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La Brújula Verde reports that a bone stylus dated to the fifth century B.C. was unearthed in southern Sicily during an archaeological investigation conducted in advance of a construction project. The five-inch stylus was recovered from an area with a paved surface and collapsed structures that are thought to have been used as workshops in the Greek colony. The top of the stylus is carved with a man’s head, perhaps representing Dionysus as a herm or a bust in a squared stone pillar. The central part of the pillar features a carving of a phallus. Archaeologist Gianluca Calà, excavation director...

...The stone relief, which depicts a prancing horse, was located near the mouth of the Akragas River off the coast of San Leone—a town on the southern coast of Sicily.... One of Italy's 20 regions, the island is located just off the "toe" of the country's "boot."Sicily was first settled by ancient Greek colonists in the 8th century B.C., although the island was eventually conquered by the Romans in the 3rd century B.C...While more research needs to be conducted to uncover the true nature of the find, experts believe it may have been designed as decoration for the Temple of...

[snip] I'm in Syracuse on Sicily's east coast, founded by the Greeks 27 centuries ago. In the city's ancient heart is the Duomo, the Cathedral of Syracuse. Today, this is a Christian church, but to walk through its doors is to take a trip back in time to 500 years before Christ was even born. The Duomo began life in 480 BC as the building project of a Greek tyrant, who having beaten the Carthaginians in battle, used the loot to build this. And these are the columns from that temple, soaring up into the sky. It was topped by...

The Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice is the continuation of a Greek fraternity founded in 1498 The story began in 1498, a few decades after the fall of Constantinople, when the Greeks in Venice — la nazione greca (or the Greek nation) — gained permission from the Serene Republic to create a fraternity. Merchants and simple migrants from Western Greece, refugees from Constantinople, artists and others from Venetian-ruled Crete — all were Orthodox Christians who spoke Greek. The Most Serene Republic of Venice — the Serenissima — which ruled the Eastern Mediterranean, willingly offered them asylum; first,...