What Happened to the Tower of Babel in Ancient Babylon?

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A work of art rendering the Tower of Babel, in ancient Babylon.
A work of art rendering the Tower of Babel in ancient Babylon. Credit: ThomasThomas. CC BY-2.0/flickr

The Tower of Babel, written about by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, was said to “reach up to the sky.” It was a huge building which stood as a symbol of the power possessed by the ancient city of Babylon. Thought to be at least one hundred meters tall, it is even mentioned in the Bible, but the grand structure no longer towers over Babylon (now modern-day Iraq). One might rightfully wonder what ever happened to it.

The Tower of Babel, which stood at the heart of the bustling metropolis of Babylon, is shrouded in mystery with many researchers and scholars having speculated at its design, appearance, height, and architectural make-up. However, they have only really been able to agree on one thing: the tower was said to reach up to the sky. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian known as the father of history, described this great structure as a wonder of the world.

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus.
Ancient Greek historian Herodotus. Credit: Stifts och landsbiblioteket i Skara. CC BY 2.0/flickr

The narrative of the Tower of Babel appears in Genesis 11:1-9 as an origin myth and parable, meant to explain why the world’s people speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race with a single language migrated eastward, eventually appearing in the land of Shinar. When the land was reached, the group built a city and tower with its top stretching all the way to the sky. Having observed the city and tower, Yahweh confounded their speech so that they were no longer capable of understanding each other. He then sent everyone to different ends of the world.

The Tower of Babel also appears in a text called the the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, written some time between the fall of Jerusalem and the founding of the Roman Empire around 70 AD to the 3rd century AD.

This text, one of the pseudepigrapha, described the rewards of sinners and the righteous in the afterlife. According to the this, among the sinners were those who first conceived of the Tower of Babel. In the account, Baruch is first led—in a dream—to see the resting place of the souls of “those who built the tower of strife against God, and the Lord banished them.”

He is then shown another place, where, occupying the form of dogs, “Those who gave counsel to build the tower, for they whom thou seest drove forth multitudes of both men and women, to make bricks; among whom, a woman making bricks was not allowed to be released in the hour of child-birth, but brought forth while she was making bricks, and carried her child in her apron, and continued to make bricks.”

As written in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch:

…the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built the tower to the height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits. And they took a gimlet, and sought to pierce the heavens, saying, Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of brass, or of iron. When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest.

Some scholars have linked the Tower of Babel with known structures, particularly Etemenaki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk, in Babylon.

The legacy of Babylon’s Tower of Babel

Over the years, the Tower of Babel has appeared in many works of art and other forms, including novels, video games, and TV shows. Argentinian novelist Jorge Luis Borges wrote a book titled The Library of Babel, and A.S. Byatt’s novel Babel Tower explores the question of whether language can be shared. The tower even appears in the video game Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.

But with all the myth, folktale, and mystery surrounding the Tower of Babel, it is important to know what actually happened to it and why it is no longer a standing monument in the Middle East.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Credit: Carla216. CC BY 2.0/flickr

Babylon, like many other ancient cities, eventually fell into ruin, and its citizens plundered the Tower of Babel, using its bricks to build their own homes. Some time after this (still quite some time ago), Babylon and its monumental tower sank into the sands of the Iraqi desert and “disappeared,” so to say.

Archaeologists have been working since 1811 to excavate the capital of the ancient world, but it was aerial photography that provided the first real clues as to the location of the tower. The photographs show the tower’s square-shaped outline in the center of the city. Today, nothing but a waterhole remains.

The Cosmos of Ancient Greece’s Antikythera Mechanism

antikythera mechanism
Ancient Greece’s priceless Antikythera Mechanism, the world’s first computer displayed at the National Archaeological Museum. Credit: ZDE/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

The Antikythera computer captured the ancient Greek passion for mathematics and especially geometry.

By Evaggelos Vallianatos

The second century BC was a time of the golden age of Greek science, and civilization centered in the kingdoms of the empire of Alexander the Great, especially in Alexandria, Egypt.

However, mainland Greece faced the aggressive Roman Republic soon thereafter. In 146 BC, a Roman army wiped out Corinth, Greece, which became a province of Rome. The victorious Romans did what all empire builders do: loot and rule.

Sometime in the first century, a rich Roman citizen or general on Rhodes loaded a giant boat with stolen Greek treasures. The ship headed for Rome, but it sunk in the stormy Ionian and Cretan Sea.

Two thousand years later in the spring of 1900, Greek sponge divers discovered the sunken ship loaded with ancient Greek treasures. The shipwreck had occurred in the waters of Antikythera, a tiny island between Crete and the Peloponnesian Peninsula.

Among statues, ceramic vases, coins, and earnings, there was a metal artifact by which the experts of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens were completely stumped. After they observed triangular teeth and Greek inscriptions on the artifact, they dubbed it ‘The Antikythera Mechanism.’

Greek and foreign scientists all found it immensely challenging to decipher the nature of the Antikythera device. They studied it for more than a century, and, indeed, analysis continues to this day.

The reasons for these extensive studies and great international interest in ancient Greek technology are complex, though clear. Here was a 2,200-year-old astronomical computer that simply had no precedent in history.

Clearly a work of incredible genius, it was made with interlocking bronze gears, that is, scientific technology. Scientists were shocked. After all, such technology was supposedly a product of modern times.

For several decades, no one had a clue as to who had conceived of the idea of an astronomical computer, how, and where it was built—or why the Greeks even needed such a high-tech gadget.

Some experts thought the Antikythera Mechanism was an astrolabe, a useful astronomical instrument but hardly comparable to the predictive power of the scientific technology of this extraordinarily complex computer.

Gears from the Greeks

One of the mid-twentieth century foreign experts who studied the Antikythera Mechanism in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens was Derek de Solla Price, an unusual scientist and scholar.

A British physicist and historian of science, he taught the history of science at Yale University.

He had experience in studying ancient Chinese scientific instruments and clocks. For about sixteen years, he immersed himself in the technological complexity and science embedded in the fragments of the Greek device and, in 1974, he published an article called “Gears from the Greeks.”

Price’s report opened the way to a more accurate evaluation of the Antikythera computer. Price declared that the Antikythera Mechanism was “one of the most important pieces of evidence for the understanding of ancient Greek science and technology.”

According to Price, the reason for this was that the complex gearing of the Antikythera Mechanism shows a more precise picture of the level of Greco-Roman “mechanical proficiency” than that coming out of the surviving textual evidence.

This “singular artifact,” he said of the Antikythera Mechanism, “the oldest existing relic of scientific technology, and the only complicated mechanical device we have from antiquity, quite changes our ideas about the Greeks and makes visible a more continuous historical evolution of one of the most important main lines that lead to our civilization.”

That device, once housed in a wooden case the size of a dictionary or shoe box, after surviving a tortuous path, became part of Western technological culture.

Price described the differential gear of the Antikythera Mechanism as the landmark of its high tech nature. This was the gear that enabled the Antikythera Mechanism to show the movements of the Sun and the Moon in “perfect consistency” with the phases of the Moon.

“It must surely rank,” Price said of the differential gear, “as one of the greatest basic mechanical inventions of all time.” It was this gear from the Greeks, and the clockwork culture that moved it along, that advanced the technology of cotton weaving in the eighteenth century. Eventually, the differential gear ended up in cars in the late nineteenth century.

Price complained that the West judged the Greeks from scraps of building stones, statues, coins, ceramics, and a few selected written sources.

Yet, when it comes to the heart of their lives and culture, how they did their work in agriculture, how they constructed the perfect building of the Parthenon, what kind of mechanical devices they had for doing things in peace and war, how they used metals, and, in general, what they did in several fields of technology, we have practically nothing from Greek history.

“Wheels from carriages and carts survive from deep antiquity,” he said, but there is nothing else from Ancient Greece, he said, which looks “anything like a fine gear wheel or small piece of mechanism. Indeed the evidence for scientific instruments and fine mechanical objects is so scant that it is often thought that the Greeks had none.”

Price died in 1983 and his legitimate question remains largely unanswered. In most cases, classical scholars have largely ignored Hellenic science and technology.

A stunning instrument of the heavens and the Earth

In 2005, a team of international scientists finally got to the bottom of the ancient Greek computer — or so they thought.

Scientists from two high tech companies, X-Tek from England, and Hewlett Packard from the US, joined the researchers and revealed the secrets of the astronomical device.

They concluded that the Antikythera Mechanism was the most sophisticated technology in the Mediterranean for more than a millennium. They published their reports in the November 30, 2006 and July 31, 2008 issues of the science magazine Nature.

According to the 2006 report, the Antikythera Mechanism “stands as a witness to the extraordinary technological potential of ancient Greece, apparently lost within the Roman Empire.”

A calculator and a calendar

The Antikythera computer was a practical machine which must have been widespread in the Greek world for centuries.

It was a calculator that read the stars, as well as being a calendar that connected the Panhellenic games like the Olympics to the phenomena in the natural world and the Cosmos.

Besides, the accurate calendar helped the Greeks to worship the gods at the same time each year.

The scientists who studied it were right that this “artifact of ancient gearwork” was more than a device of pure astronomy: “exhibiting longitudes of heavenly bodies on the front dial, eclipse predictions on the lower back display, and a calendrical cycle (on the upper back display).”

The mechanical universe of the Antikythera Mechanism

The first inscription on the back of the Antikythera Mechanism reads: “the spiral (ΕΛΙΚΙ) divided into 235 sections.”

This meant that one of the back dials was a spiral representing the 19-year Metonic Moon and Sun calendar of 235 months. The other back dial, known as Saros, predicted the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon.

Two circles enclosed the Cosmos on the front view. The outside circle represented the 365-day year. The inside circle was the Zodiac, an imaginary cosmic circle of 12 constellations around the Earth.

The front view also depicted the movement and position of the Sun, Moon, the phases of the Moon, planets, and prominent stars and constellations. The front inscriptions explained which constellations rose and set at any specific time.

Archimedes and Hipparchos

The ideas of Archimedes and Hipparchos gave substance to the brilliant
astronomical computer made by the Greeks.

In 1907, the German philologist Albert Rehm suggested the Antikythera geared device resembled the Sphere of Archimedes that the Roman politician and man of letters of the first century BC, Cicero, once saw in Rome.

This was part of the looted Greek treasures the victorious Roman general Marcellus had brought to Rome after his troops captured and looted Syracuse.

Agents of Marcellus assassinated Archimedes in 212 BC. Archimedes, a mathematical and engineering genius of the third century BC, was the father of mathematical physics and mechanics which made the Antikythera computer possible.

Cicero said the planetarium of Archimedes reproduced accurately the movements of the Sun and the Moon, including those of the planets (Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter).

It also depicted the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. Archimedes, like Aristotle, was crucial in the creation of the golden age of Greek science. He measured curved surfaces and applied mathematics to the study and understanding of nature.

He was also an astronomer who studied and measured the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. Those measurements were important to the designers of the Antikythera Machine.

Archimedes, like the Antikythera Mechanism, deciphered the book of the Cosmos. He became the model for Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton.

Like Archimedes, Hipparchos, the greatest Greek astronomer, made the Antikythera computer possible. From about 140 to 120 BCE he had his laboratory in Rhodes.

More than other Greek astronomers, he made use of the data collected by Babylonian astronomers. But like the rest of the Greek astronomers, he employed geometry in the study and understanding of astronomical phenomena.

He invented plane trigonometry and made astronomy the predictive mathematical science it is today.

The connection of Hipparchos to the Antikythera Mechanism is in the front bronze plate of the device, where pointers displayed the positions and movement of the Sun and the Moon in the Zodiac.

Hipparchos knew the moon moved around the Earth at different speeds. When the moon is close to the Earth, it moves faster than when it is farther from the Earth, when it slows down.

This is because the Moon’s orbit is elliptical, not the perfect circular movement the Greeks associated with the stars. Hipparchos resolved this difficulty with his epicyclic lunar theory, which superimposed one circular motion of the Moon onto another, the second movement having a different center.

The Antikythera Mechanism modeled the ideas of Hipparchos with one gearwheel sitting on top of another but located on a different axis. A pin-and-slot mechanism then reproduces the non-circular or elliptical orbit of the Moon.

A pin originating from the bottom wheel enters the slot of the wheel above it. When the bottom wheel turns, it also drives the top gearwheel.

However, the wheels have different centers and, therefore, the pin slides back and forth in the slot, which enables the speed of the top wheel to vary while that of the bottom wheel remains constant.

The Antikythera mechanism: a computer of heavens and civilization

Archimedes and Hipparchos provided the architecture of science and technology of this incredibly ingenious astronomical machine.

However, they, too, stood on the shoulders of giants like Aristotle who invented biology and tutored Alexander the Great, the general Ptolemy, and others who contributed to science and technology. Alexander conquered Persia and spread Hellenic culture all over the world.

Alexander made possible the great city of Alexandria, Egypt, which, under the leadership of his general Ptolemy, became the preeminent Greek polis of science and civilization in the ancient world.

Its museum/university and great library were the equivalent in books, knowledge, and brain power of the Library of Congress, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge universities today.

The Antikythera computer captured the Greek passion for mathematics, and, especially, geometry. This enabled them to simulate astronomical phenomena, thus creating an accurate universe with gears.

Francois Charette, professor of the history of natural sciences at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, studied the Antikythera computer and concluded that “mind-boggling technological sophistication” must have been available to those who made it. He is right.

Ptolemy and his successors lavished gold and political support on the best and the brightest in the Greek world. They developed the culture and mind-boggling science and technology behind the astronomical computer.

The Antikythera computer was more than a mirror of scientific technology, however. It was the culmination of a golden age that enabled the Greeks to give birth to a remarkable civilization that eventually became the pillar of our own civilization.

Evaggelos Vallianatos, Ph.D., is a historian and environmental theorist. He is author of hundreds of articles and seven books, including The Antikythera Mechanism: The Story Behind the Genius of the Greek Computer (Universal Publishers, 2021).

Rare Bronze Age Arrow Discovered in Melting Ice

 a well-preserved bronze age arrow in Norway
Archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved Bronze Age arrow in Norway’s thawing ice. Credit: Espen Finstad / secretsoftheice.com

Archaeologists have recently made an exciting discovery in the mountains of Norway: a truly unusual ancient arrow with its original quartzite arrowhead and feather tail still intact.

This arrow, believed to have been employed by reindeer hunters around three thousand years ago, was discovered by archaeologist Lars Pilo. He leads the Secrets of the Ice project, which operates in the Jotunheimen Mountains within Norway’s Oppland region.

Discovery of the arrow

Although the project’s archaeologists previously stumbled upon human-made hunting blinds, which were spots where hunters concealed themselves while pursuing reindeer, this arrow was found at a different location, away from such blinds.

Lars Pilo, the archaeologist overseeing the Secrets of the Ice project, shared in an email that “there are no hunting blinds in the immediate vicinity, but this arrow was found along the upper edge of the ice, so the hunters may simply have been hiding behind the upper ridge.”

Climate change revealing ancient relics

Archaeologist Espen Finstad, part of the Secrets of the Ice glacial research team, made a remarkable discovery in September 2023.

In the Jotunheimen Mountains, climate change caused by human activities is causing snow and ice to melt, revealing ancient relics spanning hundreds to thousands of years. These historical artifacts are at risk of deterioration if not promptly retrieved after exposure to the elements.

Finstad stumbled upon the Bronze Age arrow during a deliberate survey, during which he and his colleagues systematically inspected recently uncovered areas along the ice’s edge.

Examination of the Bronze Age arrow

The arrow’s main body was crafted from birch, and it still possessed a set of aerodynamic fletching featuring three well-preserved feathers. Fletching is crucial for steering the arrow during its flight, but these components typically deteriorate over time.

There’s a quartzite arrowhead at the arrow’s tip, although it’s hardly visible due to a layer of pitch covering most of it. According to Pilo, this pitch served a dual purpose. It secured the arrowhead to the shaft and smoothed the front of the arrow, enhancing its ability to penetrate targets.

While arrows with preserved arrowheads are not uncommon during the Iron Age on our icy archaeological sites, finding one from this early period is exceptionally rare. It is believed that the pitch used on the arrowhead likely originated from birch charcoal.

Despite the arrowhead and feathers being in good condition, the remainder of the arrow did not fare as well. The arrow, measuring approximately 90 centimeters (about 2.9 feet) in length, fractured into three pieces along its shaft. According to Pilo, this breakage likely occurred due to the pressure exerted by the snow.

“Heroes of Bronze: The Memory” Short Film Brings Ancient Greece to Life

Heroes of Bronze
Heroes of Bronze: The Memory, is the first short film installment of a planned series set in ancient Greece by Martin Klekner. Credit: Martin Klekner

Heroes of Bronze: The Memory is the first CGI short film showcasing ancient Greece in magnificent detail.

The first part of the series, which premiered last year, has garnered over 600,000 views on YouTube and has been widely praised by viewers for its historical authenticity, stunning visuals, and engrossing storytelling.

Greek Reporter recently spoke to Martin Klekner, the creator of Heroes of Bronze to learn more about the project.

The story of Heroes of Bronze

Heroes of Bonze: The Memory, which can be viewed on YouTube or on the official website, is set in the early fifth century BC and covers two of the most famous battles in the Greco-Persian Wars: Marathon in 490 BC and Platea in 479 BC. A series of short stories will also be available on the creator’s Patreon.

When asked why he chose to set his short film during this particular epoch of ancient Greek history, Klekner cited a childhood passion for the period.

“The love for ancient Greece was there ever since I was a child, I grew up reading ancient Greek myths and the story of Troy,” the short film’s director told Greek Reporter.

“However, the idea for this particular project came after I got my hands on The Long War series from Christian Cameron and the Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. I simply needed to see those hoplites in action, and if it meant doing it myself, then so be it,” he continued.

“When it comes to why I specifically chose the Greco-Persian wars period, it’s probably because I love the spirit of the time. The awakening of the Greek poleis, the hopeless fight against a more powerful opponent, the larger than life characters, the clash of cultures – all those topics excite me.”

Heroes of Bronze
Credit: Martin Klekner

Characters

Although modern audiences are more than two thousand years removed from the Greco-Persian Wars, Heroes of Bronze tells a very human story, centered on the experiences of an Athenian family during the war between the Greek city states and Persia.

In a runtime of just over six minutes, Klekner is able to expertly bring the central characters of Nikehoros, his wife Penelope, and their son Alkaios to life.

“From the onset, I knew I didn’t want to focus primarily on the big historical characters like Themistocles, Miltiades, Artaphernes and Aristagoras. They would be too tied up by what we know about them from Herodotos and other sources,” commented Klekner on his choice to focus on these three characters.

“I wanted to put fictional characters in the forefront. I wanted this slightly more ‘regular’ Athenian family to serve as an introduction to the world. Of course, Nikephoros is a landowner from Attika, part of the Hippeis class, so he and his family can not really be called entirely ‘regular’.

“Nevertheless, I created him as a link between Athens and Ionia – he travels the Aegean regularly, and knows a lot of people, Ionian, as well as some Medes and Persians. He is a perfect protagonist for the story I’m writing, able to move freely and introduce the world and its conflict.”

Klekner also spoke at length about the character of Penelope, who narrates the story. “It is a story of a mother that has to raise her son mostly in the absence of his father,” said the filmmaker.

“She is definitely not too happy about the way Nikephoros chooses to spend his time – always traveling, fighting, competing, and causing trouble. And yet, even she can recognize that when an enemy comes, threatening the very existence of her world, it is usually men like Nikephoros who stand up to defend it. And so, in the end, she wants to relay that idea to Alkaios.”

“From the historical sources, we have numerous accounts of mothers doing just that, and I wanted to capture this in my short film,” Klekner summarized.

Heroes of Bronze
The main characters of Heroes of Bronze – Nikephoros, Penelope, and Alkaios – are representative of a typical aristocratic Athenian family in the fifth century BC. Credit: Martin Klekner

The making of Heroes of Bronze

Making the short film took about four years of hard work, Klekner told Greek Reporter.

“The first year, which was 2019, I spent figuring out the workflows, and whether I can actually achieve all that I wanted to achieve on my computer. In the next two years, I worked on the models, the buildings, armor, weapons etc. basically building the whole world,” Klekner said.

“Finally, in 2022, I was lucky enough to be able to work on the Heroes of Bronze short film almost full-time. I finalized the previsualization of the film, and proceeded to animating everything, and polishing the look of the shots. I went through numerous versions for each scene, trying to attain the best result possible.”

“At the end of 2022, I felt like I needed to get back to my normal working life, so I decided to set a release date for myself,” the filmmaker continued. “Those last few months were definitely the most difficult, I battled overall exhaustion while trying to make all the shots look great in the limited time I had. Finally, though, I was able to release the final version in January 2023.”

Historical detail

The sheer amount of historical detail that brings the ancient past to life is one of the short film’s most immediately apparent strengths. Creating an exciting cinematic experience that was also historically authentic was one of Klekner’s priorities whilst making Heroes of Bronze.

“I have started with reading probably all the fiction there is on the topic; but then, I transitioned to non-fiction titles, such as Lords of the Sea by John R. Hale, The Rise of Athens by Anthony Everitt, Persian Fire by Tom Holland and The Life of Greece by Will Durant,” explained Klekner when asked how he conducted research for the short film.

“There were many more, of course,” he continued. “Reading sources like these, listening to podcasts on the topic (The Ancients, Hardcore History), reading magazines like Ancient Warfare… yeah, I pretty much submerged myself into information on the topic, studying everything I could that was connected to the shots I wanted to create for my short film.”

Heroes of Bronze
Credit: Martin Klekner

Inspiration

Beyond the history itself, other depictions of ancient Greece also inspired Klekner when he was making Heroes of Bronze.

“Of course, I grew up watching Gladiator by Ridley Scott, and yes, even 300, which, despite its many faults, was a very cool movie to watch,” said the filmmaker.

“The more I learned about ancient Greece, though, the more I realized how much cooler the actual reality was, and the more I gravitated to more grounded and historical depictions,” he added.

Klekner also highlighted two historical illustrators as having had an important influence on the aesthetics of the project. “First, the great Angus McBride and his historical paintings of hoplites. Second, Joan Francesc Oliveras, who conducts rigorous research and recreates ancient people of all sorts on his Instagram,” said Klekner.

Heroes of Bronze
Credit: Martin Klekner

Release

“The response has been amazing and humbling. I enjoyed a lot of positive feedback both from the lay audience and the historians,” the filmmaker said when asked about the CGI short’s reception.

“There are of course many things I didn’t get quite right in the short film – I have my hoplites use too much of an underhand grip, I let them jump from one moving ship to another, I use too much blue color and have cavalry charge at Marathon. Still, I believe that even people who recognized these ‘mistakes’ (or ‘artistic choices’ as I like to call them) were able to enjoy the film.”

Klekner also believes that CGI films could prove to be an excellent medium for bringing history to the screen, given the large costs typically associated with producing live-action films in the historical epic and sword and sandals genres.

“It could definitely be a good way out of the current situation, where big-budget movies set in the ancient world are not really made anymore,” Klekner said. “It still costs enormous sums of money, but not as much as a blockbuster Hollywood movie, full of expensive actors.”

Heroes of Bronze
Triremes Credit: Martin Klekner

Future plans for Heroes of Bronze

The Memory is merely the first part of a planned series of films, short stories, and novels in the Heroes of Bronze project.

“While spending three years researching the ancient world and creating numerous digital characters for my short film, I naturally started to think about their backstories,” Klekner said.

“I started to write these little story snippets, that I then published on my Instagram profile @mklekner. I had so much fun doing it, and I couldn’t stop thinking about a grander story that I could tell with all these characters.”

“Gradually, I made a storyline for it, and while I was finishing the short film, I was also able to finish the first book in the series, and work on some other, shorter stories as well. Currently, I am in the process of illustrating these.”

Heroes of Bronze
Credit: Martin Klekner

Ten Greatest Movies of All Time

Ten Greatest Movies of All Time
Marlon Brando and Salvatore Corsitto in The Godfather (1972). Credit: Paramount Pictures

Choosing the greatest movies of all time is not an easy task. Most often discussed are directing, acting, plot, and cinematography. More general criteria include depth of thinking, emotional impact, authenticity in relation to what is being depicted, wit or cleverness of the writing, and originality.

IMDb (Internet Movie Database), an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online, compiled a list of the ten greatest movies as rated by its more than 83 million registered users.

The 10 greatest movies of all time

10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

An Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as “the Good,” Lee Van Cleef as “the Bad,” and Eli Wallach as “the Ugly.”

The film is known for Leone’s use of long shots and close-up cinematography, as well as his distinctive use of violence, tension, and highly stylized gunfights.

The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in a buried cache of Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of the American Civil War (specifically the Battle of Glorieta Pass of the New Mexico Campaign in 1862) while participating in many battles, confrontations, and duels along the way.

The film was a financial success, grossing over $38 million at the worldwide box office, and is credited with having catapulted Eastwood into stardom.

9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

This is a 2001 epic fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson based on the 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the novel The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The film is the first installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It features an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, and Andy Serkis

It premiered on December 10, 2001 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London and was then released on December 19th of that year in the United States and on December 20th in New Zealand. The film was acclaimed by critics and fans alike, who considered it to be a landmark in filmmaking and an achievement in the fantasy film genre.

It grossed over $880 million worldwide in its initial release, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2001 and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time at the time of its release.

The film received numerous accolades. At the 74th Academy Awards, it was nominated for thirteen awards, including Best Picture, winning for Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, and Best Visual Effects.

8. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, it tells several stories of crime in Los Angeles, California.

The title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue.

Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and was a major critical and commercial success. It was nominated for seven awards at the 67th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won Best Original Screenplay.

Pulp Fiction is widely regarded as Tarantino’s masterpiece, with particular praise for its screenwriting. It is often considered a cultural watershed, influencing films and other media that adopted elements of its style. The cast was also widely praised, with Travolta, Thurman, and Jackson earning particular acclaim.

7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

This is an epic fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson based on 1955’s The Return of the King, the third volume of the novel The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the sequel to 2002’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the final installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

It grossed over $1.1 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2003 and the second-highest-grossing film of all time at the time of its release, as well as the highest-grossing film released by New Line Cinema.

Like the other films in the trilogy, The Return of the King is widely recognized as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. The film received numerous accolades. At the 76th Academy Awards, it won all eleven awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, tying with 1959’s Ben-Hur and 1997’s Titanic as the movie with the most Academy Award wins.

6. Schindler’s List (1993)

Directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian, it is based on the 1982 novel Schindler’s Ark, by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally.

The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler’s Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern.

Often listed among the greatest films ever made, the film received universal acclaim for its tone, acting (particularly by Neeson, Fiennes, and Kingsley), atmosphere, and Spielberg’s direction. It was also a box office success, earning $322 million worldwide on a $22 million budget.

was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. The film won numerous other awards, including seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globe Awards.

5. 12 Angry Men (1957)

This is an American courtroom drama film directed by Sidney Lumet which tells the story of a jury of twelve men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder.

It stars Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, and Jack Warden and explores many techniques of consensus-building and the difficulties encountered in the process among this group of men, whose range of personalities adds to the intensity and conflict.

The film was selected as the second-best courtroom drama ever after 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird by the American Film Institute for their AFI’s 10 Top 10 list.

4. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

The Godfather: Part II is American epic crime film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film is partially based on the 1969 novel The Godfather, by Mario Puzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. Part II serves as both a sequel and a prequel to the 1972 film The Godfather, presenting parallel dramas.

The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and became the first sequel to win Best Picture. Its six Oscar wins also included Best Director for Coppola, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Coppola and Puzo. Pacino won Best Actor at the BAFTAs and was nominated at the Oscars.

Like its predecessor, Part II remains a highly influential film, especially in the gangster genre. It is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, as well as a rare example of a sequel that may be superior to its predecessor.

3. The Dark Knight (2008)

A 2008 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan, this is based on the DC Comics superhero, Batman and is the sequel to Batman Begins (2005). It is the second installment in The Dark Knight Trilogy.

The plot follows the vigilante Batman, police lieutenant James Gordon, and district attorney Harvey Dent, who form an alliance to dismantle organized crime in Gotham City.

The Dark Knight received acclaim for its mature tone and themes, visual style, and performances—particularly that of Ledger, who received many posthumous awards including Academy, BAFTA, and Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actor, making The Dark Knight the first comic-book film to receive major industry awards.

It broke several box-office records and became the highest-grossing 2008 film, the fourth-highest-grossing film of its time, and the highest-grossing superhero film.

It is considered the “blueprint” for modern superhero films, particularly for its rejection of a typical comic-book film style in favor of a crime film that features comic-book characters.

2. The Godfather (1972)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton.

It is the first installment in The Godfather trilogy, chronicling the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando) from 1945 to 1955. It focuses on the transformation of his youngest son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss.

The Godfather premiered at the Loew’s State Theatre on March 14, 1972 and was widely released in the United States on March 24, 1972. It was the highest-grossing film of 1972 and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever made, earning between $250 and $291 million at the box office.

The film received universal acclaim from critics and audiences with praise for the performances, particularly those of Brando and Pacino, direction, screenplay, cinematography, editing, score, and portrayal of the mafia.

At the 45th Academy Awards, The Godfather won Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Puzo and Coppola). In addition, the seven other Oscar nominations included Pacino, Caan, and Duvall all for Best Supporting Actor, and Coppola for Best Director.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and based on the 1982 Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, it tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins). Dufresne is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murders of his wife and her lover despite his claims of innocence.

Over the following two decades, he befriends a fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman), and becomes instrumental in a money-laundering operation led by prison warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton).

While The Shawshank Redemption received critical acclaim on its release, particularly for its story and the performances of Robbins and Freeman, it was a box-office disappointment, earning only $16 million during its initial theatrical run. It went on to receive multiple award nominations, including seven Academy Award nominations, and a theatrical re-release that, combined with international takings, increased the film’s box-office gross to $73.3 million.

Decades after its release, the film was still broadcast regularly and continues to be popular in several countries, with audience members and celebrities citing it as a source of inspiration or naming it a favorite in various surveys. This has led to its recognition as one of the most “beloved” films ever made.

The 11,000-Year-Old Giant Statue of a Man Clutching His Genitals

Statue Man Clutching Genitals
The giant statue of the man clutching his genitals in Karahan Tepe, Turkey, about 22 miles from Gobekli Tepe. Credit: Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism

In Turkey, archaeologists have discovered an ancient statue that’s nearly eleven thousand years old. It shows a man clutching his genitals.

They also found a life-sized statue of a wild boar. These statues were found in Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe, two of the world’s oldest temple sites.

The wild boar statue, made from limestone, was found at Gobekli Tepe. It dates back to between 8700 B.C. and 8200 B.C. This statue is about 4.4 feet long and 2.3 feet high, according to the German Archaeological Institute.

Archaeologists discovered red, black, and white colors on the surface of the sculpture, indicating that it was once painted. They discovered the giant statue of the man clutching his genitals in Karahan Tepe, Turkey, about 22 miles from Gobekli Tepe.

According to a statement from Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the statue is of a 7.5-foot-tall man with visible ribs, spines, and shoulders.

Benjamin Arbuckle, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wasn’t part of the dig, said these discoveries are amazing and change how we understand early pre-agricultural communities.

Researchers also discovered a small vulture sculpture near Karahan Tepe. They haven’t specified the exact age of the newly found statues, but the site itself is roughly eleven thousand years old.

Purpose of newly discovered statues in Turkey unclear

Boar Statue Found in Turkey
Boar statue found in Turkey. Credit: DAI-IST // Moritz Kinzel

Formerly, archaeologists believed early communities of around eleven thousand years ago in Southwest Asia were quite simple, small, and generally egalitarian, as explained by Arbuckle. However, the findings at Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe in the last thirty years have shown that this belief is not accurate.

The reason for these newly discovered sculptures remains a mystery. Ted Banning, an anthropology professor at the University of Toronto, who was not part of the research, said findings at Karahan Tepe are particularly intriguing.

He pointed out that any explanation of the statue is based on guesses at this stage but suggested that the person depicted might be deceased. The statue could be of a noteworthy ancestor linked to the building where it was located.

The way the figure is holding its genitals could provide additional clues as to its meaning. “The fact that the figure is clutching its genitals is also consistent with this interpretation by potentially symbolizing that this person was the progenitor of a social group, such as a lineage or clan, associated with the building,” Banning concluded.

The Rock Stars Who Fell in Love With Greece

Rock Stars Greece
Leonard Cohen and friends in Hydra. Public Domain

Greece was and still is a magnet for famous rock stars such as the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie,  and countless others.

The Beatles arrived incognito on their holiday to Arachova back in July 1967 and were photographed by photojournalist Aristotle Sarrigiannis with traditional musicians from the region.

Rock Stars Greece
The Beatles visit Arachova. Public Domain

Ringo Starr, later on, spent several summers cruising the Greek islands while John Lennon climbed the Acropolis in Athens.

Rock stars fall for Greece

The Rolling Stones first visited Athens in 1967 just before the coup for a gig that was canceled by the police for security reasons. Ever since, the band has visited the country only once again for a concert, but each member has separately visited some of the Greek islands.

Joni Mitchell joins hippies at Matala, Crete

Joni Mitchell found herself a nomadic home inside manmade Neolithic caves carved into the sandstone cliff at Matala in Crete. It was the 1960s, and a community of backpacking hippies had settled in Matala, a remote corner of the Mediterranean island where most locals had never seen a tourist before their arrival.

Rock Stars Greece
Joni Mitchell and Co at the Matala Caves. Public Domain

It was here that Joni Mitchell immortalized the ideal hippie scene in her 1971 song “Carey,” overlooking the unspoiled beach and azure blue waters.

Not many people know that some of the tracks on the album The Wall were written on a yacht in the Passalimani port. Pink Floyd had come for vacation in 1979 but spent most of their time composing and drinking beers at the marina.

That’s when Richard Wright met his second wife, the Greek Franca, whom he married in 1984 and lived with for ten years, most of those years spent on the island of Kefalonia. Lead guitarist David Gilmour performed a song called Castellorizon for his third solo album.

Rock Stars Greece
David Gilmour holidaying in Rhodes in the early ’80s. Public Domain

Leonard Cohen went to the island of Hydra for the first time in 1960 and was so amazed by it that he spent all his savings to buy a house there, where he spent long periods of his life until his death. He used to draw and write poetry before writing songs with the help of his guitar.

Rock Stars Greece
Leonard Cohen at his beloved Hydra. Public Domain

David Bowie‘s relationship with Greece was karmic. It wasn’t only his famous love for Cyprus, from where his first wife Angie Bowie, mother of his son, Duncan Jones, hailed. Bowie nurtured a well-hidden weakness for the island of the Revelation, Patmos, and spent many of his summers there.

Rock Stars Greece
David Bowie in Patmos. Public Domain

Australian musician and composer Nick Cave has come to Greece many times to date, proving that his style is deeply inspired by Greek cultural heritage, as he had himself admitted in the past.

Rock Stars Greece
Nick Cave (left) during his first visit to Greece in 1982 pictured with Birthday Party guitarist Rowland Howard. Public Domain

Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant has a house on the island of Rhodes, which he frequently visits in the summers.

The Most Dramatic Chase in Documentary History

Chase in Documentary History
The iguana, a mere hatchling, found itself surrounded by dozens of snakes. Video screenshot/BBC

Dubbed as the most dramatic chase in documentary history, the following scene was captured on a beach on Fernandina Island, one of the unspoiled volcanic Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, by the production team of BBC’s Planet Earth II.

It features an iguana instinctively staying still at first, hoping to elude detection as a racer snake slithers up from behind.

When it becomes clear that the snake is going to strike, the iguana races off, but racer snakes pour out of cracks from the rocks along the beach, joining the chase.

The dramatic footage below, shot in 2016 and narrated by Sir David Attenborough, follows the chase.

“Difficult to watch” chase in documentary

Dr. Elizabeth White, a former research biologist and Planet Earth II producer said that it wasn’t easy for anyone on the crew to watch the scene portrayed in this clip—not to mention the other iguana and snake showdowns—unfold.

“The fact that he made it up the rock safe was absolutely amazing,” Dr. White says of the survivor. “We celebrated. Every time one got away we celebrated.”

“As a filmmaker, half of you wants the snakes to win,” she admits, “and another half of you is like, ‘I want this little one to get away!’ You kind of feel like you get to know an animal even if you are just watching it through binoculars for a few minutes. Those iguanas, they’re so young. They literally may have had just a few minutes experience of life, and they get caught, and that just seems brutal.”

The producer noted that the film crew didn’t expect to find so many snakes hunting a single iguana. It was just one of those times in wildlife filmmaking when a crew stumbles upon an extraordinary situation.

Iguana is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his book Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena.

Two species are placed in the genus, the green iguana, which is widespread throughout its range and a popular pet, and the Lesser Antillean iguana, which is native to the Lesser Antilles.

Genetic analysis indicates that the green iguana may comprise a complex of multiple species, some of which have been recently described, but the Reptile Database considers all of these as subspecies of the green iguana.

The species is a popular choice for pets, and non-native animals have been widely introduced beyond its native area, into Ishigaki Island, the Florida Peninsula, Hawaii, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and numerous islands with native Iguana populations in the Lesser Antilles.

Miltiadis Tentoglou Wins Gold for Greece at World Championships

Miltiadis Tentoglou
Tentoglou retained his long jump crown on Saturday.File photo. Screenshot/ERT

Miltiadis Tentoglou retained his long jump crown on Saturday with 8.22 meters at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.

The 26-year-old Greek athlete won the gold medal after a nail-biting battle with Italy’s Mattia Furlani. He achieved his best jump in his first effort. His second effort was below eight meters, and the third was a foul. In the final three jumps, he did not manage to improve on his first effort.

Tentoglou, the reigning Olympic and world outdoor and indoor champion, and the 19-year-old Furlani both leaped 8.22 meters on their opening jumps. The tiebreak went to Tentoglou as his second-best effort was better than Furlani’s.

Carey McLeod of Jamaica won bronze with 8.21 meters.

Despite winning gold, the Greek athlete was not happy with his performance. He said he did not have the right “appetite” for the competition and added that competing in the morning takes a toll on him. He assured Greek fans that he will come back stronger in the summer season.

Tentoglou’s remarkable achievement solidifies his status as the first male long jumper to achieve such a feat in indoor competitions. As the reigning Olympic, European, and world indoor champion, Tentoglou’s consistent success highlights his exceptional talent and dedication to his sport.

Tentoglou also won gold at last year’s World Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul just a few days after the Tempe rail disaster in Greece.

His joy at the time was tempered as he appeared before the state broadcaster ERT with mixed feelings after winning a gold medal.

“What happened was tragic. I am ashamed to speak. What Nyfantopoulos said was the best: that we may be competing here but no one can ease the pain of these people. I do not know where I should dedicate this victory,” he said last year.

The remarkable career of Miltiadis Tentoglou

Last August, Tentoglou won the gold medal at the World Athletics Championships held in Budapest with an outstanding result of 8.52 meters, once again making history in his chosen sport.

He also won the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 2022, Tentoglou became the world indoor champion jumping the current Greek indoor record of 8.55 metes, which placed him sixth on the respective world all-time list. He won silver at the outdoor world championships. He is a five-time European champion, winning two consecutive outdoor titles in 2018 and 2022 and a record three successive men’s indoor titles between 2019 and 2023.

He was the 2016 World Under-20 Championships silver medalist and 2017 European U20 and 2019 European U23 champion. Tentoglou was the 2022 Diamond League long jump champion. He is the Greek indoor record holder and won ten national long jump titles.

How Do We Know Where Troy Really Was?

The Trojan Horse at Hisarlik
The Trojan Horse at Hisarlik, the archaeological site usually identified with Troy. Credit: Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0

The discovery of Troy at Hisarlik in the 19th century by Heinrich Schliemann is still regarded as one of the most striking examples of Greek mythology and archaeology coming together.

However, how do we know that Schliemann really did discover Troy, and not just some random ancient city in Turkey? How do we really know where Troy was located?

How Homer’s Iliad Reveals Where Troy Was

Some evidence comes from the most famous written account of Troy – Homer’s Iliad. In this poem from the seventh century BC, Homer refers to many of Troy’s allies. He explains that during the Trojan War, Troy was supported by various other nations, such as the Phrygians, the Lydians, Mysians, Paphlagonians, and many others. Almost all the nations he mentions can be identified with nations from Anatolia. Specifically, they are almost entirely from western Anatolia.

The only notable ally of Troy in the Iliad not from Anatolia are the Thracians. The Thracians lived in Europe, just next to the north east corner of Anatolia. Their territory extended right to the Bosporus. So from this spread of nations in western Anatolia and the territory of the Thracians, it is clear that Troy was most likely located somewhere near the border between Anatolia and Europe.

The Scamander River

We know that Troy must have been near the sea, because the Iliad describes how the Greek camp near the shore was separated from Troy simply by a large plain. Therefore, Troy must have been somewhere near the coast of Western Anatolia. Homer also associates Troy with the Scamander River. Since the Scamander River flows into the Aegean Sea off Western Anatolia, this is a very helpful piece of information.

In fact, Homer specifically tells us that the Greeks set up their camp by the mouth of the river. This confirms that Troy must have been near where the Scamander River reaches the Aegean Sea.

How Herodotus Reveals Where Troy Was

The association with the Scamander River is really one of the keys in determining the location of Troy. But Homer does not tell us everything we need to know. For example, how do we really know where the Scamander was?

This river was mentioned by various ancient writers, one of them being Herodotus. In his description of Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, he describes how Xerxes’ army came across the Scamander River while marching towards the Hellespont. He explains how the army arrived at Mount Ida, and then he mentions them coming to the Scamander River immediately after this. So the Scamander River must be a prominent river near Mount Ida.

The river known as the Karamenderes in modern times is one of only three rivers that meet this criterion. And after mentioning this river, Herodotus explains that Xerxes ‘ascended to the citadel of Priam’ – that is, Troy.

He then explains that Xerxes’ army carried on their march the next day. Here, Herodotus says that the army kept the cities of Rhoetium, Ophryneum and Dardanus on their left, and the city of Gergithae on their right.

Looking at a map, it is clear that the Karamenderes River is the one which Xerxes’ army must have been at just prior to marching past these cities.

How Archaeology Confirms Where Troy Really Was

From this information, we can see that Troy must have been located near the coast, where the Karamenderes River meets the sea. From these and other Greek records, we know that there was still a functioning city called Ilion (Troy’s other name) here, in which there was still a functioning sanctuary of Athena. This city continued to be inhabited in Roman times, when it came to be known as Ilium.

Archaeology confirms that the Greek town of Ilion, with its sanctuary to Athena, was at Hisarlik. Coins have been found there with inscriptions to ‘Athena Ilias’, confirming the identification. So, we can be very sure of the location of the Ilion and Ilium of Classical Antiquity. It was definitely the archaeological site at Hisarlik.

But what about the more ancient Ilium, or Troy? Can we be sure that the Troy of the Trojan War really was here as well? After all, some writers in the Roman period believed that the Troy of legend had been located somewhere else.

However, Herodotus, who lived much earlier than these writers, expresses no such belief. He says clearly that the city visited by Xerxes, at which there was a sanctuary to Athena, was ‘the citadel of Priam’.

In addition, the archaeological excavations at Hisarlik confirm this viewpoint. They show that this city had existed long before Classical Antiquity.

It existed in the time of the Trojan War, as well as much earlier. Therefore, there is no reason to doubt that the Troy of the Trojan War really was where Schliemann claimed: Hisarlik.