Thousands of coins have survived from antiquity, but little evidence exists about the mints which produced them. Only two mints are known, one at modern Porto Heli in the Argolid, and the other at Olbia in South Russia. Now, half a dozen workmen can be seen every day at the Agora, at the foot of the Acropolis, slowly uncovering what is believed to have been the mint of ancient Athens.
Perhaps the votive offerings most of ten encountered by visitors to Greece are the ubiquitous altars that dot the roadsides and appear in particular profusion on treacherous curves. These miniature edifices, ranging from the simple to the ornate, balanced precariously on spindly legs, usually mark a spot where an accident occurred but serious in jury or fatality was avoided. Libations of olive oil, or oil lamps to be lit on holy days, are often visible behind the tiny doors and windows of the altars. Oblations expressing gratitude, offering supplication or seeking intervention by the saints, are called “tamata” (“tama” in the singular). In recent years a particular type of tama, the small metal plaques hung on the iconostasis and icons of Orthodox churches, have become popular among collectors.
Were the startling feats of the Minoan bull-leapers fact or symbol? Was the palace of Knossos, generally believed to be the centre of a vital metropolis, a palace of death ? What is the ”draughts board” of Knossos? Will the key to the undeciphered Linear A ever be found? Or to the Phaestos disc? These and other unsolved mysteries have eluded generations of scholars and laymen alike who continue to be intrigued by the remarkable Minoan civilization which began to flourish on Crete nearly five thousand years ago.
It has yet to be placed in many tourist itineraries, but the glorious sea, the grandiose mountains, the forces of nature that prompted ancient man to build here his edifices to the gods, remain the same.
The village of Lindos was still a quiet, primitive place when we first encountered it eighteen years ago. We were immediately won, even though our initial impression of it was all wrong. Seen from the heights of the approach, Lindos was undoubtedly beautiful, but on the “picturesque” side.
The biggest event in the maritime world, the Posidonia exhibition and forum which is held in Greece every two years, will take place in Piraeus in early June. Those who were here in 1976 will no doubt remember the vast invasion of thirsty shipping men who drank Athens dry of tonic water—a disaster that sent frantic hoteliers out into the countryside buying up every bottle in sight.
Everything we had heard or read about the firedancers of Greece turned out to be wrong. We had been led to believe that the men and women who take part in the annual ceremony were a strange, even satanic lot, that the ceremony had its roots in pagan, Dionysian rites, that the dancers drank heavily for days and worked themselves into a frenzy in order to walk barefoot on the red-hot coals. Yet another source insisted that the whole thing was a fraud, a carnival show put on for money, a piece of flimflammery.
The lemons and oranges seem to reach into my window. After the maze of multi-storey dwellings in Athens, the rain-slippery slopes around Kolonaki Square, the pock-marked asphalt, the cars parked on sidewalks discouraging even the most determined walker, Nicosia looks like a peaceful suburb, a garden city — a walker’s city, where nobody walks and everybody drives even for short distances.
There was a time when people turned with their troubles to gods and goddesses, demi-gods and heroes, saints and angels, but today more and more enlightened non-believers turn to physicians and psychiatrists for help.
Under fragrant cedars and pines on Mount Lykavitos, a few steps from the paved paths, one still comes upon flower-covered slopes blue with grape hyacinths or sprinkled with cow vetch and tiny pinks. Were it not for the constant din of Athens traffic rising from below, one might imagine it to be the countryside, and contemplate what it must have been like before the encroachment of apartment buildings which now cover Lykavitos’s flanks almost to the top.
