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Legendary Greek actress Irene Papas has passed away at the age of 96, the Greek Culture Ministry announced. The actress starred in over 70 films in a career spanning more than 50 years. In 1961, Pappas starred in The Guns of Navarone and in 1964 in Cacoyannis’ Zorba the Greek, which catapulted her into international stardom. One of her last film appearances was in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in 2001. In 1995, she received the award of Commander of the Order of the Phoenix by the then Greek President Kostis Stefanopoulos. In 2018, it was announced that she had been suffering...

Greece is known today for its herbs that are used in teas and homeopathic remedies. But did you know that there are many herbs that the ancient Greeks used that are still popular in Greece today? The five herbs below were gathered for their vast range of medicinal, superstitious, and culinary attributes thousands of years ago in ancient Greece, and they are still used today. Herbs can be found growing wild all across Greece, with their scents perfuming the air, and they are particularly well-suited to the country’s mountain slopes and green fields. Ancient Greek herbs used today Oregano (Rigani)...

Archaeologists recreated a Pompeiian villa destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. using virtual reality technology to better understand how visitors would have seen the ancient home, according to the recently published paper in the archaeology journal Antiquity. The researchers carefully created a digital model of the ancient home known as the House of the Epigrams, a villa excavated in the 1870s and so named because it contains mythical paintings accompanied by Greek epigrams. While the owner of the house is impossible to know for sure, researchers have suggested it may have belonged to a Lucius Valerius...

With Russian forces besieging Mariupol, in which 120,000+ ethnic Greeks live, SKAI news spoke with a Mr Kiouranas who lives in the city and exposed that Ukrainian “fascists” are killing people for trying to leave the city. When asked by SKAI news if he planned to leave the city, Kiouranas responded “how can I leave? When you try to leave you run the risk of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion.” “They would kill me and are responsible for everything,” he added. Who are the Azov Battalion? Azov Special Operations Detachment (Ukrainian: Окремий загін спеціального...

A WOMAN has revealed that she hates her own name so much, that she's planning on changing it to something "normal." The anonymous woman, from the US, took to Reddit and explained: "My mother named me Persephone 28 years ago when the name wasn’t a thing." An anonymous woman, from the US, took to Reddit and explained that her mother named her "Persephone" 28 years ago when the name "wasn’t a thing." 1 An anonymous woman, from the US, took to Reddit and explained that her mother named her "Persephone" 28 years ago when the name "wasn’t a thing."Credit: Getty...

France’s education minister has announced plans to boost the teaching of ancient Greek and Latin in an effort to fight the proliferation of wokeism and “develop the culture” of the country’s younger generations. Speaking on Monday, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, a leading figure in France’s war on woke, said that ancient Greek and Latin would become available to sixth formers pursuing vocational courses next year, as well as middle school students. Blanquer wants sixth formers to have the opportunity to “develop their culture” by reading ancient philosophers while gaining the technical qualifications that the economy demands. Speaking at a charter...

A logo is pictured on the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, November 22, 2017. The World Health Organization dubbed the next coronavirus variant rising in South Africa as Omicron. The emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has international health experts worried, financial markets roiled and the Internet confused over how the new name was chosen. The World Health Organization appeared to skip two letters in the Greek alphabet when it announced Friday the name for the latest coronavirus variant, which was first identified in South Africa. Nu and Xi were apparently the next letters in the...

Marcus Venerius Secundio died in his 60s decades before Mount Vesuvius’ eruption...As Silvia Lambertucci reports for Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), the skeleton, which still has hair and a partially visible ear, belonged to a man who died in his 60s in the decades leading up to Pompeii’s destruction.Per a statement from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, experts discovered the remains at the necropolis of Porta Sarno, just east of the ancient city center. An inscription on the man’s tomb identifies him as Marcus Venerius Secundio, a formerly enslaved individual who later became a priest...The skeleton shows signs of partial...

With Ramat HaSharon approaching its centennial year, archaeological evidence indicates the Tel Aviv suburb’s history goes back much further than previously thought. “The excavation unearthed evidence of agricultural-industrial activity at the site during the Byzantine period – about 1,500 years ago. Among other finds, we discovered a large winepress paved with a mosaic as well as plastered installations and the foundations of a large structure that may have been used as a warehouse or even a farmstead,” said Dr. Yoav Arbel, who directed the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Inside the buildings and installations, we found many...

The Minneapolis Greek Festival says its 2021 Taste of Greece event won't go on next month as officials cite unrest in Uptown. In a message on the festival's website, officials say: "Due to the recent unrest in the Uptown district and the realization that we would be unable to find a successful solution to ensure the safety and security of our Festival guests, volunteers, and grounds, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Festival. We have every intent of holding our Festival next year." The 2021 festival was scheduled to run from Friday, September 10 through Sunday,...

No, this isn’t a joke.Edward Luttwak, the distinguished Israeli-American strategist and public intellectual, tweeted the following this morning:11 Chinese universities teach Greek and Latin. Another 20 seek staff to so as well. Back in the US, the Princeton CLASSICS department has just eliminated the Latin or Greek requirement “to address systemic racism”. Truly racist say I. Why not just end it ? Jobs await in 中国The Chinese characters at the end mean “Middle Kingdom.”Princeton created an uproar by ditching the requirement for classics majors to learn Greek or Latin. That shouldn’t be a surprise: In 2017 Harvard eliminated the music...

Hagia Sophia’s near-millennium as a cathedral, and the catastrophic events that led to its becoming a mosque – events that took place on this day in 1453, a day some Greek Orthodox Christians referred to as “the last day of the world.” ... May 29, 1453, the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II finally broke through Constantinople’s defenses after a long siege, marking the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. The conquerors were extraordinarily brutal... the Muslim soldiers “slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination....

Thank God for the Irish! A Greek and an Irishman were sitting in a Starbucks one day comparing their two cultures. Over a double latte, the Greek mentions "We built the Parthenon, you may recall, along with the Temple of Apollo." "Aye, and it was the Irish that discovered the Summer and Winter Solstices." "But it was the Greeks who gave birth to advanced mathematics." "Granted, but it was the Irish who built the first timepieces." Knowing that he's about to deliver the coup de grace, the son of Athens points out with a note of finality: "Keep in mind...

Active between the fourth and eighth centuries A.D., the vast site housed multiple churches, monastic cells and other structuresExcavations in Egypt’s Western Desert have unearthed the ruins of an early Christian monastic site, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). Highlights of the discovery include three churches and a set of monks’ cells, or living quarters. Per a statement from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, a joint French-Norwegian team found the basalt and mudbrick structures at Tel Ganub Qasr Al-‘Aguz in the Bahariya Oasis, some 230 miles southwest of Cairo. Some of the buildings were carved directly into the bedrock. Ancient Egyptians...

Denver Newsroom, Mar 19, 2021 / 03:01 am MT (CNA).- Israeli archaeologists announced this week the discovery of several new sets of Dead Sea Scrolls— ancient fragments of biblical text that have, for the past 70 years, contributed to scholars’ knowledge about the Old Testament. The new scroll fragments, which the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced March 16, include the books of Zechariah and Nahum, both minor prophets. Dr. John Bergsma, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville who has written and spoken extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls, told CNA that an interesting feature of the scrolls recently found...

On a day that saw the Israel Antiquities Authority unveil the first Bible scroll fragments found in decades and numerous other dazzling artifacts from the “Cave of Horror” above the Dead Sea — including a huge 10,500-year-old complete woven basket, the oldest in the world — perhaps the most extraordinary news is that there are another 20 promising caves, holding untold potential treasures, that have yet to be excavated. That means the dozens of fragments shown to the public on Tuesday could mark the beginning of an exciting new era of discovery, 60 years after the last major scroll finds....

Dozens of 2,000-year-old fragments from scrolls containing portions of the books of Nahum and Zechariah have been unearthed in Israel, an extremely rare discovery in the Judean Desert. The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of the uncovered fragments on Tuesday. They are the first of such discoveries in approximately 60 years. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fragments of religious manuscripts that were originally found in the Judaean Desert decades ago. The newly discovered fragments are Greek translations of the two minor prophets. Despite most of the fragments being in Greek, the name of God is written in Hebrew. The...

With named storms coming earlier and more often in warmer waters, the Atlantic hurricane season is going through some changes with meteorologists ditching the Greek alphabet during busy years. But the Atlantic hurricane season will start this year on June 1 as traditionally scheduled, despite meteorologists discussing the idea of moving it to May 15. A special World Meteorological Organization committee Wednesday ended the use of Greek letters when the Atlantic runs out of the 21 names for the year, saying the practice was confusing and put too much focus on the Greek letter and not on the dangerous storm...

They also discovered a partially mummified 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child.For the first time in 60 years, archaeologists have discovered a new fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a cache of ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts uncovered in the Qumran Caves on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which carried out the excavations, believes the new scroll, written in Greek, is actually a missing part of the “Book of the 12 Minor Prophets” scroll, first discovered in 1961. It contains verses from Zechariah 8:16-17 and Nahum 1:5-6. The minor differences in the wording compared...

“These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate—declares the Lord.” These verses, from Zechariah 8:16–17, were discovered in a cave where Jewish refugees hid almost 1900 years ago. The verses, written on dozens of parchment fragments were discovered in a complex and challenging national-archaeological operation undertaken by the Israel Antiquities Authority on the cliffs of the Judean Desert, since 2017, in order to prevent antiquities...