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Greece is moving ahead with a controversial proposal that would make it the first country in the European Union to allow 13-hour workdays for a single employer. Set to be presented in September, the draft law has already drawn sharp criticism from unions, while the government insists it will provide much-needed flexibility in the labour market. This plan builds on recent reforms, one of which includes the introduction of a six-day workweek last year. Previously, employees were allowed to work up to 13 hours per day for two employers. However, under the new framework, employees could work up to 13...

A new study has provided the clearest picture yet of one of Europe’s most debated fossils — a nearly complete human skull discovered in Petralona Cave, northern Greece. The fossil, first unearthed in 1960, has long challenged scientists with questions about both its identity and its age. A skull unlike Neanderthals or modern humans The Petralona skull belongs to the Homo genus but stands apart from known groups. It shows marked differences from Neanderthals and modern humans, leaving researchers uncertain about where it fits in the evolutionary record. Its age has also been a source of dispute for decades, with...

Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek in the service of the Persian Great King, is best known for his early exploration of India and for shaping what the ancient Greeks knew about the East. Born in the late 6th century BC in a Carian town of Asia Minor (Anatolia), he lived at the cultural crossroads of Greek and Persian influence. Scylax became both an explorer and a writer—an essential figure in the transmission of geographical knowledge between civilizations. Unfortunately, Scylax’s original writings have not survived. What we know of his life and work comes from fragments preserved by later historians like...

Donald Trump is hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington this week for a summit which could advance a much-anticipated peace agreement between the two. The meeting would send a strong signal to Moscow regarding the two countries' commitment to finding a solution without Russia. The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are set to meet US President Donald Trump for a peace summit in Washington on Thursday and Friday, which could advance a much-anticipated peace deal between the two countries. After almost four decades of bitter conflict, Baku and Yerevan might finally settle for peace in the region...

In 399 BC, Athens, the cradle of democracy and philosophy, tried and killed a seemingly innocent man in one of the most controversial trials in history. The defendant, Socrates, was a 70-year-old philosopher whose teachings profoundly influenced the city’s youth and intellectual landscape. His execution by drinking poison hemlock remains a poignant episode in Western philosophy. Understanding why Athens killed Socrates reveals much about its sociopolitical and cultural dynamics. The charges: impiety and corrupting the youth Athenians charged Socrates with two primary offenses: impiety, or not believing in the gods recognized by the state, and corrupting the youth of Athens....

The Ancient Greeks were active travelers, despite the dangers of land travel and the fear of highwaymen. Sea travel required ample supplies and means. A fascinating archaeological find exhibited in the Agora Museum in Athens is rectangular clay tablets with inscribed names and occupations that purportedly served as travel documents in antiquity. Most travelers were aristocrats and well-to-do citizens who traveled to witness and experience the wonders of the ancient world, and other famous places and sights. Others traveled for pilgrimage; healing in sanctuaries such as the Sanctuary of Asclepius in Olympia, the Sanctuary of Apollo on Delos Island, or...

Donald Trump recently announced that the United States would help Pakistan develop its "massive oil reserves," suggesting it could export oil to India in the future. In response, Baloch leader Mir Yar Baloch has written an open letter to the US president, highlighting how encouraging the exploitation of Balochistan's oil reserves would make the US complicit in enabling ISI to enhance its global terror networks. In his letter, the Baloch leader warned against allowing Pakistan's radicalised military and rogue ISI, long accused of sponsoring Al-Qaeda and various proxy groups responsible for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers in Afghanistan,...

Archaeologists have re-examined a 2500-year-old residue found in bronze jars at an underground shrine in Paestum, Italy, previously identified as a wax/fat/resin mixture. Using a multianalytical approach, the authors have detected lipids, saccharide decomposition products, hexose sugars, and major royal jelly proteins supporting the hypothesis that the jars once also contained honey/honeycombs. Paestum honey: (A) underground shrine in Paestum, Italy; (B) one of the hydrias on display alongside a Perspex box containing the residue at the Ashmolean Museum in 2019; (C) graphic representation of the arrangement of the bronze jars inside the shrine; (D) sample from the core of the...

The Houthis will resume attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea if those ships have ties to companies that work with Israeli ports, the Yemen-based group announced this week.While the Houthis are calling it a “fourth phase of escalation,” the move from the group is the phase of the Houthis’ Red Sea attacks when they expanded their strikes to any ship that visited Israeli ports or was associated with a company that had ties to Israel.The last time the Houthis announced they would attack ships, the United States had multiple ships in the Red Sea. This time, it has...

The oldest song to have survived in its entirety is a first-century AD Greek tune known as the “Seikilos Epitaph.” The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found in 1883 engraved on a pillar (a stele) from the Hellenistic town of Tralles near present-day Aydın, Turkey, not far from Ephesus. Although usually referred to as an epitaph, experts say that it is possible that it does not mark a tomb, but was merely a monument erected by Seikilos himself to commemorate his skill. “I am a tombstone, an image,”...

Selinunte - ancient Selinus - was one of the wealthiest Greek colonies on Sicily. Before its sudden destruction by Carthage, the city built a series of temples, which survive today as some of the Mediterranean's most impressive ruins. Selinunte: More Temples than Athens | 7:20 Scenic Routes to the Past | 42.1K subscribers | 10,799 views | July 25, 2025 0:00 Introduction 1:18 Temple E 2:16 Temple F 3:01 Temple G 4:43 Acropolis 5:26 Temple C 6:21 Temple D

ATHENS/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked Israeli tourists from disembarking in Greece on Tuesday, forcing an Israeli-owned cruise ship carrying 1,600 passengers to reroute to Cyprus. The Crown Iris, operated by Israel’s Mano Maritime, was prevented from docking in the port of Ermoupoli on the Greek island of Syros as an estimated 300 demonstrators gathered in and around the port to protest Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, witnesses said.

Tattoos were considered a sign of “otherness” in ancient Greece, as it was either foreigners or slaves, criminals, and captives who had tattoos in ancient Greek society. Body modification, such as tattoos and piercings, has been common throughout human societies across the world since Neolithic times. Humans have felt the urge to modify their bodies with tattoos for various cultural, religious, and aesthetic reasons for centuries. While tattooing developed independently across numerous cultures, Greeks were among the first people to begin inking their skin, as historical records date ancient Greek tattooing to as early as the 5th century BC. Tattooing...

The most famous oracle in ancient Greece was undoubtedly the Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi. However, Greek sources also mention another oracle active in the distant past, one who has mostly been forgotten today but was said to have predicted the Trojan War. This was the Erythraean Sibyl. Much confusion surrounds this legendary figure. So what do we know about her? The source for the Erythraean Sibyl Information for the Erythraean Sibyl, the oracle who predicted the Trojan War, primarily stems from a single source. This is Pausanias’s Description of Greece 10.12. Pausanias, a second-century AD geographer, offers detailed accounts...

By Philip Chrysopoulos July 20, 2025 Turkish invasion of Cyprus 50 years since Nicosia was divided and separated by a buffer zone. Credit: Marco Fieber, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0/Flickr The day of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, July 20, 1974, was the day time stopped for Cyprus, a day of infamy when the course of the nation’s history changed forever. For Cypriots, the ongoing crime of the Turkish occupation of their beloved country seems as fresh at each anniversary as it was then. It was a day that no Cypriot and no Greek will indeed ever forget. The eerie sound of...

A fragment of marble column dating to the fifth century b.c. unearthed at the site of Casas del Turuñuelo in southwestern Spain is believed to be part of the oldest Greek altar ever found in the western Mediterranean, according to the Greek Reporter. First discovered a decade ago, Turuñuelo was founded by the enigmatic Iron Age Tartessian culture, which flourished in southern Iberia between the eighth and fifth centuries b.c. Analysis of the marble stone indicated that it was quarried from the island of Maramara, in present-day Turkey. Lead archaeologists Esther Rodríguez González and Sebastián Celestino Pérez said that while...

According to a statement released by The Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece, renewed investigation into the Antikythera shipwreck has provided several new details about the ship and its cargo. The ship sank around 65 b.c. and was first discovered in 1900. On repeated dives over the past 120 years, underwater archaeologists have retrieved hundreds of artifacts, dozens of statues, and most famously the Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes referred to as the world's first analog computer. Recent recovery of fragments of the hull yielded new information about the vessel's design and ancient shipbuilding. Archaeologists found three outer planks still joined to...

For thousands of years, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were the oldest epic stories that Europeans know of. But is it possible that Homer was, in turn, influenced by the stories of other civilizations to the east of Greece? We are joined by Mary Bachvarova, an expert on both the ancient Greek and Hittite traditions, to explore this fascinating question. This is episode 42 of the "Ancient Greece Declassified" podcast. A Hittite Version of the Trojan War?! | 1:03:07 Lantern Jack | 10.2K subscribers | 329,200 views | November 28, 2021

This video explores how Greek city-states constructed some of the most impressive, and most beautiful, buildings in history. How the Greeks built Temples | 11:49 toldinstone | 587K subscribers | 27,375 views | July 11, 2025Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:40 Form and function 2:18 Planning 2:52 Variables 4:20 Flexispot 5:45 Location and materials 6:45 Construction 8:09 Decoration 9:16 Financing

The United States Mission to Yemen reported on Wednesday that the Houthi terrorists have kidnapped many surviving crew members of the Greek-owned Eternity C cargo ship after they attacked it earlier in the week. "We call for their immediate and unconditional safe release. The Houthis continue to show the world why the United States was right to label them a terrorist organization," the mission wrote in a statement. On Monday, the Houthi rebels in Yemen launched an attack on the merchant vessel in the Red Sea near the city of Hodeidah. The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that the...