Wall tiles painted with split-leaves revolving around a rosette, c. 1560 - at the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art, Athens.

Testing RSS to Pnut as a Service (RTPaaS) for cross-posting my Micro.blog feed to pnut.io.

Snow days.

Bobby Klein’s best photograph: Jim Morrison has a beer for breakfast.

Edna St Vincent Millay is one of my favourite poets - just noticed and appreciated this article, published on the anniversary of her birth, February 22nd 1892: Edna St Vincent Millay’s poetry has been eclipsed by her personal life – let’s change that 📚

Athens (stylised by Google)

Two great games of rugby 🏉 in the Six Nations today. Neither result went the way I would have liked, with England and Wales losing, but really enjoyed watching the games - not a dull moment in either!

Flight home delayed :( :)

Can recommend travelling with a limp and a walking stick! I was ushered through Athens airport Fast Track security (but not at Heathrow!) and young women offered me their seats on the Athens Metro. On the other hand, a shopkeeper said I looked like an old Greek man :(

Last day in Athens

Parko Navarinou

Retsina at the Acropolis Museum🍷

Kerameikos Cemetery Reliefs

Photo I:

A relief of the deceased girl Korallion, shown seated, holding out her hand to her husband. Grave enclosure of the Herakleotai, Street of the Tombs.

Ca. 350 B.C.

Photo II:

A relief of the deceased girl Eukoline, shown with her parents, her grandmother and her dog. Found near the Sacred Way.

Ca. 350 B.C.

Photo III:

Grave relief of Demetria and Pamphile.

The inscription beneath the pediment gives the names of the two dead sisters.

The women, remote and isolated, gaze apathetically at the spectator. They are already in another, transcendental world, far from the things of this life. The pilasters of the naiskos have been restored. It is one of the last tomb stones made before the law passed by Demetrios of Phaleron prohibiting the erection of luxurious tomb monuments.

Ca. 325-310 B.C.

I was very impressed with the ancient cemetery site of Kerameikos in Athens today.

The small museum is excellent and I found the “handshake” reliefs from the cemetery particularly moving. They show the deceased, usually seated, bidding farewell to the living.

Hobbling around the Temple of Hephaestus.