Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

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system1988
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Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

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Re: Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

Post by Jeanne Reames »

A correction ... Aegae was not Alexander's home, quite. It was the old traditional capital. The palace at Pella would have been his "home."

Speaking as someone familiar with archaeology and how quickly it advances, this "reconstruction" appalls me. See, when you recreate, you destroy. This is all about tourist dollars.

They need to leave it alone, so that future generations (and maybe that's just 10 years from now, or 20) can evaluate it with tools we can barely even imagine now.

Consider, the idea that anyone could READ the charred scrolls from Pompeii would have seemed like science fiction, but ...
https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/27/europe/c ... index.html
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system1988
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Re: Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

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It is a shame that the article i sent was in Greek , i assume you are unaware of the language, which difficulty forces even me (!) to open the dictionary on occasion.The Aegae s palace is internationaly recognise as the " Parthenon of Macedonia ", due to its amazing architecture which was based on philosophical theories, which in turn had already been internalized by the macedonian royalty before Philip II. That ia why its restoration and display was decided. ( long long ago ) There were also many shattered pieces of it in the larger area , most of them reused in the buildings of Byzantine churches or newer buildings.
The restoration itself is being carried out under the same intenational standards used for the Parthenon of Athens itself, a great project of the past 30 years , so i don t think that any sort of reservations exist. At the same time the theatre at which Philip II was assassinated is also being restored, a project that will give answers to a varity of archeological and historical issues.
The Aegae palace was a place Alexande must have been visiting and also considered it a home of his.I do hope you don t have any reservations that Alexander had two homes ...
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Re: Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

Post by Xenophon »

Jeanne wrote:
Consider, the idea that anyone could READ the charred scrolls from Pompeii would have seemed like science fiction, but ...
Of the 1,826 papyri to have been excavated, 340 are complete (or nearly complete), 970 are decayed but partly decipherable, and more than 500 are listed as fragments (18th century archaeologists weren’t exactly known for their fine detail work, and for years unthinkingly sought to unroll them, destroying them in the process). By 1999 some scrolls were becoming legible under infra-red light, and by 2008 a CT scanner allowed "virtual" unrolling.

One interesting discovery was metal-based inks in some cases, previously thought to have been discovered in the 5 C AD. Moreover "The Villa of the Papyri" owned by Caesar's father-in-law, Piso, is mostly unexcavated (only one of three floors). The results so far are somewhat disappointing being mostly minor philosophical works, but one may hope that further excavation and discovery may reveal the missing 75% of Livy's monumental "History of Rome"....or the lost 35 (out of 40) books of Polybius......or even something new. :D
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Re: Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

Post by Jeanne Reames »

system1988 wrote:It is a shame that the article i sent was in Greek , i assume you are unaware of the language, which difficulty forces even me (!) to open the dictionary on occasion.The Aegae s palace is internationaly recognise as the " Parthenon of Macedonia ", due to its amazing architecture which was based on philosophical theories, which in turn had already been internalized by the macedonian royalty before Philip II. That ia why its restoration and display was decided. ( long long ago ) There were also many shattered pieces of it in the larger area , most of them reused in the buildings of Byzantine churches or newer buildings.
The restoration itself is being carried out under the same intenational standards used for the Parthenon of Athens itself, a great project of the past 30 years , so i don t think that any sort of reservations exist. At the same time the theatre at which Philip II was assassinated is also being restored, a project that will give answers to a varity of archeological and historical issues.
The Aegae palace was a place Alexande must have been visiting and also considered it a home of his.I do hope you don t have any reservations that Alexander had two homes ...
I read ancient Greek, not modern, unfortunately. My modern Greek is ancient Greek with a dictionary and a reminder that B is now V and the G is soft, not hard anymore (et al.). When traveling in Greece, I tend to confuse the locals with my archaic pronunciations. :P (This is enormously annoying when trying to keep up with recent archaeology. So much of the good, cutting-edge stuff is in modern Greek--unsurprisingly. Thank God for Archaeological Reports.)

If they are just putting back old pieces into place such as the Parthenon, et al., that's one thing, but if it's going to be like Attalos's Stoa in Athens, I'm deeply against it.

And yes, I know ATG visited Aegae, and it's the traditional capital, but I consider Pella his home, in terms of where he was raised. That said, this IS a man who covered 3000+ miles in his lifetime, and never returned to Greece after he left it at 22, so I suppose one could say he didn't have a home, properly speaking, so much as a "hometown." Ha.
----
Dr. Jeanne Reames
Director, Ancient Mediterranean Studies
Graduate Studies Chair
University of Nebraska, Omaha
287 ASH; 6001 Dodge Street
Omaha NE 68182
http://jeannereames.net/cv.html
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Re: Reconstuctionof the palace of Aegae ( Alexander s home !)

Post by system1988 »

I agree that the stoa of Attalus is a ' cold' imitation of the real one .But.... it is essentially an American work.The restoration was carried in 1953-1956 by the American School of Classical Studies , thanks to the donation of John D.RochefellerJr.

As for the palace in Aegae Mrs Kottaridi has pre-published some studies .I will try to write some links although i am reputed that i almost always fail . www academia.edu/1578290/ The palace of Aegae 2011- .... for the rest just google ' kottaridi palace of Aegae"
A whole new museum will be dedicated to the palace and its findings
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