Cres and the god Hephaestus. Made by humans, rather than born of nature, the...

(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) The White House has revoked its support for the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline, a 1,900km project that will transport natural gas from an Israeli-owned offshore drilling site to Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus, The Gatestone Institute reported. The Biden administration discussed the decision with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but apparently did not include the pipeline’s main beneficiaries—Israel, Greece, Egypt or Cyprus—in the talks. The White House said the EastMed pipeline will harm its “climate goals” and escalate tensions in the region without serving viable economic interests, Keep Talking Greece reported. Erdoğan has opposed the EastMed pipeline because...

Biden's decision — reportedly coordinated with Turkey but reached without consulting Israel, Greece or Cyprus, the main countries involved in the project — undercuts three of the strongest American allies in the Mediterranean region.EastMed's cancellation — variously described as a "disastrous decision," a "strategic mistake" and an act of "appeasement" of Erdoğan — represents a major geopolitical victory for the Turkish strongman.The EastMed pipeline has been in the works for more than a decade. The Israel-Greece-Cyprus project — joined by Bulgaria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia — has long been seen as a way to diversify natural gas supplies...

We present an updated time frame for the 30 m thick late Miocene sedimentary Trachilos section from the island of Crete that contains the potentially oldest hominin footprints. The section is characterized by normal magnetic polarity. New and published foraminifera biostratigraphy results suggest an age of the section within the Mediterranean biozone MMi13d, younger than ~ 6.4 Ma. Calcareous nannoplankton data from sediments exposed near Trachilos and belonging to the same sub-basin indicate deposition during calcareous nannofossil biozone CN9bB, between 6.023 and 6.727 Ma. By integrating the magneto- and biostratigraphic data we correlate the Trachilos section with normal polarity Chron...

The Battle of Crete began on May 20, 1941, when German forces began a massive airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete during WWII. Thousands of German paratroopers (called Fallschirmjäger) landed on Crete, where they encountered tenacious resistance from Greek troops assisted by Allies from Britain, New Zealand, and Australia – and determined Cretan citizens. Though German forces suffered appalling losses on the first day, they later captured a key airfield, allowing a flood of German reinforcements and supplies to arrive. After days of intense fighting, Allied troops retreated to the south coast, where the British Royal Navy evacuated...

An ancient cemetery for infants in Astypalea. Credit: Dodecanese Ephorate of Antiquities The study of the largest ancient cemetery for infants found on Astypalea island in Greece continues, shedding light on the worship of the goddess of childbirth and the Earth mother. The Dodecanese Ephorate of Antiquities that is carrying out the study has found that almost all the infants buried there were newborns or, at most, a few months old. There are also a few toddlers that were up to two years of age. The bodies of the babies were placed in ceramic containers, mainly amphorae or hydrias, whichwere...

Sometimes you stumble upon remarkable pieces of long-forgotten history when you live in an area that was home to ancient civilizations. According to Smithsonianmag, that is what happened to one Greek farmer living in Crete, not far from the town of Ierapetra. The farmer was parking his truck on his property under some olive trees when the ground underneath him began to give way. He saw that a four-foot-wide hole had opened up in the ground after the farmer moved his vehicle to a safer location. He realised this was no ordinary hole when he peered inside. The farmer informed...

On this date in 1656, an Istanbul mutiny against debasing coinage resulted in thirty-odd high officials hanged at the gates of the Blue Mosque. In Ottoman periodization, 1656 is the end point of the Sultanate of Women — a century-plus span stretching all the way back to Roxelana when powerful harem women consistently defined Topkapi Palace intrigue, often alongside shaky male executives. Many of the sultans in that span were minors, as was the the putative head of state for our scene, 14-year-old Mehmed IV. Their succession was invariably achieved by the skillful maneuvering of their mothers, who then figured...

The small Minoan town on the island of Pseira was first excavated by the American archaeologist Richard Seager in the first decade of the 20th century and more recently by Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras, whose work from 1986 provides much of the information used here. The town began life as a small settlement as early as the Final Neolithic period and continued to grow throughout the Minoan period, reaching its highpoint during the Late Minoan IB period when the Minoan palaces were also at their height...A very impressive tall, steep flight of steps, known as the Grand Staircase,...

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Aegean Sea off Greece and Turkey on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey. At least 4 people were killed in the quake, according to Turkey’s health minister. The city of Izmir in Turkey has been particularly badly hit with reports of at least 20 building destroyed, cars being crushed and people in the streets following the quake. The earthquake has also caused damage on the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean sea.