Category: CULTURE

News about culture and cultural heritage

Wikipedia Robots Fight Over Alexander the Great

Humans and software robots (bots) fight over the content of the Alexander the Great entry in Wikipedia, according to new British scientific research.

The research show that bots behave more like humans than one would expect, “unleashing” a war in cyberspace concerning what to include in the Wikipedia entries.

Alexander the Great has always been such a controversial issue and the bots have gone to a cyber “war”.

Researchers at the Institute of Internet of Oxford University and the Alan Turing Institute led by Dr. Milena Tsvetkova and Dr. Taha Yassir, who published their work in “PLoS One” scientific journal, studied the behavior of software robots and how they interact, either by original design or by their own initiative because of their advanced artificial intelligence.

The scientists focused on the ‘good’ bots used for years with benevolent purpose to improve Wikipedia‘s content, “purifying” the vandalism and errors, automatically inserting new information, identifying copyright violations etc.

The study entitled “Even the good bots quarrel” – included versions of Wikipedia in 13 languages in depth of a decade.

The key finding is that although the bots are not made by malicious designers, not only interact, but get entangled in chronic disputes with unpredictable consequences, eg changing a content which the other has added a certain word or links under the entries.

Although the algorithms of autonomous bots make up only 0.1% of the Wikipedia authors, their influence is much greater, because a large proportion of interventions and corrections are due to these programs.

Regarding the “Alexander the Great” entry, it is possible that the bots are fighting between them as they see contradicting contributions from Greek authors and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia authors, with the latter trying to usurp the origin and legacy of Alexander the Great as their own.

(greece.greekreporter.com)

March 12, 2017
Cavafy in the World: International Cavafy Summer School 2017

What kind of methodological and theoretical approaches can be productive in revisiting Cavafy’s work as world literature? How does Cavafy’s appeal as a world literary figure relate to (and challenges) national appropriations of the poet in Greece? How does Cavafy’s poetry speak to present cultural, social, and political concerns and what kind of responses does it offer to contemporary local and global realities?

These are just some of the questions that will be posed during the first International Cavafy Summer School that will be devoted exclusively to one of the most renowned and widely read Greek poets, C.P. Cavafy. Organized by the Cavafy Archive and the Onassis Foundation, this major international annual scholarly event will take place on 10-17 July 2017, based at the historical building of the Onassis Foundation in the centre of Athens.

Themed Cavafy in the World, the first Summer School will examine Cavafy’s work in wider, indeed global, literary and cultural contexts, revisit Cavafy as a major figure of world literature and reassess the impact of his life and work on Greek and international culture. Among the topics that will be revisited are: Cavafy’s relationship to movements such as symbolism, aestheticism, decadence and modernism; Cavafy’s dialogue with other literary figures; Cavafy as a cultural myth; the place of biography in Cavafy studies; paratextual uses of Cavafy’s poems; the construction of a Cavafy “canon” through editing and translating; Cavafy’s importance for modern queer writing and culture.

The International Cavafy Summer School 2017 will be convened by Dimitris Papanikolaou (Oxford) and Stathis Gourgouris (Columbia), and tutors will include Natalie Melas (Cornell), Maria Boletsi (Leiden), Karen Emmerich (Princeton), Michael Warner (Yale), Gregory Jusdanis (Ohio State) and Patrick McGuinness (Oxford). The deadline for applications is Monday 20 March 2017 while the working language will be English.

It should be noted that the Onassis Foundation acquired the Cavafy Archive in the end of 2012. The Archive consists of approximately 4.000 manuscripts, photographs and personal items of the poet, while its collections comprise original poems, translations, commentary on poems, the poet’s correspondence, and his notes. The aim is to protect this invaluable material and to promote C.P. Cavafy’s work and the international character of his poetry and personality. Working towards this end, numerous projects and events take place in Greece and abroad, for the wider public and particularly the younger generations, creatively utilizing the potential of new technologies.

Created by the Center for Neo-Hellenic Studies and owned by the Onassis Foundation, the Cavafy Archive website contains all of Cavafy’s major works in the translation of Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (edited by G.P. Savidis), plus select alternative translations. It also contains a wealth of unpublished material from the poet’s Archive, plus a Cavafy Companion section and up-to-date information on Cavafy’s seminal presence in today’s world, as seen through the web.

(greeknewsagenda.gr)

March 8, 2017
Two Museums in Athens among 41 Most Spectacular to See Around the World

The Acropolis Museum and the Benaki Museum in Athens are among the world’s 41 most incredible museums to visit before you die, according to the online edition of UK newspaper The Telegraph. The list was compiled by The Telegraph’s experts.

Acropolis Museum
As noted in the article, the Acropolis Museum — inaugurated in June 2009 and designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi — displays “proud statues of the ancients and life-like stone carvings of animals”. It is also mentioned that the museum’s top floor is devoted to the marble frieze that once ran around the top of the Parthenon. “The missing pieces were removed by Lord Elgin in 1801 and are now in the British Museum in London. The Greeks have wanted them back for decades, and hope that this blatant presentation will finally convince the British to return them.”

Benaki Museum
Referring to the Benaki Museum, the article informs that it is housed in a neo-classical building “with a lovely roof-terrace cafe” and traces Greek art right up the 20th century. “…Top pieces include the Thessaly Treasure (a hoard of gold filigree jewellery set with precious stones, dating from the second century BC), two early paintings by El Greco, and the reconstruction of two 18th-century, wood-panelled, Ottoman-inspired living rooms.”

Other incredible museums to visit before you die, according to the article, include New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris’s Musée du Louvre, Rome’s Vatican Museums, London’s Design Museum, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, Barcelona’s Museu Picasso, St Petersburg’s The Hermitage and many more.

(news.gtp.gr)

March 8, 2017
Greek Culture Minister allocates €2.5 million for Amphipolis Tomb project works

Recently appointed Greek Culture Minister Lydia Koniordou announced that 2.5 million euros have been allotted for restoration works executed at Kasta Hill, the excavation site of the Amphipolis tomb.

During a press conference this week, she clarified that the funds will be made available immediately for the restoration of the site in northeastern Greece, where a huge grave from Alexander the Great’s era was unearthed.

The so-called Kasta Tomb, also known as the Amphipolis Tomb is an ancient Macedonian tomb that was discovered inside the Kasta mound (or Tumulus) near Amphipolis, Central Macedonia, in northern Greece in 2012 and first entered in August 2014. The first excavations at the mound in 1964 led to exposure of the perimeter wall, and further excavations in the 1970s uncovered many other ancient remains.

The recently discovered tomb is dated to the last quarter of the 4th century B.C. The tumulus is the largest ever discovered in Greece and by comparison dwarfs that of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, in Vergina. The excavation team, based on findings unearthed at the site, argued that the tomb was a memorial dedicated to the close friend of Alexander the Great, Hephaestion.

It is not yet known who is buried in the tomb, but the initial public speculation that it could be the tomb of Alexander the Great, because of its size and estimated cost of construction, was dismissed by the experts community when commenting on the published findings, as the available historical records mention Alexandria in Egypt as the last known location of Alexander’s body; it has been supported instead, that a likely occupant could be either a wealthy Macedonian noble or a late member of the royal family.

The skeletal remains of five people were unearthed within a corresponding tomb, in the lower levels of the third chamber in November 2014. The dead of the burial are: A woman at the age of 60, two men aged 35–45, a newborn infant and a fifth person represented by minimum fragments. Further examination is underway with regard to the dating of the skeletal remains, as well as DNA cross examination between the dead of the burial as well as other skeletons from the neighboring tombs in the area.

Monogram of Hephaestion

At a press conference in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greek archaelogist Katerina Peristeri revealed the existence of three inscriptions apparently linking the tomb to Hephaestion, nobleman, General and close friend of Alexander the Great. The ancient Greek word “ΠΑΡΕΛΑΒΟΝ” (it means “received”) is written in the inscriptions and next to it the monogram of Hephaestion.

According to the Culture Minister, the resources will also be allocated for works to unify the archaeological sites of Amphipolis and create specially designed trails for visitors.

Ms. Koniordou also revealed that other current projects of the Greek Culture Ministry include the upgrade of five more ancient Greek theaters, Ancient Gitana Thesprotia, Ancient Ambracia, Nikopolis, Kassopi and Dodona that are all connected through the Epirus cultural route.

Furthermore, the Culture Ministry plans to hire 1,314 museum and archaeological site guards for the season and they are expected to be in their positions as of early April.

Finally, she noted that the e-ticket access will initially run as a pilot program at the Acropolis, Mycenae, Knossos and Messina sites.

(www.tornosnews.gr)

March 8, 2017