By Glenn Maffia News of a man etching his and his girlfriend’s name, “Ivan + Hayley 23”, into a wall of the 2,000-year-old Colosseum in Rome caused much indignation across the world. Mainly, I suspect, due to the sheer ignorance exhibited by the perpetrator when he claimed that he “did not realise it (the Colosseum)…
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Glenn Maffia On reading about the investigation into the legality of the acquisitions purloined by early German archaeologists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries my initial thought was this. If these antiquities had not been removed from their original locations at that time they would have probably not survived into our current age.…
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Following on from my previous article writes Glenn Maffia, I believe it may be necessary to qualify some of the evidence which I referred to. Most notably, the abject attitude of some local people towards this incredibly rich vein of historical artefacts, which are seemingly endless in their scope, the innumerable disparate peoples and cultures,…
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Just prior to Christmas, I received a number of communications from my sources within Europe concerning the future of investigations into the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, writes Glenn Maffia. Nothing concrete, you must understand, but nonetheless intriguing in the way that such archaeological tenets are being evolved, or rather dissolved, by the institutions engaged…
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By Glenn Maffia There appear to be few pertinent ideas circulating within our present age, an age of mass media disseminating dogmatic ‘information’ across the political and financial arenas of this ever-shrinking world. I have noticed conversations I overhear in public are generally in broad agreement with each other as the kernel of that ‘news’…
Read More By Glenn Maffia A rather curious snippet of information came to my attention of a rumour circulating that the three standing columns at the Temple of Apollo are recent reconstructions. I found that quite laughable. Though then realised these ill-informed pieces of nonsense could impair people’s judgement of this magnificent site. So I decided to…
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By Glenn Maffia On a recent visit to the Temple I noticed a modicum of maintenance work being conducted within the Chresmographion (the higher section of the three levels), but could not discern any German Archaeological Institute (GAI) personnel, merely local labourers. Sparse on the ground That is not to say the archaeologists are entirely…
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By Glenn Maffia Previously, I concentrated on the early explorations of the magnificent site of Aphrodisias leading up to the fortuitous find by Ara Güler during the late 1950s, which beguiled Professor Kenan T. Erim to embark on the most extensive of archaeological excavations. Within my scope this week I should like to relay the…
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In the first of two parts, writer Glenn Maffia takes a closer at the archaeological site of Aphrodisias. It delighted me immensely to recently read that the Aphrodisias Archaeology Workshop shall resume after the Covid enforced hiatus of two years. Learning to care This initiative, set in motion in 2018, fulfils an important educational and…
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By Glenn Maffia And so it begins. When friends from many a foreign shore start to descend into this timeless ancient Ionian landscape. Full with wonderment and, contrary to the sun-seeking hordes, a thirst for what remains of our shared historic past. Though we have been known to quench the dusty dryness with a cold…
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