Greek ancient golden ring is not a fake, experts say

AFP reports:

Theseus ring is not fake, say Greek experts

August 03 2006

Athens – An ancient piece of jewellery known as the Theseus ring and dating from the 15th century BC, has been certified as authentic by Greece’s top archaeological council (KAS), the Greek Ministry of Culture said on Wednesday.

Experts at the Democritus Institute had spent more than six months analysing the ring made with 20 grams of gold, which was found in debris at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens.

An archaeologist specialising in ancient Crete, Yannis Sakellarakis, and a member of KAS had argued that it could be a fake.

The KAS, however, backed the opinion of most of the experts and decided to pay €75 000, half the estimated value of the ring, to the ring’s owner so it can be put on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

The signet ring, from the Mycenaean era on Crete, bears a seal engraved with a bull-leaping scene, recalling the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur.

According to the owner, the ring was found by her father-in law during expansion work in the 1950s of the museum at the ancient Acropolis site, but he kept it hidden in a chicken run at his country home.

After her father-in-law’s death, she declared it to the authorities in order to get an estimate of its value and to sell it to the state.

Mycenaean armour: here.

Ancient Greece: Thera volcanic eruption: here.

From the ModBlog Google cache:

Crete: early Greek writing unearthed Comments: 4

Date: 11/14/05 at 2:00PM

Mood: Thinking Playing: Paperback writer, by The Beatles

From Greek daily Kathimerini:

Archaeologists in Crete have found an important trove of archaeological treasures containing some of the earliest known examples of Greek writing, the Culture Ministry said Saturday.

It said the finds were excavated at a long-abandoned site on a hill overlooking the port of Hania in western Crete, which has been identified with the Minoan city of Kydonia.

Among the discoveries was an amphora containing an intact text written in Linear B, the language of the court at Mycenae where the legendary Agamemnon ruled.

Also found were two terracotta tablets containing texts in Linear A, an even older alphabet — used around 1,700 years before the common era — which has not yet been deciphered.

The ministry said the archaeologists found evidence of a violent fire believed to have destroyed a town on the site around 1450 BC. (AFP)

By the way, Linear B (and, very probably, Linear A) is not a language, or an alphabet of letters.

It is syllabic script.

An isolated community near the Black Sea coast in a remote part of north-eastern Turkey has been found to speak a Greek dialect that is remarkably close to the extinct language of ancient Greece. As few as 5,000 people speak the dialect but linguists believe that it is the closest, living language to ancient Greek and could provide an unprecedented insight into the language of Socrates and Plato and how it evolved: here.

Related articles

• 14 Important Archaeological Sites of Greece
• 25 Ancient Greek Theaters Will Open to Public
• The Ancient Symbol of Olympism is Greek
• New Extended Opening Hours for Popular Greek Museums and Archaeological Sites
• 300-Year Drought Was Downfall of Ancient Greece
• Mycenaean Linear B Spelling Conventions: Obligatory Prelude to the Progressive Reconstruction of Mycenaean Greek Grammar | Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae
• Rainwater Damaging the Acropolis?