Greeks of the 5,000-year-old village were ethnically cleansed and then forcibly expelled in 1922. Credit: Wikitestaccountlogin, CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikipedia
The ghost village of Levissi (known today as Kayaköy) was once a bustling Greek village on the slopes of a hill in the district of Fethiye, Turkey, almost opposite the island of Rhodes.
Greeks of the 5,000-year-old village were ethnically cleansed and then forcibly expelled in 1922, causing 10,000 people to leave behind the land of their heritage.
It was anciently known in Greek as Karmylessos. In late antiquity the inhabitants of the region had become Christian and, following the East-West Schism with the Church of Rome in 1054 AD, they came to be called Greek Orthodox Christians.
These Greek-speaking Christian subjects, and their Turkish-speaking Muslim Ottoman rulers, lived in relative harmony from the end of the turbulent Ottoman conquest of the region in the 14th century until the early 20th century.
The massacres of Greeks and other Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire during World War I (1914–1918) led to the almost total depopulation of the town’s 6,500 Greek inhabitants by 1918. These former inhabitants were deprived of their properties and became refugees in Greece, or they died in Ottoman forced labor battalions.
Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the town’s Greek Orthodox residents were exiled.
A panoramic photo of the abandoned village. Credit: Darwinek, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikipedia
Greek village is a ghost town
Since then, the homes have remained vacant, left to decay after being further damaged by a huge earthquake in 1957.
Houses and churches in the area have been used for summer festivals, however, plans to lease the area and auction it off for commercial interests have caused local Turks as well as Greeks with roots in the area to protest. They are worried that the investors could further ruin the authenticity of the area.
The ghost town, now preserved as a museum village, consists of hundreds of rundown but still mostly standing Greek-style houses and churches that cover a small mountainside and serve as a stopping place for tourists visiting Fethiye and nearby Ölüdeniz.
The village is now empty except for tour groups and roadside vendors selling handmade goods. There are a few houses which have been restored and are currently occupied.
American filmmaker Joerg Schodl set out to document what is left of the ghost town in his documentary, “Ghosts of Levissi.”
Schodl tells the tale of the small Greek community in Asia Minor that was torn apart during the final days of the Ottoman Empire. It focuses on the disappearance of the population practically overnight thanks to campaigns, designed to scare Greeks from Levissi and nearby Macri (known as Fethiye), including offensives by Turks. The site Greek Genocide reports that women were raped and their clothes and shoes taken from them.
When making the film, Schodl had the help of members of the Greek community in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane and he was able to find thirteen descendants of Levissi families. More descendants were found in Toronto, Rhodes, London, Athens and Istanbul.
The bombs were discovered during work at the Hellinikon project. Credit: Lamda Development
A total of 314 WWII German bombs have been discovered during work on a massive urban development project at the former airport complex of Hellinikon south of Athens, according to local authorities.
In a press conference on Thursday, Elliniko-Argyroupoli Mayor Giannis Konstantatos said that the cache of German-made ordnance was found buried at a depth of two meters beneath a former social club, nursery schools and sports facilities constructed for the 2004 Athens Olympics situated at the site.
“Thankfully, no explosions or accidents occurred. It’s puzzling how an entire airport and numerous municipal and civil aviation facilities operated in such a minefield,” he said.
The disposal of the bombs was undertaken by the Hellenic Army’s Land Mine Clearance Squad (TENX).
Hellinikon Airport used by the German occupying forces
The old Athens airport at Hellinikon was founded in 1938. It wasn’t originally called Hellinikon International Airport, but Kalamaki Airfield, which was used by the German occupying forces for missions in Greece.
Since Athens was occupied early in the war (April 1941), Hellinikon was used for transporting troops or supplies to other parts of Greece or the Balkans. It also functioned as a repair and storage facility for non-operational aircraft.
The German occupation of Athens, which lasted from April 1941 to October 1944, was a dark and tumultuous period in the city’s history. The Greeks suffered greatly under the harsh rule of the Nazi occupiers, who imposed severe restrictions on their lives, looted their resources, and perpetrated numerous atrocities.
The Hellinikon project
The bombs were discovered during work for the Hellinikon project, a massive urban development project which is aiming to be one of the biggest urban parks in Europe.
The project incorporates the park itself, along with luxury residences, hotels, a casino, a marina, shops, offices, and even Greece’s tallest buildings reaching up to 200 meters in height.
The park itself is planned to encompass a whopping 263 hectares, with an additional 100+ hectares dedicated to housing and office facilities. This would make it larger than London’s Hyde Park, currently the biggest in Europe at 250 hectares.
In the meantime, a section called the Hellinikon Experience Park has been open to the public since 2016. This 75,000 square meter section offers a green space for relaxation and recreation.
LAMDA Development says that The Hellinikon is expected to substantially contribute to the repositioning of Athens as one of the major world-class tourism destinations as it will provide a significant number of new accommodation landmarks, as well as thematic tourism venues, expected to attract at least 1 million new tourists while significantly reducing seasonality and at the same time increasing the average stay and spending of tourists in Athens.
The ongoing project is expected to contribute to the country’s GDP by 2.4% until the development’s completion date, contributing also a total of over €14 bln in tax revenues to the Greek State over the same timeframe.
Greek Patriot batteries were on display recently. Credit: Hellenic National Defence General Staff
Germany has criticized its NATO allies Spain and Greece for not donating their Patriot air-defense systems to Ukraine.
Kyiv has said it needs at least seven of the American-made surface-to-air missile batteries to protect its cities from Russia’s long-range bombardments.
Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, said: “Many countries have Patriot systems or comparable.”
“Let’s say if a country has, for instance, six Patriot systems or four and is not in the front line to the east, it can easily hand over a Patriot system,” he added in a television appearance on Tuesday.
Asked by the host whether it was a pointed criticism of Spain and Greece, Pistorius replied: “We’re talking to them right now. I honestly can’t understand.”
Germany this month wrote to dozens of countries to appeal for more air-defense systems for Ukraine as part of a campaign to plug gaps in Kyiv’s defenses.
But since the initiative’s launched, only Berlin has decided to send a Patriot system to Ukraine from its arsenal.
Greece refuses to send the Patriot system to Ukraine
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece can not offer air defense systems like Patriots or S-300 to Ukraine responding to pressure from EU and NATO allies to send more military aid to Kyiv.
“Greece is not going to send S-300 or Patriot to Ukraine,” Mitsotakis said in an interview in Skai TV late on Thursday.
European Union ministers said on Monday they were looking urgently at how to provide more air defenses to Ukraine but they stopped short of concrete pledges of the Patriot systems that Kyiv values most.
“We were asked and we explained why we cannot do it,” Mitsotakis said adding that these systems are “critical to our deterrent capability.”
Greece denied on Monday a report that is about to supply air defense systems to Ukraine, clarifying that no action would be taken that might compromise the country’s deterrent capability.
The government spokesman in Athens Pavlos Marinakis reacted to a report in the Financial Times suggesting that the government in Athens faces significant pressure to send US Patriot systems and Russian S-300s to Ukraine.
“We have already provided tangible assistance to Ukraine and its people. However, it must be emphasized that no action will be taken – and I stress this – that could even remotely endanger our nation’s deterrent capabilities or air defense,” Marinakis told a press briefing.
“We have consistently refuted such claims in the past, and I reiterate our stance emphatically today,” he added.
According to the FT report, European leaders personally urged Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez during a summit in Brussels last week to supply the systems to Ukraine.
The two leaders, whose armed forces collectively possess over a dozen Patriot systems along with other assets like S-300s, were allegedly told that their own needs were not as pressing as Ukraine’s and that they were not currently facing imminent threats.
In 2021 Greece delivered a battery of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to Saudi Arabia as well as 120 soldiers to work the weapons system. The then-Chief of General Staff, General Konstantinos Floros said that the mission of the Greek forces is to maintain peace and stability, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
The Olympic Flame traveled for 11 days throughout Greece. Credit: AMNA
After its journey through Greece for 11 days, the Olympic Flame will be handed over to the delegation of the “Paris 2024” Organising Committee on Friday.
The handover ceremony will begin on Friday, April 26, at 6:30 pm (local time) at the Panathenaic Stadium (Kallimarmaro) in central Athens, the site of the first modern Olympic Games of 1896.
Internationally renowned artist Nana Mouskouri will participate in the ceremony, while Nikos Aliagas will host the event.
The Olympic Torch will be brought to the Panathenaic Stadium by Greek race walking champion Antigoni Drisbiotis, while the last torchbearer in the Kallimarmaro will be the captain of Greece’s national polo team Ioannis Fountoulis, together with his teammates, who won the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
At the end of the event, the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Spyros Capralos, will hand over the Olympic Torch to the president of the “PARIS 2024” Organizing Committee, Tony Estanguet, so that it can continue its journey to Paris.
The Olympic Flame was lit in ancient Olympia on April 16th. Some 600 dignitaries attended the ceremony, headed by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach.
The ritual included actresses in the role of ancient priestesses coaxing the Olympic flame into life with the help of a parabolic polished mirror in Olympia, where the Games first took place in 776 BC.
The Olympic flame was carried by Mary Mina, the priestess, in a choreography inspired and directed by the choreographer Artemis Ignatiou to music composed by Dimitris Papadimitriou and performed by 35 priestesses and 15 kouroi. The costumes for the performers were created by the internationally renowned designer Mary Katrantzou.
Olympic Flame to set sail from Greece to Marseilles
An illustration of the Belem arriving in Marseille. Credit: International Olympic Committee
The Olympic Flame for the 2024 Paris Games will take to the seas from its birthplace in Greece, arriving aboard a three-masted tall ship in the French port of Marseille, a former Greek colony founded 2,600 years ago.
The huge port city of Marseille in southern France was founded by the Greeks back in 600 BC when the first immigrants arrived in the area and established a trading colony. This was at a time when many Phocaeans left their homeland in today’s Turkey (then Greek-speaking Asia Minor) and reached the northern shores of the Western Mediterranean.
Legendary 🇫🇷sailing ship to transport Olympic Flame
The Belem made its 1st voyage in 1896,just a few weeks after the first modern #OlympicGames had finished in #Athens
— Greece in the Netherlands (@PressGreekEmbas) April 23, 2024
The Flame will arrive in Marseille aboard the historic ship Belem on 8 May 2024 kicking off its journey across France. Fourteen young people aged 16 to 24 have been selected to join the professional crew of the Belem and accompany the Olympic Flame on its Mediterranean crossing. They will join the ship’s professional crew of 16.
The Olympic Flame will arrive in Paris on July 26 for the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Slaves portrayed working in the Laurion mines. 7th century BC. Credit: Public Domain
Slavery in Ancient Greece was acceptable and common, as in most organized societies of the time; yet there were several differences between city states.
The recorded history of slavery in Ancient Greece begins during the Mycenaean civilization (1600 to 1100 BC), as indicated in numerous tablets unearthed at Pylos.
Slaves played an important role in ancient societies since they were used in building temples and other construction works; principally, however, they were engaged in the crucial area of agriculture.
Female slaves served as maids, nurses, and cooks, and there were craftsmen, artists, musicians, and others who were enslaved but could live a decent life and earn income as well.
Craftsmen who worked with their masters lived in their own quarters and earned their income at free will.
Even the greatest thinkers at the time—and there were many—could not imagine a world free of slavery, since it was such an established phenomenon.
However, slaves were treated differently, and conditions under which they lived and worked could vary greatly, depending on the time and location in which they lived.
In Athens, the city-state with a democratic government, people would grow up with their family’s slaves, and it was not unusual to become friends with them.
In oligarchical Sparta, on the other hand, slaves were treated harshly, and their living conditions were inhumane and humiliating.
Who were slaves in Ancient Greece?
There were many sources to supply slaves to the economy. Some of the slaves had been born free but, owing to poverty, were sold by their parents into the slave market.
Other slaves, both men and women, were sold by their own tribes in exchange for goods. A large number of slaves were taken as prisoners of war, captured by the winning army.
There are writings that mention the sale of at at least 20,000 slaves by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. After conquering Scythia, he procured children and women and sold them in the slave markets.
Greek slaves came from the different cities of Greece while others came from Egypt and Persia.
Woman being taken as slave in war in ancient Greece; c. 440-430 BC. Credit: Public Domain
Slavery in ancient Athens
it is estimated that Athens had as many as 80,000 slaves in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, with an average household possessing three to four slaves; the only exception to that rule would be impoverished families.
Slaves in ancient Athens were the property of their masters under Athenian law. They could be bought, sold, and beaten, but only by their master.
There were also people who were considered public slaves, who were the property of the polis, or city-state, thus being a sort of “elite” slave.
If a male slave was freed, he became a “metic” (resident alien), and after that designation, he could be granted citizenship.
Many slaves worked and lived in their masters’ house, doing all the housework and, in many cases, tending to the family’s children.
Male slaves did the shopping for the household. If they lived and worked independently, they made periodic payments for their masters.
There are written documents containing records that slaves were involved in the building of the Erechtheion and worked in the silver mines of Laurion.
Female slaves are known to have been occupied in woolwork and the retail trade; they were also used as wet nurses for infants and known to have worked in craft shops around the agora.
Female slaves also worked as prostitutes in brothels and as concubines. However, a concubine had no rights whatsoever.
Occasionally, the concubine would stay with the man in his house along with his wife. At other times, she would be given a separate house to live in where her children would also live.
During Classical times, slave labor was the main workforce in the craft production industry. Most of the craft factories belonged to wealthy politicians.
There are records of Demosthenes owning two factories largely supported by slaves. One of these factories produced swords and had about thirty slaves while the other had twenty slaves and produced couches.
Lysias, the famous writer, owned the largest production center on record—a shield factory where 120 slaves worked producing the intricate weapons.
Slaves in Sparta
Critias described the situation of slaves in Sparta with these words: “The free were more free, and the slaves more fully slaves, than elsewhere.”
In the Sparta city-state, all slaves were owned by the state. They were viewed as enemies and forced to wear humiliating clothes to distinguish them from Spartan citzens.
Spartans called them helots (είλωτες), a word still used in Greece today to describe someone who works hard with low pay and in bad conditions.
Helots incredibly outnumbered the citizenry by about twenty to one and formed the entire basis of the Spartan economy, to the extent that they were essential to food production.
However, Spartans treated helots like animals and would not allow them to leave the place they served.
Helots were publicly beaten ceremoniously to remind them of their servile position. Even killing a helot was not a punishable act.
According to Plutarch, Spartans even forced their slaves to get drunk to show the young Spartans the problem with drinking to excess.
Worse, young Spartan men were told to run throughout the country armed with daggers and kill helots at will in order to terrorize them and keep them servile.
At war, slaves were servants to the warriors—cleaning their armor and cooking—even serving as light infantrymen occasionally.
To keep their numbers up, Spartans encouraged helots to breed amongst themselves, and they were allowed to have some form of family unit.
Much like Spartan citizens, helots were subjects of “selective breeding.” The strong would live and the weak would be thrown out or even put to death on the spot.
Spartans would also procreate with helot women to bulk up the numbers of the state’s servants. Those resulting children would be called nothoi (νόθοι), ranking somewhere between a slave and a free man.
Nothoi usually served in the citizen army or worked in some low-level public service job. Girls, however, who were born from a Spartan and helot would simply be discarded.
Slave revolts in Ancient Greece
Slave revolts were uncommon in Ancient Greece, although slave escapes were not. Slaves who escaped did so merely to be free.
Slave miners worked under extraordinarily harsh conditions in the dark, although many were also needed to perform skilled and unskilled tasks outside of the pits as.
Many slaves were constantly overworked and surely worked to death at times. Furthermore, many were stigmatized or branded by their owners and kept in chains by their contractor bosses.
The Athens ruler Xenophon thought that it would be to the city’s benefit to invest its funds in such slaves.
However, during the Peloponnesian War, many of the more than 20,000 slaves who managed to escape Athens were miners.
This was the only recorded successful revolt of slaves in the history of slavery in Ancient Greece.
China has released the world’s first moon atlases. Credit: JanetR3. CC BY 2.0/flickr
China has reached a new frontier within lunar exploration and scientific research with its release of the world’s first complete high-definition geologic atlases of the moon.
The atlases, available in both Chinese and English, are an all-encompassing tool made up of the Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe and the Map Quadrangles of the Geologic Atlas of the Moon. The release of the atlases marks a significant advancement for future lunar research and exploration.
The atlas set, scaled at 1:2.5 million, provides comprehensive and up-to-date map data crucial for upcoming lunar missions and research programs.
The atlas project addresses a dearth of lunar geology mapping and also establishes a fresh benchmark for international collaboration in lunar research pursuits. With progress being made in the area of lunar exploration, these atlases will prove useful to scientists globally, helping with more accurate and efficient study programs and explorations of the moon.
China moon atlases’ potential for future research
The major significance of these new geologic atlases of the moon lies in their potential to aid the study of how the moon evolves, selecting sites for future lunar research stations, and utilizing lunar materials.
It may also improve our understanding of Earth and other celestial bodies within our solar system. Ouyang Ziyuan, a leading lunar scientist and academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), reportedly emphasized that the atlases are of great importance for these purposes.
Liu Jianzhong, a senior researcher at the Institute of Geochemistry of the CAS, pointed out that the lunar geologic maps used since the Apollo missions have remained the same for almost 50 years, and are now outdated for current lunar exploration purposes, as reported by The Times of India.
With advances in lunar geologic studies, the old maps can no longer meet the demands of future scientific research and lunar exploration.
The atlases were put together by a team of researchers and cartographers from a cluster of institutions in China, led by Ouyang Ziyuan and Liu Jianzhong since 2012. The team based its work on exploration data retrieved by China’s Chang’e lunar exploration program and other research findings from both Chinese and international missions.
The team established an updated lunar geological time scale, objectively showing the geological evolution of the moon, and clearly depicting the characteristics of lunar tectonic and magmatic evolution.
These atlases not only provide crucial data and scientific references for directing and carrying out scientific objectives within China’s lunar exploration program but also enhance the investigation into the moon’s origin and the evolution of the solar system.
A new study says that human brains are getting bigger with a 6.6 percent increase between the 1930s and 1970s. Credit: EUSKALANATO / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
A new study suggests our brains might be growing larger over time. This finding could prove useful in fighting memory loss as we age.
Researchers at UC Davis Health found the brains of individuals born in the 1970s were bigger by about 6.6 percent and had a 15 percent larger surface area compared to those born in the 1930s. The new study was published in March in “JAMA Neurology.”
Charles DeCarli, the lead researcher of the study and a distinguished professor of neurology at UC Davis, told ScienceDaily that while genetics is a big factor in brain size, their findings suggest that other factors such as health, social interactions, culture, and education may also have an impact.
Brain size increased by 6.6 percent between the 1930s and 1970s
The researchers analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term community study based in Framingham, Massachusetts, spanning seventy-five years and involving multiple generations, as reported by the New York Post.
Between March 1999 and November 2019, scientists examined brain scans of 3,226 participants born between 1925 and 1968. They found a consistent trend. Brain volume increased gradually over time.
In the 1930s, the average brain volume was 1,234 millimeters, while by the 1970s, it had risen to 1,321 millimeters, marking a 6.6 percent increase.
Similarly, the cortical surface area, or the brain’s outer layer, also expanded from 2,056 square centimeters in those born in the 1930s to 2,104 square centimeters in those born in the 1970s.
Increase in size of gray matter, white matter, and the hippocampus
The researchers also noted an increase in the size of gray matter, white matter, and the hippocampus—an area linked to learning and memory.
White matter, situated in the brain’s inner tissues, consists of nerve fibers facilitating communication between different regions. It gets its name from the white myelin sheath covering the nerves.
On the other hand, gray matter, located in the brain’s outer layer, governs movement, memory, and emotions. It gets its name from the dense concentration of neuronal cell bodies, which impart a grayish color to the tissue.
The findings bring hope, as they suggest a potential decline in age-related dementias such as Alzheimer’s, according to scientists.
“Larger brain structures like those observed in our study may reflect improved brain development and improved brain health,” DeCarli explained. “A larger brain structure represents a larger brain reserve and may buffer the late-life effects of age-related brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and related dementias.”
The brilliant general and mathematician Archytas—one of many polymaths in Ancient Greece—has a crater on the Moon named after him. Credit: Selinous /CC BY-SA 4.0
Archytas of Tarentum, who was born around the year 435 BC in what is now Taranto, Apulia, Italy, was another in a long line of brilliant polymaths from Ancient Greece, a noted military general and strategist who also made his mark in the realms of geometry, physics, astronomy, and music.
A friend of Plato, he was a brilliant philosopher, as well. As a scientist, he belonged to the Pythagorean school and became well-known for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics.
The son of Mnesagoras, Archytas was taught by Philolaus, and was himself a teacher of mathematics to Eudoxus of Cnidus. They both had Menaechmus as a mathematical student. As a Pythagorean, Archytas purportedly believed that only arithmetic, not geometry, could provide a basis for satisfactory proofs. However, his later invention of what came to be called Archytas’ curve disproved that theory.
As described in the writings of Aulus Gellius—five centuries after he lived—he was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have actually flown some 200 meters.
Known today as the “Pigeon of Archytas,” it is famous for being the basis of many a backyard experiment in the physics of steam. His original apparatus may have been suspended on a wire or pivot for its flight.
Archytas also wrote some lost works on the science of mechanics, as he was included by Vitruvius in the list of the twelve authors of works of mechanics.
Archytas named the harmonic mean, which was important much later in projective geometry and number theory, although he did not invent it. According to Eutocius, Archytas solved the problem of doubling the cube (the so-called Delian problem) with the geometric construction of his eponymous Curve.
Before his time, Hippocrates of Chios had reduced this problem to finding mean proportionals. Archytas’ theory of proportions is treated in book VIII of Euclid’s “Elements,” where the construction for two proportional means is equivalent to the extraction of the cube root.
According to Diogenes Laërtius, this demonstration, which uses lines generated by moving figures to construct the two proportionals between magnitudes, was the first in which geometry was studied with concepts of mechanics. The graceful Archytas curve, which he used in his solution of the doubling the cube problem, is named after him.
A brilliant strategist of his time in Magna Graecia
Politically and militarily, Archytas appears to have been the dominant figure in Tarentum, in what was then Greater Greece in his generation, somewhat comparable to Pericles in Athens a half-century earlier.
Tarentum, known to the ancient Greeks as Taras (Greek: Τάρᾱς), was founded by colonists from Sparta. The city was named after its eponymous founder, who was supposedly a son of Poseidon. According to the myth, Taras was shipwrecked near the coast but was sent a dolphin by his father which he then rode to the shore where he founded the city.
The Tarentines elected him strategos, or “General,” seven years in a row—a move which required them to violate their own rule against successive appointments. He was allegedly undefeated as a general in Taranto’s campaigns against its southern Italian neighbors.
The Seventh Letter of Plato states that Archytas attempted to rescue Plato during his difficulties with Dionysius II of Syracuse.
In his public career, Archytas had a reputation for virtue as well as efficacy.
Some scholars have argued that the polymath, Archytas, may have served as a model for Plato’s “philosopher king,” and that he influenced Plato’s political philosophy as shown in The Republic and other works, especially as is obvious in his question “how does a society obtain good rulers like Archytas, instead of bad ones like Dionysius II?”
The crater called “Archytas” on the Moon was named in his honor by NASA.
Archytas’ eponymous curve
The Archytas curve is created by placing a semicircle (with a diameter of d) on the diameter of one of the two circles of a cylinder (which also has a diameter of d) such that the plane of the semicircle is at right angles to the plane of the circle and then rotating the semicircle about one of its ends in the plane of the cylinder’s diameter. This rotation will cut out a portion of the cylinder forming the Archytas curve.
Another way to think about this shape is that the Archytas curve is basically the result of cutting out a torus (a surface or solid) formed by rotating a hemisphere of diameter d out of a cylinder also of diameter d. A cone can go through the same procedures and also produce the Archytas curve. Archytas used his curve to determine the construction of a cube with a volume of one-third of that of a given cube.
Although a friend of Plato, after his invention of the curve, he was criticized for “contaminating” the purity of geometry with mechanics.
Plutarch says in his Symposiacs, Book VIII, Question 2: “And therefore Plato himself dislikes Eudoxus, Archytas, and Menaechmus for endeavoring to bring down the doubling the cube to mechanical operations; for by this means all that was good in geometry would be lost and corrupted, it falling back again to sensible things, and not rising upward and considering immaterial and immortal images, in which God being versed is always God.”
In music, Archytas’ greatest contribution was the creation of ratios that present an interrelated intervallic system. Archytas’ ratios were providentially preserved by Ptolemy.
Since much of ancient Greek musical theory is lost, this system, which was recorded in Plato’s Republic, offers valuable evidence about pre-Aristoxenian Greek music, especially about “harmonia” and the technique of transposition, which later were developed into complete systems of octave species and “tonoi,” to use the Greek terms.
Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a pre-Roman necropolis featuring 88 tombs. Credit: Nataliya Shestakova. CC BY 4.0/Wikimedia Commons/Nataliya Shestakova
A necropolis from the pre-Roman era, full of rich grave artifacts, was discovered in Southern Italy during excavations for the construction of an electricity power station, local authorities said.
What was found in the necropolis in Southern Italy?
The necropolis was discovered near Amorosi, around 31 miles (50km) away from Naples, during test excavations to construct an electric station linked to a high-speed train line, the authorities said in a statement.
The best-preserved archaeological material was unearthed in a burial area of roughly 13,000 square meters (139,930 sq feet). It has been dated to between the final stages of the Iron Age and the 8th to 7th century BC and includes 88 tombs.
A pre-Roman necropolis characterised by rich grave artefacts was discovered in southern Italy during excavations for the construction of an electricity power station, local authorities said https://t.co/Xijxsfuxiupic.twitter.com/M0H198AUPI
Weapons were uncovered in the male tombs, while the female tombs included bronze ornaments such as bracelets and pendants.
“The grave artifacts also included large quantities of vases of different shapes, often stacked on top of each other, usually laid at the feet of the deceased in a reserved space,” the local cultural heritage authority said.
“This archaeological discovery is of decisive importance for the history of our culture,” Amorosi Mayor Carmine Cacchillo said, as reported by Reuters.
Iron-Age cultures of Italy
Many different cultures inhabited the land mass that eventually became Italy, during the late Iron Age. The most well-known of them being the Villanova culture, the name of which is derived from a locality in the frazione Villanova of Castenaso, Citta metropolitana di Bologna, in Emilia, Italy, where a necropolis was discovered by Giovanni Gozzadini in 1853-1856.
It succeeded the Proto-Villanovan culture during the Iron Age in the territory of Tuscany and northern Lazio, and spread in parts of Romagna, Campania, and Fermo in the Marche.
The main characteristic of the Villanovans (with some similarities with the so-called Proto-Villanovan period of the late Bronze Age) was the cremation burials, in which the deceased’s ashes were housed in bi-conical urns and buried.
The burial characteristics relate the Villanovan culture to the Central European Urnfield culture, and Hallstatt culture – which succeeded the Urnfield culture.
Other Iron Age peoples included the Latial culture, Este culture, Golasecca culture, Fritzens-Sanzeno culture, and the Camuni.
The Golasecca culture developed starting from the early Iron Age in the northwestern Po plain. It takes its name from Golasecca, a locality next to the Ticino where, in the early 19th century, abbot Giovanni Battista Giani of Italy, excavated its first findings – some fifty necropolis tombs with ceramics and metal objects.
Remains of the Golasecca culture span an area of around 20,000 square kilometers (7,700 miles) south to the Alps, between the Po, Sesia, and Serio rivers, dating from the ninth to the fourth century BC.
Their origins can be directly traced from that of Canegrate and to the so-called Proto-Golasecca culture (12th–10th centuries BC). The Golasecca culture traded with the Etruscans and the Hallstatt culture to the north, later reaching the Greek world and trading oil, wine, bronze objects, ceramics, and others, along with northern Europe, where they traded tin and amber from the Baltic coast.
A new company says that AI can help the teacher shortage crisis. Credit: Philipp Greindl, Ars Electronica / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
A company called 21st Century Digital Teaching (21C) is tackling the ongoing teacher shortage crisis in the UK and Europe. They are doing this by changing how students learn math and other important subjects.
To make this happen, 21C made a digital teaching app and platform for schools. They claim this app cuts down on the number of teachers needed by turning them into avatars. This means lessons can still happen even when there are not enough teachers.
The creators said that this app also offers a new way for students to do homework. It’s more engaging and allows teachers to keep track of how well students are doing using smart analytics tools on the platform, according to Euronews.
61 percent of UK teachers feel their work is unmanageable
Schools across Europe are struggling to find teachers, according to a recent report from Tes Schools Wellbeing. It has been found that 74 percent of school staff surveyed considered leaving education entirely in the past year.
Additionally, 61 percent of UK teachers feel overwhelmed by their workload. Almost half of the school staff (47 percent) reported lacking essential resources for their work.
Alan Judd, chairman and chief executive of the company, discussed the issue with Euronews. He pointed out the scarcity of qualified teachers, especially experienced math instructors, due to the rapid growth of school populations and retirements.
“They’re moving, they’re going to different places. So to have one-to-one teaching, that’s really behind the 21st Century,” said Alan.
Shorter lessons for efficient retention by students
The AI platform by 21C transforms lessons from real math teachers into short, easy-to-digest segments. Each segment lasts four to five minutes, aiming to match the shorter attention spans of students.
Martin Hoszowski, the company’s chief operating officer, explained that teenagers’ attention spans are decreasing. Therefore, they condensed lessons into shorter formats to keep students engaged.
He mentioned the challenge of compressing lessons into brief segments while ensuring they remain comprehensible and engaging for teenagers, as reported by Euronews.
Given the complex investment and regulatory environment in Europe, many UK and European businesses, both new and established, are considering relocating to the US.
While the primary reasons include access to greater capital, liquidity, and a broader investor base, differences in risk tolerance might also play a role in this trend, according to Euronews.
Judd mentioned the company’s plans to expand into the US market, noting the receptiveness of venture capitalists to pre-revenue ventures there.
“We intend to go into the US market, probably in 2025,” Judd said. “We’ll take about six to nine months to prepare the curriculum based upon the platform we have, which is versatile and can actually accommodate other languages and other systems.”
