Free Republic

One of the latest discoveries in the world of biblical research comes as a result of ultraviolet light technology that allowed researchers to see and translate a portion of scripture written nearly 1,500 years ago.Historian Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences published his work at Cambridge and explained how the new technology has provided more insight into the preservation of scripture:Kissel said that they found an ancient version of Chapter 12 in the book of Matthew in the Bible that had been hidden beneath a section of text for over 1,500 years. His discovering is one of the...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose conservative party scored a landslide election victory Sunday but without the seats in Parliament to win outright, indicated he will seek a second election in a bid to consolidate victory without a coalition partner. Mitsotakis´ New Democracy party was a full 20 percentage points ahead of its main rival, the left-wing Syriza party, nearly complete results showed. But a new electoral system of proportional representation meant his 40% vote share still was not enough to secure a majority of the 300 seats in Parliament. To form a government, he would...

Egyptian experts have criticized Netflix for “blackwashing” its upcoming docu-series about Queen Cleopatra VII. Now, they’re taking action to see that the show never airs — by banning the streaming giant from the country completely. “African Queens: Queen Cleopatra” is narrated and executive produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, 51, and stars Adele James, 27, who is biracial, as the legendary queen of Egypt, whose specific race has long been the subject of historical dispute. Pinkett Smith previously explained that she wanted to be involved in the project because she “really wanted to represent Black women.” But Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who...

Dr. Zahi Hawass, one of the most famous Egyptologists and the former Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, has criticized Netflix for its controversial decision to cast Cleopatra with a black actress in an upcoming docuseries. The new Netflix series, dubbed “Queen Cleopatra”, which is produced and narrated by the American actress Jada Pinkett Smith, has sparked fierce debate over the misrepresentation of history and representation in TV and media. Hawass, who is Egypt’s most recognizable archaeologist, decried the decision by Netflix to portray Cleopatra as being of black descent, pointing out that the historical figure “was Greek”. Zahi...

For over two millennia in the West, familiarity with the literature, philosophy, and values of the Classical World has been synonymous with education itself. The traditions of the Greeks explain why Western Culture’s unique tenets of democracy, capitalism, civil liberty, and constitutional government are now sweeping the globe. Yet the general public in America knows less about its cultural origins than ever before, as Classical education rapidly disappears from our high school and university curricula. Acclaimed classicists Hanson and Heath raise an impassioned call to arms: if we lose our knowledge of the Greeks, we lose our understanding of who...

Greek authorities released a new recording on Thursday that shed light on what may have caused one of the country's worst railway wrecks in history. In the audio, a station manager appears to instruct a driver to "pass the red signal" before that train collided head-on with another on Tuesday night local time, near the city of Larissa in northern Greece, according to Greek news media. At least 57 people have died as a result of the crash and 48 remain in the hospital — including seven who are being treated in intensive care units as of Friday morning. The...

Two ancient clay tablets discovered in Iraq and covered from top to bottom in cuneiform writing contain details of a "lost" Canaanite language that has remarkable similarities with ancient Hebrew. The tablets, thought to be nearly 4,000 years old, record phrases in the almost unknown language of the Amorite people, who were originally from Canaan — the area that's roughly now Syria, Israel and Jordan — but who later founded a kingdom in Mesopotamia. These phrases are placed alongside translations in the Akkadian language, which can be read by modern scholars. In effect, the tablets are similar to the famous...

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...