The Tsunami That Saved a Greek City From Persian Invasion
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 3, 2026
In 480 BC, Xerxes the Great, the fourth king of the Achaemenid Empire, launched the largest invasion the Greek world had yet faced. Xerxes’s...
Showing posts with the label Greece
Tessarakonteres: An Ancient Supership
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 27, 2026
In the 3rd century BCE, at the height of the Hellenistic age’s appetite for spectacle and scale, a ship was built so vast that even ancient ...
The Song of Seikilos
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 10, 2025
Humans have been making music for thousands of years, as evidenced by fragments of ancient instruments unearthed by archaeologists, such as ...
Xerxes Canal
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2024
The Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece, that juts into the Aegean Sea for some 50 kilometers, was once bisected by a canal a hundred fee...
The Mysterious Phaistos Disc
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 7, 2022
The Phaistos Disc is an enigmatic disk of fired clay discovered in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the Greek island of Crete, possibly dati...
Arkadiko Bridge: The World’s Oldest Bridge
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 28, 2021
One of the oldest arch bridges still in use is the Arkadiko Bridge or Kazarma Bridge, located near the modern road from Tiryns to Epidauros ...
Pericles' Funeral Oration, The Most Famous Speech in History
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 16, 2020
The Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens began in 431 BC and would last for almost 28 years. In the end, Sparta prevailed, but its he...
Arrhichion, The Olympic Champion Who Won After His Death
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 25, 2020
Pankration was a violet sport. Practiced in ancient Greece, this brutal combination of boxing and wrestling had virtually no rules. The obje...
The Tunnel of Eupalinos
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 10, 2020
Digging tunnels is probably among the most toughest engineering projects the ancient people undertook, because it required mastering several...
Helepolis: The Failed War Machine From Which Rose a Wonder of The Ancient World
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 26, 2019
At the entrance to the harbor of the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, there once stood a colossal statue made of iron, ...
The Aqueduct of Loukous
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 18, 2019
In the Greek municipality of North Kynouria in Peloponnese, near the villa of Herodes Atticus, a wealthy Greek aristocrat and a Roman senato...
The Roadside Shrines of Greece
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 4, 2019
Roadside shrines erected in memory of those who lost their lives in road accidents are a common sight across Greece. They are found next to ...
A Short History of Showering
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 8, 2019
Personal hygiene hasn’t always been an integral part of grooming, yet the need to clean oneself easily and quickly was as pressing in ancien...
Diolkos: An Ancient Trackway That Carried Ships Over Land
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 12, 2018
In ancient times, Greek merchants sailed all around the Mediterranean Sea carrying goods from Spain to Phoenicia and from Carthage to Egypt ...
Tower of The Winds: The World’s First Weather Station
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 20, 2018
The Tower of the Winds, or the Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes, is an elegant octagonal marble tower in the Roman Agora in Athens. It is...
Elgin Marbles: A Piece of The Parthenon in London
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 20, 2017
Should a museum keep artistic treasures it acquired under dubious circumstances a long time ago, or should it return them to their country o...
The Hermits of Karoulia of Mount Athos
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 8, 2017
Mount Athos, located on a Greek peninsula in the Aegean Sea, is home to one of the oldest surviving monastic community on Earth. The mountai...
The Sponge Divers of Greece
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 28, 2016
Most sponge that we use today are synthetic, but in the old days sponge was collected from the sea bed. Some of the finest-quality sea spong...
The Dance of Zalongo
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 30, 2016
Above the village of Kamarina, near Preveza, Greece, is the historic cliffs of Mount Zalongo. It was here in 1803, during the Souliote War, ...
The Windmills of Lasithi Plateau
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 28, 2016
The Lasithi Plateau in eastern Crete, Greece, is situated 800 meters above sea level. Despite the high altitude, the water table here is ext...
