History

Desertification, village of Telly, Mali. Photo Ferdinand Reus, CC BY-SA 2.0
 
The 24 main chapters of The Earth Transformed: An Untold History by British historian Peter Frankopan cover a longer period of history--from “the creation of our planet around 4.6 billion years ago” until late 2022--than any book I’ve read (it begins with a series of excellent maps, the first one displaying the Pangaea Supercontinent of 200 million years ago). Its introduction and conclusion focus on the problems of present-day climate change; Frankopan stresses that all his extensive historical research on human interaction with the environment has left him concerned about our climate future--and humanity’s fate within it.
How concerned? This sentence from the introduction sums it up nicely: “We live in a world teetering on the brink of disaster because of climate change.” And parts of that book’s section sum up as well as I’ve seen our present climate predicament:
Human impact on the natural environment has been devastating almost everywhere, in almost every way, from water contamination to erosion, from plastics entering the food chain to pressure on animal and plant life that has reached such a high level that the most recent United Nations report talks of declines in biodiversity at rates that are unprecedented in human history, and that threaten an erosion of “the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
Or this 2019 quote from António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations: “Every week brings new climate-related devastation . . . . Floods. Drought. Heat waves. Wildfires. Superstorms.”
In his conclusion, Frankopan writes that the summer of 2022 was especially alarming—“Record heatwaves in Europe, the worst drought in many decades in Africa, nearly eight times the average rainfall in Pakistan . . . flash floods in Death Valley in the USA (caused by massive rainfall in three hours)…. the highest-ever recorded rate of rainfall in South Korea . . . the wettest year in Australia's modern history,” extremely high winter temperatures in Paraguay and in South Africa, “and a long and severe drought in China that followed the hottest summer on record, which was called the most severe heatwave ever recorded anywhere and was unparalleled in world climatic history.”
Yet, he marvels, many people continue to deny or minimize human-caused climate change. He does not deny, however, that there has been some progress in various countries, and he stresses that our past and present climate problems have been solvable—if only the collective will coalesces into action. He also mentions hopes that some people have in geoengineering including cloud seeding. But he cautions us that human modification of natural weather systems risks (as one scientific 2015 report indicated) “significant potential for unanticipated, unmanageable, and regrettable consequences.” In a recent Apple TV + eight-part fictional series called “Extrapolations,” a character played by Edward Norton in Episode 4 expresses similar sentiments: “We've treated this planet like an all-you-can-eat buffet for 250 years since we started burning fossil fuels. And changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere is not going to fix it.” Cloud seeding could lead to “changes in rainfall patterns that lead to crop failures and floods [and] . . . extreme weather events leading to mass migrations, social unrest, stress on infrastructure.”
Frankopan also indicates the possibility that future unknown events, like nuclear war, could greatly alter our climate, and concludes that the “biggest risk to global climate comes from volcanoes”—he often mentions the historical climate effects of volcanoes, especially their role in decreasing temperatures (see here for more on that effect). Regarding one volcano, occurring in what is now Indonesia in 1257, he writes that its effects “were global,” affecting such far-away areas as England and “the western flank of the Americas.”
Frankopan believes that generally “we ignore climate and long-run climate patterns or changes altogether when we look at history.” But his new book “attempts to integrate human and natural history,” including climate changes, believing “it is fundamentally important if we are to understand the world around us properly.” Using a wide variety of sources--212 pages of endnotes are available on the publisher’s website--he connects environmental changes to all sorts of historical developments including migrations, plagues, living arrangements, political structures, and religious beliefs. For example, he writes that “three of the most lethal pandemics” of the last 2,000 years followed “warmer springs and wetter summers [that] produced the bacterium that caused bubonic plague.” And, at the end of Chapter 12, “the fundamentals of ecological equilibrium and environmental sustainability underpinned the cultural, political, socio-economic, diplomatic and military histories of individual kingdoms, states or regions. Reliable food and water supplies were central at all times.”
At times, however, several pages may elapse without any mention of climate or the environment, as Frankopan details various political, social, or cultural developments in widely varied parts of the earth including Asia, Africa, and the Americas. As important as he thinks climate has been as a historical factor, he attempts not to overstate its significance. For example, in Chapter 9, he writes, “cities were far more lethal [because of unsanitary conditions] than changes to climate patterns.”
His first chapter is entitled “The World from the Dawn of Time (c.4.5bn–c.7m BC).” In this period before direct human ancestors (Homo-) existed, the author tells us that for about “half the earth’s existence, there was little or no oxygen in the atmosphere.” Still long before humans appeared, periods of extreme warming and cooling existed and one stage “brought about the extinction of 85 per cent of all species. . . . The single most famous moment of large-scale transformation in the past, however, was caused by an asteroid strike that impacted the earth 66 million years ago on the Yucatan peninsula” in Mexico.
In Frankopan’s second chapter, “On the Origins of Our Species (c.7m–c.12,000 BC),” he states that the timing of Homo sapiens’s origins is disputable: “Our own species may have started to emerge as distinct from Homo neanderthalensis [Neanderthals]. . . . though this is a matter of fierce debate.” Humans first appeared in Africa and then dispersed to other continents, for example, “into South-East Asia, China and beyond, reaching Australia by around 65,000 years ago.” “Most scholars date the arrival of the first modern humans in the Americas to around 22,000 years ago.”
The author intersperses these human movements with accounts of climate-change effects--besides volcanoes, he details all sorts of other causes of changes such as El Niño and La Niña. For example, “agriculture may not have been impossible before the Holocene,” a “long period of warmer, stable conditions” that began roughly 10,000 years ago, “but it suited conditions perfectly after its onset.”
Chapters 3 to 24 deal with a time span more familiar to historians--12,000 BC to AD 2022. But the book’s title, The Earth Transformed: An Untold Story correctly indicates that it is also unique. Not a history of some portion of our planet, but a global history (i.e. of the earth). And “untold” because no previous history has integrated the human and environmental journeys together over such a long time span.     
Although Frankopan pays sufficient attention to the Americas and his native England, the part of the world he is most familiar with is the Eurasian Steppe, which runs from the Balkans to the Pacific Ocean. Two of his previous books, The Silk Roads (2017) and The New Silk Roads (2020), deal with that area. Here, in Chapter 8, he writes. “Some 85 per cent of large empires over more than three thousands years developed in or close to the Eurasian steppe.” Among other observations he makes here is one that greatly affects demographics, a topic he often mentions: Tropical climates often provide “a crucible in which infectious diseases could flourish.”
Later on in Chapter 13, “Disease and the Formation of a New World (c.1250–c.1450),” he returns to the Eurasian steppe when he considers the Mongol conquest of many areas. And he writes that it may have “created a perfect environment” for the spread of plague. In the late 1340s, the Black Death spread across “Europe, the Middle East, North Africa,” and probably other parts of Africa, killing “an estimated 40-60 percent of the population.”
Frankopan is not only a global and environmental historian, but also one quite critical of European and Western imperialism and racism, from the time of Columbus to the present. Considering the world around 1500, he writes, “what drove the next cycle in global history was the pursuit of profit,” mainly by Europeans. He also mentions the “‘Great Dying’ of the indigenous populations of the Americas which was caused by violence, malnutrition and disease.” Later, dealing with the half century after 1870, he states that “the dovetailing of evangelical ideas about racial superiority, religious virtue and capitalism was a core element of the way that Europeans, and the British above all, saw both themselves--and the rest of the world.” And in that same period,
“the ecological implications of rapid transformation of landscapes that were motivated by the chase for a fast buck" were “severe and shocking.”
Like the earlier environmental critic E. F. Schumacher, he cites Gandhi on “the ravages of colonialism,” and suggests that modern economics should be based on a less materialistic approach to life. (Schumacher included his essay on “Buddhist Economics” in Small Is Beautiful.)
Regarding slavery, Frankopan estimates that in the 1780s “more than 900,000 souls were sent from the coast of Africa.” “The demand . . . was driven by the vast profits that could be generated from tobacco, cotton, indigo and sugar.” And even now the aftereffects of that racism that helped produce slavery still impact us. U.S. counties that possessed large numbers of slaves in the early 1860s are “more likely today not only to vote Republican, but to oppose affirmative action and express racial resentment and sentiments towards black people.”
The author’s last two chapters prior to his Conclusion cover the period from about 1960 to 2022. From the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) until the present, environmental anxieties have continued, at first regarding various forms of pollution and later stressing the dangers of climate change.
Frankopan also reveals that certain types of geoengineering, like cloud seeding, were already engaged in by the USA during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, and for some time the U. S. Department of Defense has been “the largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases.” Military conflicts, as he points out, come with a “very high” environmental cost--note, for example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Although there is plenty of blame to go around for what Frankopan considers a woeful minimization of the importance of climate change, in the USA he identifies chiefly the Republicans. Despite more than a 99 percent agreement among “scientists working in this [climate-change] field,” more than half of the Republican members of the 117th Congress (ending in January 2023) “made statements either doubting or refusing to accept the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change.” In the last sentence of his book the author writes, “Perhaps we will find our way back there [to a sustainable planet] through peaceful means; a historian would not bet on it.” 
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Inspired by impending summer picnics, Christmas lunch comas and the imitable Carrie Bradshaw, we couldn't help but wonder: why did the ancient Greeks and Romans eat while lying down?


Have you ever noticed how many ancient Greek and Roman artworks depict people lying down while eating? Countless pots, vases, frescoes, wine cups and sculptures were decorated with lavish scenes of ancient Greek symposia, Roman convivia and other leisurely banquets. But why exactly did they choose to recline during these feasts, and how did they avoid heartburn before the modern marvel of QuickEze?

Lying Down = Social Standing


The practice of eating while lying down is believed to have started in ancient Greece as early as 7th Century BCE, before then being adopted by the Romans and spreading throughout the broader Mediterranean. Both ancient Greek and Roman cultures placed a lot of value in communal meals, and the upper classes commonly indulged in resplendent, hours-long feasts as a way of broadcasting their wealth and status. Particularly in ancient Rome, these feasts would become a game of one-upmanship with each host serving more exotic delicacies than the last – resulting in dishes like parrot tongue stew and stuffed dormouse!


In this vein, eating while lying down and being served by others was considered an ultimate expression of power and luxury. The custom was reserved for the elite but, in an ancient equivalent to “keeping up with the Joneses”, it began to be emulated by members of the lower classes – if they could afford to do so. Even as it became more common, it wasn't accessible to all; Greek women were not allowed to attend symposia, unless they were courtesans, prostitutes, flute-girls, dancers or the like who were employed for entertainment during the evening. Contrastingly, Roman women (i.e. wives) could attend banquets although they were expected to sit at another table or upright beside their husbands, to denote their status.


Health is (Also) Wealth


The other belief spurring the popularity of this custom was its purported digestive benefits. The idea of eating while lying down might evoke fears of heartburn for most of us today, but the ancients believed they had their posture down to a science – and it was all about the side of the body they laid on.


Yes, if you haven’t yet noticed, you might now realise the Greeks and Romans are (almost) always pictured lying on their left side. The reason for this has been debated by historians and classicists for decades, but one argument is that the posture works with human anatomy rather than against it. Lying entirely flat can cause gastric acids to splash upwards and cause heartburn, but the stomach curves upon itself and toward the left. By lying on the left side of the body, the contents of the stomach move furthest away from the oesophageal opening, preventing reflux and creating more room for food – thus allowing the ancients to indulge in greater quantity and comfort, no antacids required. This posture was then slightly adapted by the Romans who chose to eat while leaning slightly more on their bellies, as this was believed to spread the weight of the body evenly for greater comfort and relaxation.


Lying down also allowed for the occasional nap between courses, to give the stomach a rest. It has also been suggested that lying on this side frees the (more commonly dominant) right hand for food and drinking vessels; though some ancient artworks do depict feast-goers leaning on and eating with their left side.


Regardless, the practice of lying down during meals persisted throughout the Mediterranean for thousands of years, so it must have been pretty comfortable! This summer, as you recline on grass enjoying a leisurely picnic or nap your way out of your post-Christmas lunch coma, consider: perhaps we’re not so different from the ancients after all?
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The use of artificial intelligence is seeing a meteoric rise, with increasingly diverse applications. In this age of Google Translate and ChatGPT, we're accustomed to transforming complex information at the push of a button. So why is this Akkadian translator so revolutionary for our understanding of the ancient world?


Translation is a tricky skill. Not only must a translator be a technical master of two or more languages, but they must also understand the way people who use those languages think and frame their sentences. In 1929, influential American linguist Edward Sapir wrote,"the worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same worlds with different labels attached." Along with American linguist Benjamin Whorf, Sapir proposed the linguistic relativity hypothesis which suggests the language you speak frames your perception and thoughts.


A common example of this hypothesis in action is the Inuit group of languages and their descriptions of snow. While English has one word for snow, Inuit languages have multiple terms which differentiate kinds of snow, equivalent to "clinging snow", "wet snow" and so forth. Another example is colour perception. Languages differ in their number of terms for specific colours, and the number of basic colour terms is fewer than the number of colours the human eye can perceive. The language we speak doesn’t limit our worldview, but it does sharpen it in specific ways and influence our attention towards different aspects.


When a translator goes to work they must understand all the nuances of a local speaker, in both languages at hand – and the task of translating to or from ancient languages adds yet another layer of difficulty. Attempting to understand the cultural milieu of a civilisation long gone is not an enviable task, and resurrecting an extinct language from purely written sources and fragmented remains takes a lot of time and effort.


British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) spent his entire life trying to decipher a script he unearthed at Knossos on Crete. This came to be known as Linear A, which was used by the ancient Minoans in governmental and religious writing. This was succeeded by another script, Linear B, which was an early form of Greek used by the Mycenaeans. It has a similar form to Egyptian hieroglyphics but developed independently. Even now, despite Sir Evans' life's work and the work of those who have followed, parts of Linear A remain undeciphered.
The most helpful artefact to decipher a language is one that translates a text into different languages for you. For many people, the most familiar example of this is the Rosetta Stone. No one could understand Egyptian hieroglyphs until this artefact was unearthed in 1799, featuring the same inscription in three different languages: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic Egyptian and ancient Greek. Ancient Greek was known to scholars of the time, who set about attempting to relate it to the then-unknown hieroglyphs. It took them 23 years to decode the secrets of hieroglyphs from the Stone's clues.


Akkadian is the language of the Akkadian Empire, which existed in Mesopotamia circa 2350–2150 BCE after it was founded by Sargon the Great. At its peak, this empire stretched from Anatolia in the north to Arabia in the south, and from Iran in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language, and an extinct spoken language today. It split into Assyrian and Babylonian dialects before being replaced by Aramaic early in the first millennium BCE.


We are fortunate to have many surviving examples of Akkadian script, for two primary reasons. Firstly, many ancient scholars continued to write in Akkadian cuneiform even after Aramaic became common. Secondly, the script's wedge-shaped glyphs were written by pressing a reed stylus onto a wet clay tablet, which was then baked. As clay and stone artefacts can weather more damage than paper or papyrus, a greater number survive – in fact, some of Mesopotamia’s greatest libraries were preserved due to destructive fires that strengthened the clay tablets for humanity to find thousands of years later. The first understandable Akkadian texts are from Ur, circa 28th Century BCE.


The cuneiform writing system has around 1000 signs but not all were used together, as they changed geographically, diachronically, and between periods and genres. On top of this, cuneiform is a difficult language to parse as its signs are polyvalent, meaning they have multiple possible readings depending on the context. Experts cannot directly translate Akkadian to a modern language – it must first be transliterated, meaning they need to gauge the context of each sign in a given sequence.
Cuneiform signs can function in three ways: as logograms, symbols intended to represent a whole word; as determinatives, a word before another that signals that the associated word belongs to a particular semantic group; and as syllabograms, signs that outline the syllables of words.


Once an expert has transliterated the text, it creates a transcription of the cuneiform signs in the Latin alphabet, which can then be translated. This process takes years of training, practice and dedication, and the global pool of scholars who are proficient in translating Akkadian is too small to get through the hundreds of thousands of texts that have been found. We have found ourselves with a wealth of knowledge about the history of ancient Mesopotamia that we are unable to access.


Enter artificial intelligence. To combat this, researchers have created The Babylonian Engine, a neural machine translation model that can assist scholars in translating Akkadian to English. The AI model was trained on text samples from the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (ORACC) and was taught two ways to translate Akkadian: from transliterations of original texts, and from cuneiform symbols directly.




The model was able to handle the nuances of a sample’s genre, as well as understand the variations in cuneiform script across millennia. It has also been tested with BLEU4, a bilingual evaluation understudy often used to assess the quality of machine-translated text – where it scored above the target baseline, in the range of a high-quality translation for both transliteration to English, and in cuneiform to English. The results of this program have already been published in peer-reviewed PNAS Nexus, and the research and source code has been released on GitHub at Akkademia.


The program is not without limitations, as it has been created to work in tandem with scholars and students, and is not self-sufficient. Like all AI models, it is prone to intrinsic and extrinsic hallucinations* which result in mistranslated sentences. (*In AI, hallucination is a term for responses with no connection to the source.) The program works best with formulaic genres like royal decrees and administration records and has a limit of short-to-medium-length sentences. It functions as a ‘human-machine collaboration’ to assist academics in translation, and requires a human to check its results.


But, while it may not be perfect, The Babylonian Engine is a groundbreaking advancement for researchers striving towards the ‘preservation and dissemination of the cultural heritage of ancient Mesopotamia.’ As the model improves with time – as the number of digitised texts continues to grow – it will allow scholars to make much quicker work of deciphering the texts left behind, and the exciting discoveries that may be hiding within.


Further Reading
The Akkadian Period
Cuneiform writing
AI use in ancient translation
Another paper on using NLP for cuneiform
Decoding Linear A
Bibliography
Sapir, E. “The Status of Linguistics as a Science.” Language 5, no. 4 (1929): 207–14. https://doi.org/10.2307/409588
Gutherz, Gai, Shai Gordon, Luis Sáenz, Omer Levy, and Jonathan Berant. “Translating Akkadian to English with neural machine translation.” PNAS Nexus 2, Issue 5 (May 2023): pgad096. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad096


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The Hellenic Museum speaks with the couple behind the Greek brand giving Melbourne specialty coffee a run for its money.


It is a truth universally acknowledged that Melbourne's coffee standards are among the highest in the world. Starting a coffee label can be a gruelling endeavour – let alone a brand based in, and named after, a city full of world-renowned coffee critics!
But Thalia and George Dardamanis are onto a good thing. After launching Melvourni in 2022, the couple has already built a name for themselves with stockists across the city and support streaming in from the community.


We recently spoke with Thalia and George about their journey to creating the world's only Greek coffee that is specialty-grade, organic and ethically sourced, locally produced here in Melbourne, and now available at the Hellenic Museum shop!
Tell us about the story behind Melvourni. When did it begin?


We officially launched Melvourni in 2022, but the idea started way back in 2016.


We're both Greek-Australians. Thalia moved here when she was quite young, and has kept a strong connection with her roots in Siatista Kozani, while George's family hails from Mytilini. We also have a fond spot for Crete where we holiday as a family!


It was family that inspired the business. Thalia was used to working long hours as a lawyer, so when she took maternity leave for our first child in 2016, she found herself with more time and space to be creative. A new baby also meant lots of visitors – and Greek coffee! It was then we realised we couldn't find a Greek coffee to serve friends and family that was equivalent to the quality of espresso coffee that we were used to in the Melbourne coffee scene.


We started to research what was available, to no avail. On trips to Greece, we found a few organic options, but none that were made with premium or speciality grade beans or ethically sourced. Almost everyone is aware of the ethical issues surrounding coffee these days, as the conversations and transparency around fair trade have grown. So finding an ethical brand was non-negotiable for us.


When we realised there was a gap in the market, we started the process of finding
ethically sourced, specialty-grade, organic coffee beans from the best regions around the
world and then locally roasting these to our specifications, to develop our Greek coffee. It seemed like a lot of boxes to tick, but the more research we did, the more reasons we found to pursue the project and the more passionate we became. Fuelled by Thalia's creativity, George's 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry and our joint passion, Melvourni was born.


It's been quite the journey, including a pandemic and a second baby! This is part of the reason Melvourni was something of a hobby until relatively recently. Things really kicked off in 2022, and we now have a flourishing business and an amazing network of friends, family, locals and stockists who deeply understand, and believe in our mission. We can't wait to see where it takes us!

Why 'Melvourni'?

For those who might not know, 'Melvourni' is Greek for Melbourne. This beautiful city is built on a fusion of cultures and an intense love of coffee. We wanted to honour that, as well as the Greek culture which thrives in this city and throughout the generations of our family – while also being a twist on tradition! Our brand is truly Melbourne and uniquely Melvourni.


For the enthusiasts – what can you expect from a cup of Melvourni?


An excellent coffee! But in all seriousness, the Melvourni range includes Greek coffee in Classic and Decaf (ground extra fine, using traditional stone methods) and Freddo in Classic and Decaf (available as whole beans or espresso ground.) The entire range uses organic, ethically sourced, specialty-grade arabica beans roasted right here in Melbourne. All of the farms we work with are completely chemical-and pesticide-free.


Our signature Classic Greek coffee uses single-origin Arabica beans grown 1600M above sea level on a farm in Brazil. When boiled It produces a rich kaïmaki that one hopes for and loves from Greek coffee. On the tail end, it's like sipping on a specialty brew – smooth and delicately sweet with no bitter aftertaste that is typically found in traditional Greek coffee.


A very important question – how do you both take your coffee!?


For Greek coffee, Thalia likes hers diplo kai sketos (a double coffee without sugar)
and George likes his metrios (a single coffee with one teaspoon of sugar).


For Freddo coffee (a cold espresso coffee drunk as an alternative to the instant coffee used
for Frappe), Thalia likes a Freddo cappuccino metrios (cold foamed milk and two teaspoon
of sugar) and George likes a Freddo espresso metrios (no milk and two teaspoons of sugar).

Now, we don't normally allow drinks in our galleries, but! in an ideal world where you could kick back in a quiet corner of the Hellenic Museum, take in an exhibition and enjoy a cup of coffee, which spot would you pick?


Since Greek coffee is often drunk socially, and enjoyed with family and friends when they
visit, Thalia would choose to sit nearby one of the marble statues in the museum’s foyer - a welcoming and social spot that represents how Greek coffee should be enjoyed. George
would choose the Henson Gallery with his Greek coffee and a tavli (backgammon) set to
play while taking in the exhibition.

What's next for Melvourni?


We have so many ideas to launch. Collaborations and new products are on their way.
This June, we are off to Athens to showcase our classic and decaf Greek coffee at the World
of Coffee 2023 trade show by the Specialty Coffee Association. We cannot wait!


The Hellenic Museum is a proud stockist of Melvourni Greek coffee and Freddo coffee. Browse online or visit us in-store to get your fix of specialty-grade, organic, ethically sourced and locally roasted coffee!


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Written by Natasha Marinopoulos
Perhaps the most instantly recognisable element of Greek Easter, red eggs (kokkina avga) are rich in symbolism and have been a Greek cultural tradition for centuries. Many Greeks will remember dyeing red eggs with their mothers and grandmothers, shining the eggs with olive oil, and cracking them on Easter Sunday with family. These bright eggs also feature in the centre of the sweet Greek Easter bread, tsoureki.

The symbolism of eggs
In the first century BCE, the Greek philosopher Plutarch first posed the famous question, “Which was first, the bird or the egg?” In Christian traditions, eggs symbolise the tomb of Jesus Christ, closed yet concealing life inside. The cracking of the egg is a representation of the opening of the tomb that held Jesus Christ. This is the reason we eat chocolate Easter eggs today! However, eggs have been a symbol of life, rebirth, and the advent of spring across the world, long before Christianity.


Eggs feature in ancient creation myths from Egypt, India, Persia, Finland, Oceania, China, and Greece. In the ancient Greek Orphic tradition, the god Phanes was formed amongst chaos and darkness within a silver egg, hatched, and then created the world.


The practice of decorating eggs can date as far back as 55,000 years ago in South Africa, where fragments of ostrich eggs painted in black, red, and orange have been found. Decorated ostrich eggs (rhyta) dating from the Bronze Age, have been found in elite Minoan and Mycenaean tombs across Greece. These hollowed eggs were highly regarded and used as ritual drinking vessels. While we do not know the symbolism of these eggs in Bronze Age Greece, in New Kingdom Egypt ostriches were directly connected with the dead as well as the rising of the sun.


While there is no documented first recording of an ‘Easter egg’, it is believed that early Mesopotamian Orthodox Christians first began to dye eggs for Easter as they had for the Zoroastrian New Year, Nowruz, where they had been used as a symbol of fertility for hundreds of years. The use of coloured eggs then spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe through the Orthodox church, where the tradition continues today.


Why are the eggs dyed red?
There are several traditions behind the choice of the colour red. For many, the red dye represents the blood of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. Another explanation comes from a story about Mary Magdalene, in which Emperor Tiberius told her that he would believe in the Resurrection if the basket of eggs she held turned red – which they immediately did. Another story explains that the Virgin Mary turned a basket of eggs red with her tears upon seeing Jesus on the cross. Other reasons include using the colour red as an expression of joy for the Resurrection, or as a repellent against evil.


Traditionally dyed by women of the household on the Thursday before Easter, the eggs were boiled or painted with dye made from vinegar and onion skins, the rizari plant, turmeric, beetroot, or even coffee. Today, the most common way to dye eggs is with commercial red dye. After dyeing, the eggs are often rubbed with olive oil to make them shine.


While often left plain, red eggs can be decorated in a variety of different ways. The most common way is to wrap flowers, herbs, or leaves against the eggs with sheer fabric before boiling the eggs in dye, leaving an imprint on the egg. In Northern Greece, women use a tool called a kondili and beeswax to paint intricate flowers, leaves, birds, or words on each egg. Traditionally, women would begin dyeing and decorating the eggs just after midnight on Thursday and work throughout the day to ensure the eggs were completed before Good Friday. The kondili tool is heated over a candle so the beeswax can slowly drip through like ink. The beeswax is only wiped off after dyeing the eggs, leaving the design behind. Eggs decorated in this way are called perthikes and are similar to Ukrainian pysanky eggs. As well as these traditional decorating methods, many people also now use stickers to decorate their eggs.


Tsougrisma
On Easter Sunday, the eggs are used for a game called tsougrisma (‘clinking together’). This is either played at the church right after midnight or later in the day during the Easter Sunday feast.


The players will inspect the eggs to try to find the strongest egg for the game. Everyone has their own theories about how to pick the best egg – whether it’s by the depth of its colour, if it’s pointy or round, big, small, heavy or light! Two people will then ‘clink’ the ends of their eggs against each other to see which egg is left intact, then continue to the next person. The person tapping the egg will say ‘Christos Anesti’ (‘Christ has risen’) while the person being tapped will say ‘Alithos Anesti’ (‘Indeed he has risen).


Players are out of the game when both ends of their egg are cracked. The person with the last egg standing is said to have good luck for the year! The eggs are then eaten, and in some families, one egg is kept for the entire year.




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Discover the unique traditions of Greek Carnival!
This week in Greece, a colourful celebration has begun. Like most Christian denominations, Orthodox Greeks celebrate a version of Carnival – which comes from the Latin carnem levare, or 'without meat’, and is the celebration preceding Lent.


Known in Greece as Apokries, this period of celebration begins 10 weeks before Orthodox Easter and ends on the first day of Lent, Clean Monday, which this year falls on 22 February.
Although today the celebration is aligned with Carnival/Orthodox traditions, Apokries can be traced back to ancient feasts held in honour of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fun and fertility. As spring approaches in the northern hemisphere, this period is considered a time for shaking off winter, welcoming the new season, and celebrating renewal and rebirth.


It also offers a last chance for indulgence before the 40 days of fasting observed during Great Lent. Cities throughout Greece throw vibrant celebrations which attract thousands of locals and tourists to enjoy eating, drinking, dancing, fireworks and masquerading in bright costumes.


Milestones of Apokries


Tsiknopempti, or Burnt Thursday, takes place on the Thursday eleven days before Lent. This day is named for the myriad of grilled meats that are served – as the weekend following is usually the peak of festivities, and the last chance to eat meat before Easter!


Most Apokries parades take place on the Saturday of this final weekend, which is followed by a day known as Cheesefare Sunday, or Tyrofago. No meat can be eaten on this day, however dairy is allowed – making it an excellent day for tiropita (cheese pie), galaktobureko (custard pie with syrup), tirokroketes (fried cheese balls) or of course, saganaki!
Finally, the next day is Clean Monday, Sarakosti, which marks the first day of Great Lent and the end of Apokries. Sarakosti is a public holiday in Greece and, weather permitting, it is common to spend the day flying kites and eating picnics of Lenten foods such as lagana (flatbread), taramasalata (fish roe spread), dolmadakia (stuffed vine leaves), grilled octopus, gigantes plaki (Greek baked beans) and halva (sweets made from sesame.)


Carnival Traditions


Though these key milestones are similar around the country, many cities and towns have developed their own traditions over time, especially in relation to their main carnival event. These carnivals are often closely linked to each region's cultural heritage, and elements of their celebrations are revived from old local customs.


Patras
One of the most famous carnivals has been held in the port city of Patras for more than 180 years, and is considered to be the largest celebration in the country. Patras begins its celebrations earlier than most cities on 17 January – Saint Anthony’s Day. Their Apokries celebrations end with a closing parade which includes a ceremonial burning of the Carnival King (Vasilias Karnavalos) and a massive fireworks display.


Xanthi
The city of Xanthi hosts another popular carnival which began in 1966 as an urban event, but has come to incorporate the city’s multicultural character, making it quite folkloric. Its Folk Parade is considered the highlight: on the Saturday before Clean Monday, folk dancers parade through the Old Town and merge in an all-night Balkan folk fiesta in the main square.
Skyros
On the Aegean island of Skyros, local men wear goat bells around their waists and perform the role of geros (old man), a figure in a hooded black cape and hanging goat skin. The old men run through the streets singing, dancing and making as much noise as possible to ward off evil spirits, while the other townspeople toast, drink and dance with them. This can also be seen at an Apokries celebration in Thessaloniki above!
(Fun fact! Visually, these costumes look similar to those in our past exhibition Faces + Masks, a photoseries by Nikos Vavdinoudis which you can explore in our online exhibition space. The costumes pictured in Nikos' series are related to a similar, but different, celebration of Dionysian roots.)


Galaxidi
In the central harbour town of Galaxidi, they perform the unique custom of alevromoutzouromata where on Clean Monday, the town is transformed into a battlefield and hundreds of people pelt each other with coloured flour!


These are just some of the unique traditions observed around the country, but there are many more! Do you have any family traditions celebrated around Apokries, Lent or Easter?
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