Italy rediscovers Greek heritage
Chloe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4116006.stm
By David Willey
BBC correspondent in Rome
Terracotta vase from Magna Graecia, about 490BC
Hundreds of rare and beautiful pieces are on display
A world-class archaeological exhibition opened this week in Calabria, in
the toe of Italy.
Its subject is Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece - the name given to
parts of southern Italy colonised by the ancient Greeks 2,500 years ago.
The migrations of modern Europe are nothing new.
But for the ancient Greeks, southern Italy was their America.
Long before the Roman empire flourished, they sailed west in search of
new lands.
They settled around the hospitable coastline of Calabria and Sicily,
dominating local tribes, building huge temples to their gods and
founding Greek-speaking colonies.
However, their cities and culture were later destroyed by the Romans.
Only very recently have archaeologists been able to reconstruct their
history.
It is a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces still missing.
Ancient treasures
Salvatore Settis of the University of Pisa, one of Italy's leading
archaeologists, has brought together in Catanzaro, Calabria's regional
capital, more than 800 pieces of sculpture in marble and terracotta from
Magna Graecia.
They were originally dug up or recovered from the sea all around the
coasts of southern Italy, but are now scattered in museums and private
collections around Europe.
MAGNA GRAECIA
Map of Italy showing location of Calabria
Greek settlers arrived in 8th Century BC
Founded colonies among small coastal settlements
Built an important centre of Greek civilisation
Cities began to decline after 5th Century
There are also gold and silver coins, ancient maps, books, inscriptions
and Greek vases, as well as portrait busts and votive offerings to Greek
gods whose shrines once dotted the Italian landscape.
Some of Europe's finest Greek temples are still to be seen at Paestum,
south of Naples.
The area around them has delivered up some stunning archaeological
discoveries, including wall paintings, elaborate bronze containers for
honey, wine and oil, and inscriptions which provide important clues
about this now almost vanished world.
Two large sheets of bronze, known as the Tablets of Heraclea, dug up in
1732 and now in the Naples museum, are also on show in Catanzaro.
They bear ancient inscriptions on one side in Greek and, on the other, a
text dating from several hundred years later in Latin.
They provided some of the first documentary evidence about the lives of
the Greek-speaking ancient inhabitants of this part of the Mediterranean.
Regeneration hopes
Mr Settis told me that as a native of Calabria, he had first become
fascinated by an unexpected legacy of Magna Graecia - the large number
of ancient Greek words that have survived more than 2,000 years in his
local dialect.
Bust of a woman carrying a lotus flower, about 500BC
This figure of a woman with a lotus flower dates from about 500BC
"It was English aristocrats who first became infatuated with the Greek
sculptures dug up in southern Italy in the late 18th Century.
"Your consul in Naples, Sir William Hamilton, was one of the first
serious collectors of Greek art from Italy," Mr Settis said.
"Italian archaeologists and collectors began to get interested during
the 19th and 20th centuries. The memory of this long-forgotten world is
now being resurrected."
Catanzaro, situated right down in the toe of Italy, is a rather dull and
ugly provincial capital built on two sides of a deep gorge, and does not
normally figure on Italian art city tours.
However, the local authorities are hoping that foreign visitors who come
to visit the new exhibition may also be interested in seeing the
recently uncovered remains nearby of the city of Scolacium.
That was the city the Romans built when they conquered Magna Graecia,
and founded their colonies on the ruins of former Greek settlements.
The house of a former big landowner has been converted into a small
museum with some fine pieces of Roman sculpture on show, dug up during
recent excavations.
gogu
Italy rediscovers Greek heritage
By David Willey
BBC correspondent in Rome
A world-class archaeological exhibition opened this week in Calabria, in the
toe of Italy.
Its subject is Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece - the name given to parts of
southern Italy colonised by the ancient Greeks 2,500 years ago.
The migrations of modern Europe are nothing new.
But for the ancient Greeks, southern Italy was their America.
Long before the Roman empire flourished, they sailed west in search of new
lands.
They settled around the hospitable coastline of Calabria and Sicily,
dominating local tribes, building huge temples to their gods and founding
Greek-speaking colonies.
However, their cities and culture were later destroyed by the Romans. Only
very recently have archaeologists been able to reconstruct their history.
It is a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces still missing.
Ancient treasures
Salvatore Settis of the University of Pisa, one of Italy's leading
archaeologists, has brought together in Catanzaro, Calabria's regional
capital, more than 800 pieces of sculpture in marble and terracotta from
Magna Graecia.
They were originally dug up or recovered from the sea all around the coasts
of southern Italy, but are now scattered in museums and private collections
around Europe.
MAGNA GRAECIA
Greek settlers arrived in 8th Century BC
Founded colonies among small coastal settlements
Built an important centre of Greek civilisation
Cities began to decline after 5th Century
There are also gold and silver coins, ancient maps, books, inscriptions and
Greek vases, as well as portrait busts and votive offerings to Greek gods
whose shrines once dotted the Italian landscape.
Some of Europe's finest Greek temples are still to be seen at Paestum, south
of Naples.
The area around them has delivered up some stunning archaeological
discoveries, including wall paintings, elaborate bronze containers for
honey, wine and oil, and inscriptions which provide important clues about
this now almost vanished world.
Two large sheets of bronze, known as the Tablets of Heraclea, dug up in 1732
and now in the Naples museum, are also on show in Catanzaro.
They bear ancient inscriptions on one side in Greek and, on the other, a
text dating from several hundred years later in Latin.
They provided some of the first documentary evidence about the lives of the
Greek-speaking ancient inhabitants of this part of the Mediterranean.
Regeneration hopes
Mr Settis told me that as a native of Calabria, he had first become
fascinated by an unexpected legacy of Magna Graecia - the large number of
ancient Greek words that have survived more than 2,000 years in his local
dialect.
"It was English aristocrats who first became infatuated with the Greek
sculptures dug up in southern Italy in the late 18th Century.
"Your consul in Naples, Sir William Hamilton, was one of the first serious
collectors of Greek art from Italy," Mr Settis said.
"Italian archaeologists and collectors began to get interested during the
19th and 20th centuries. The memory of this long-forgotten world is now
being resurrected."
Catanzaro, situated right down in the toe of Italy, is a rather dull and
ugly provincial capital built on two sides of a deep gorge, and does not
normally figure on Italian art city tours.
However, the local authorities are hoping that foreign visitors who come to
visit the new exhibition may also be interested in seeing the recently
uncovered remains nearby of the city of Scolacium.
That was the city the Romans built when they conquered Magna Graecia, and
founded their colonies on the ruins of former Greek settlements.
The house of a former big landowner has been converted into a small museum
with some fine pieces of Roman sculpture on show, dug up during recent
excavations.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4116006.stm
Published: 2005/06/21 17:19:47 GMT
© BBC MMV
--
E' mai possibile, oh porco di un cane, che le avventure
in codesto reame debban risolversi tutte con grandi
puttane! F.d.A
Coins, travels and more: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/golanule/my_photos
http://gogu.enosi.org/index.html
http://www.romclub.4t.com/rabin.html
Walter Constantin Gogu Costica Brincoveanu Mitty
vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com
But be careful. The Greeks were there as colonisers.
Colonisers never outnumber the natives and genetic studies prove this.
If you insist on the Greekness of Magna Grecia then you have to
conceed the Slavicness of Taygetos and other parts of Greece. Yet
Greece ousted the Slavs just as many Greeks returned to Greece from
Italy.
In fact the name "Maniati" proves it. Lacademonians were called "Laca
di Mani" in Italy and Maniati when they returned to Greece.
- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Fooey on GIU,{MS,X}Windows 4 Bimbos] [Cigar smoke belongs in veg food group]
Panta Rhei
<Beanie Tinfoil's usual sick obsession with his master, gogu, deleted>
Oh well, Weenie Beanie, gogu got your NTL account and probably a few other
accounts cancelled. He mistreats you every day.
But don't you think you are given away your embarrassing personal defeats
you experienced repeatedly at his hands, by dreaming and fantasizing about
him in your impotent way <BG>, and even going as far as identifying with
him, adopting his name and trying to become like him?
All this behaviour of yours makes you appear very, very sick, Weenie
Beanie!
Buahahahahaa......
--
Living the life of a ridiculed, bitchslapped loony on usenet helps Beanie
Tinfoil (right now: "Walter Mitty" <BG>) forget the failures in his life.