Former curator's letter blasts back at Getty officials
Last Updated: Friday, December 29, 2006 | 4:30 PM ET
CBC Arts

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2006/12/29/getty-true-letter.html

The former J. Paul Getty Museum curator on trial in Italy for
allegedly dealing in stolen or illegally obtained antiquities has shot
back at her former employer.

According to a report Friday in the Los Angeles Times, Marion True has
penned a letter to the J. Paul Getty Trust in which she criticizes her
former employer for allowing her to take the fall.

    In a letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times, former Getty Museum
curator Marion True, seen in Rome in November 2005, criticizes her
former employer for leaving her to 'carry the burden' over disputed
antiquities.In a letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times, former
Getty Museum curator Marion True, seen in Rome in November 2005,
criticizes her former employer for leaving her to 'carry the burden'
over disputed antiquities.

True and art dealer Robert Hecht are on trial in Rome. Both have
denied any wrongdoing.

In the letter obtained by the Times and dated Dec. 18, True accuses
Getty officials of letting her "carry the burden" for the disputed
acquisitions. She also criticizes the institution's decision to return
many items to Italian and Greek officials without defending her
innocence.

The museum's "calculated silence ... has been acknowledged
universally, especially in the archeological countries, as a tacit
acceptance of my guilt," True wrote in the two-page missive.

This year, the Getty was among several U.S. art and cultural
institutions that returned contested pieces to Italy and Greece, most
recently, a golden funerary wreath to the latter country.

The Greek culture minister said at the time that the return of the
wreath would not stop the criminal investigation into its original
removal.

"Once again, you have chosen to announce the return of objects that
are directly related to criminal charges filed against me by a foreign
government," True wrote about the return.

True served as the museum's curator of antiquities from 1986 to 2005
and was responsible for advising the museum on items it should buy
from dealers and at auction.

"We certainly are hopeful that Marion will be exonerated, and based on
the evidence we've seen, we believe she should be cleared of the
charges she is facing," Getty spokesman Ron Hartwig said in a
statement Friday.

"It is tragic that Marion has been singled out given her efforts at
trying to reduce the illegal trade of antiquities."

The museum is paying for True's defence in Italy and Greece, which has
also brought criminal charges against her.

The letter was "intended to be a private document," said Harry Stang,
True's Los Angeles attorney. "It was unfortunate it was released to a
media outlet."
With files from the Associated Press.

----------------------------------------------
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks <at> gmail.com
(or) kalamosbks <at> aol.com
www.kalamosbooks.com

The wines and herbs in the land of Pan
A survey of ancient Greek sources reveals the surprising properties of
certain wines that continue to provoke the curiosity of scholars today


A parody of Circe offering Odysseus wine that contains a magical herb
that will make him behave like an animal. Hermes has given the ancient
Greek hero another herb called moly so that Odysseus is not seduced by
Circe. Medical historian Sevasti Karahaliou says moly must have been
an anti-aphrodisiac. (From an early 4th century BC Boeotian cup,
Ashmolean Museum.)

By Stavroula Kourakou (1)

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/ell__13211751KathiLev&xml/&aspKath/ell.asp?fdate=29/12/2006

In early December, the interdisciplinary Oino Istoro (or Talking Wine)
group and Ktima Spyropoulos winery held the "Symposium of Arcadian
Wine Talk."

I presented a paper there, which I want to summarize here. The
inspiration for this paper came from an extract from "The
Deipnosophists" by Athenaeus, which refers to certain wines with
unusual qualities: "Theophrastus says that in Heraia, Arcadia, they
produce a wine which when drunk stimulates men and makes women get
pregnant. He also says that in Keryneia in Achaia, there grows a vine
variety from which is made a type of wine that makes pregnant women
miscarry; they even miscarry if they eat its grapes. The wine of
Troezen makes those who drink it infertile. In Thassos they make a
wine that is a soporific and another that causes insomnia."

Concoctions

Wonderful though wine is, with hypnotic and aphrodisiac properties
known since antiquity, it could not have such effects on human health.
These "miraculous" properties were the result of drinking concoctions,
as Dioscurides calls the plethora of pharmaceutical wines whose
methods of preparation he describes. He notes that the preparations
acquire the strength of the plant that is mixed with them, and that
such wines are not suitable for healthy people.

Both Dioscurides and Theophrastus describe the potency of various
herbs, that is to say their pharmaceutical properties. For instance,
some herbs cause relaxation and help those who have difficulty
sleeping.

Tisanes and tablets made of such herbs are in use today in medicine
and homeopathy. In antiquity one of the best known soporifics was
mandrake.

In the "Symposium" of Xenophon, when the host suggests that everyone
start drinking because they are thirsty, Socrates agrees, saying, "The
time has come to drink, my friends, because wine, watering our souls,
puts our sorrows to sleep as mandrake puts humans to sleep; and it
awakens cordiality just as oil livens up the flame."

Dioscurides gives a detailed description of how mandrake wine was
prepared by the addition of the peel from the root of the plant, and
he adds that in large doses it was fatal.

Apart from mandrake there were other herbs that promoted sleep, such
as aristolochia or Dutchman's pipe, one of the well-known herbs of
Arcadia. According to Theophrastus, robust honeyed wine, to which
shavings of aristolochia root had been added, induced sleep. Hence it
is no surprise that on Thassos they used to make a wine that fought
insomnia. There were then, as there are today, herbs that promote
sleep. By contrast, just as a cup of coffee can give some people
insomnia when drunk at night, so there were herbs which were drunk in
wine in those days to keep the Thassiotes awake.

A glance at Dioscurides reveals a surprising number of herbs said "to
induce abortions." And Plutarch confirms this: "They gave pregnant
women a herb that was capable of inducing an abortion."

The ancient Greek world, encouraged by philosophers such as Aristotle,
who supported birth control as a means of dealing with poverty and the
crimes that it gave rise to, used many drugs in order to induce
abortions.

As for the paradoxical event in Keryneia where not only the wine but
even the grapes were said to be abortifacients, Dioscurides explains
that there is a wine that is harmful to embryos "elleboros (hellebore)
or sikyos agrios or skammonia are planted among the vines, and the
grapes absorb their potency," affecting the wine that was made from
them. Naturally enough, in such circumstances the grapes themselves
acquired abortifacient properties.

There is however a significant difference. Those herbs were not
deliberately planted among the vines; in many vineyards they grew
wild. Besides, in many areas the grapes were sprinkled with salted
shavings of the root of the herbs so that the bitter taste would
protect the fruit from locusts and other parasites.

Anyone who happened to eat the unwashed fruit suffered the effects of
the herb that had been used as a pest repellent. So there is nothing
surprising about what went on in the vineyards of Keryneia.

While many herbs are referred to as abortifacients and others as
possessing contraceptive properties, only two of the herbs described
by Dioscurides are mentioned in relation to male sterility. Apiganos
(Ruta graveolens) when its seed is drunk in wine, and cultivated
cannabis when its fruit is eaten in large quantities were said to be
spermicidal.

So there are very common herbs among Greek flora that explain the side
effects of the wine preparation of Troezen in the Argolid, which was
said to make those who drank it sterile. But we must not assume that
the purpose was to tie a man down, as with the magical herbs of the
Middle Ages and more recent times. Apiganos was drunk in wine as an
antidote to poisons, while cannabis has many uses – it is spun for
fiber, contains oil and is edible. Unlike Indian cannabis, it contains
the minutest quantities of the psychoactive substance
tetrahydracannabinol. Both, however, were said to affect sexual
performance, just as some contemporary drugs for hypertension create
problems with erectile dysfunction.

The first phrase in the extract from Theophrastus concerning Arcadian
wines is hard to interpret because the verb "existimi" has many
meanings, one of which is "make someone go mad." But the same verb
also has the meaning of "excite, stimulate" and it is that sense which
has been attributed to Athenaeus's translation in the French
university collection.

The ancient sources refer to several herbs which, apart from their
other therapeutic properties, were considered to be aphrodisiacs,
depending on whether their seeds, buds and roots were drunk in sweet
or dry wine, Dioscurides mentions a number of such herbs including
akalifi (the common nettle) which, when made into a soup, is
considered to this day to be an aphrodisiac dish.

The second meaning of the verb fits in with the rest of the phrase in
question. Notwithstanding immaculate conception, the women of Arcadia
could not have got pregnant by drinking wine, no matter what
miraculous herb had been added to it. The only way would have been if
they took advantage of the stimulating effect of the wine on their
men.

Stimulant

In his work on the nature of women, Hippocrates advises what should be
done if a woman wishes to become pregnant. He counsels a woman to
drink wine and then sleep with her husband. However, neither of the
two meanings of the verb "existimi" can be ruled out if one takes into
account that the effect of certain herbs directly depends on the
quantity that is taken. For example, take common coriander. When its
seed is swallowed in small quantities in sweet wine, it promotes
fertility, writes Dioscurides, while if it is taken in a large
quantity it can cause dangerous confusion, so regular consumption of
large amounts is to be avoided.

Thus coriander wine could have an aphrodisiac effect but in the case
of abuse might lead to madness – the dual meaning of the verb
"existimi."

I do not have the honor of being either a doctor or a botanist. I
simply wanted to use exclusively ancient Greek sources to examine the
properties of certain wines that raised questions among scholars. And
so I came to Mantineia, the land of Pan, rich in pharmaceutical herbs.

(1) Stavroula Kourakou is a chemist and oenologist.

--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks <at> gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.com

ART REVIEW | 'ATHENS-SPARTA'
Their Rivalry Was Bitter, Yet Beauty Still Emerged
By GRACE GLUECK
At the Onassis Cultural Center, the show "Athens-Sparta"
throws a new light on Sparta's achievements, showing that
the warlike city-state was not so artistically backward as
tradition would have it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/arts/design/29onas.html?th&emc=th

Digital library with smart cards

MATHAIOS TSIMITAKIS

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_civ_11907621_28/12/2006_78297

An electronic reading room in the K.T. Dimaras Science and Technology
Library at the National Research Foundation offers digital access to
the public. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its establishment in
December, the National Documentation Center (EKT) has expanded the
number of work stations available to the public from 25 to 100, and is
initiating the use of smart cards.

The digital library started in 1997 as part of the National Digital
Research and Technology System project, funded by funds from the Third
and Fourth Community Support Frameworks. EKT has paid for rights and
collaboration to secure for its readers a strong collection, which
includes:

* More than 12,000 journals from around the world in all disciplines,
which can be searched by topic and read in full;

* 3,000 digital books and series covering a wide range of scientific fields;

* 54 international databases, electronic dictionaries and
encyclopedias, searchable by topic, with citation indices;

* 27 Greek databases on science and technology;

* Digitized Greek collections (National Archive of Doctoral
Dissertations, publications of the Athens Academy, documents on Greek
history and culture);

* Special collections (digitized bibliographies, studies, conference
papers) in sociology and information science; and

* Selected Internet sources related to science and technology.

The library also has hard copies of more than 300 current journals as
well as hundreds of reference volumes.

--------------------------------------------------------------
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks <at> gmail.com
(or) kalamosbks <at> aol.com
www.kalamosbooks.com