Let's Welcome Holly! A Lecture in Ottawa; Some Shady Activities in Crete

The winter of 2017 is in full force here in Athens. Our new undergraduate intern, Holly Patrick, was greeted with southern Ontario style winter weather instead of the much benigner “winters” we have had here for the past few years. Holly is a third year undergraduate at the University of Waterloo, majoring in Classical Studies and minoring in History and Religious Studies. A native of Chatham, Ontario, she visited Greece two years ago as part of a three week study tour organized by Prof. Craig Hardiman of the University of Waterloo. This experience and her studies have inspired Holly to become a high school teacher of Latin, History and Religion. Her three months here will enable her to see again and in depth the many museums and archaeological sites of Greece.

While at the Institute Holly will assist in the cataloguing of the new acquisitions to our Library as well as cataloging and scanning the Institute’s files relating to the many colloquia which we have organized since 1991. You will have an opportunity to meet and to welcome Holly to our archaeological community at Prof. Maria Liston’s lecture to the Athens Association of Friends of CIG on Wednesday, January 25^th.

The Antikythera Mechanism in Ottawa

The very active Ottawa Friends’ Association of the Institute has scheduled a lecture for Sunday, January 22^nd at 14:00 at the Hellenic Community Centre in Ottawa. The title of the lecture is, “The Antikythera Mechanism: An Ancient Astronomical Computer”. The lecturer, Prof. Daryn Lahoux (Queen’s University, Kingston, ON), is a noted authority on ancient astronomy and calendars. He will explore the discovery of the mechanism from the Roman shipwreck excavated at the beginning of the 20^th century off the tiny island of Antikythera, what functions the mechanism had and how it worked.

So if you are in the area of Canada’s capital that weekend, here’s an excellent opportunity to learn about this fascinating device from the past and to meet other individuals with an abiding interest in Greek heritage.

Some Shady Activities in Crete

During his long career in the Archaeological Service on Crete, Nikolaos Platon often had to deal with serious cases of illegal excavations, an activity that at that time, as unfortunately still today, was a serious problem for the island of Crete. Several of these cases led this never-tiring archaeologist to the discovery and to the systematic investigation of archaeological sites which today are considered as key-sites for the understanding of the ancient history of the island.

Using archival material, and also his personal memories as they are preserved in the narratives of his father, enriched with many anecdotal details, Professor Lefteris Platon (University of Athens) will try to bring back to life not only the facts but also the general atmosphere of archaeological research in Crete, the “Big Island”, in the period between 1935 and 1961. Prof. Platon in his lecture, «Αδημοσίευτα τεκμήρια από το αρχείο του Ν. Πλάτωνος σχετικά με τρεις υποθέσεις αρχαιοκαπηλίας, που οδήγησαν σε σπουδαίες αρχαιολογικές ανακαλύψεις στη Μεγαλόνησο», will start with the adventurous discovery and investigation of the cave at Arkalochori, then go on to ancient Lisos, and will finish with the case of the cave of ancient Inatos (Tsoutsouros), which received recently unfortunate and unjust publicity in TV and the social media.

The lecture, on Monday, January 16^th at 19:00 in the Library of the Canadian Institute in Greece, is part of the 2016/2017 Lecture Program of the ΣΥΛΛΟΓΟΣ ΦΙΛΩΝ ΤΟΥ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΚΟΥ ΑΡΧΕΙΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΗΣ ΥΠΗΡΕΣΙΑΣ. The public is welcome to learn about “the rest of the story”.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director