Pentelic white marble

Pentelic marble is a fine-grained, calcitic stone quarried from Mount Pentelicus in Greece. It was the premier material used for major classical Athenian monuments like the Parthenon.

Its brilliant white but features a faint yellow tint. In the sunlight, this trace hue causes the marble to shine with a distinctive golden glow, making it a legendary material for classical architecture and sculpture.

Also known as Dionissos White Marble, it is a prestigious and renowned stone. It's crystalline structure gives it a translucent quality, allowing light to penetrate and reflect off its surface, creating a luminous ambiance. What sets Pentelikon white marble apart is its exceptional clarity and lack of impurities, resulting in a consistent and uniform appearance. Pentelikon white marble is often adorned with gray or light beige veining. The delicate veins add character and depth to the marble, enhancing its visual appeal. Before the rise of marble, early Roman builders relied on tuff, an abundant porous volcanic rock. Tuff was strong, making it ideal for Rome's earliest infrastructure projects. For sculpture, early Romans used terracotta. Rome’s desire for Pentelic white marble began as it became a global power.

In 146 BCE, Rome saw the construction of its first marble temple: the Temple of Jupiter Stator, designed by the Greek architect Hermodorus of Salamis. From that point forward, fine marble became the defining material in Roman architecture. Three types of marble dominated the Roman world: Carrara, Parian, and Pentelic. Carrara marble was quarried in northern Italy and became the empire’s go to material for large scale projects. It was used for the Forum of Augustus and Trajan’s Column. Parian marble was sourced from the Greek island of Paros. It was prized for its fine grain and luminous quality. Some of the most famous works of classical art, including the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory of Samothrace, were sculpted from Parian marble. Pentelic marble appeared in Roman masterpieces such as the Arch of Titus.

The biggest misconception about marble statues is that they were white. Greek and Roman sculptures were painted in vibrant colors.

Father Crespi and his artifacts

Crespi won the hearts of the people and they began to bring him artifacts. The items came from all corners of the country.

Father Carlos Crespi Croci was a Salesian monk who was born in Italy in 1891. He studied anthropology at the University of Milan before becoming a priest. In 1923, he was assigned to the small Andean city of Cuenca in Ecuador to work among the indigenous people. He devoted the rest of his life to charitable work until his death in 1982. Over time, Father Crespi acquired more than 50,000 objects.

Thousands of Crespi’s artifacts are unremarkable but there was a small subset of items that sparked intense controversy. Some of the artifacts are Babylonian in style, others appear to have been carved in gold with strange motifs and symbols that don't resemble objects from any South American culture. Some of the gold plates appeared to show a type of ancient writing.

In 1973, Eric von Däniken launched his book ‘ Gold of the Gods ’, claiming the artifacts had been created by a lost civilization with extraterrestrials. Father Crespi and the story of his artifacts shot to fame. According to Däniken, the so-called Metallic Library consisted of thousands of books made with metallic pages. An investigation proved them to be crude fakes.

Father Crespi’s collection was purchased by the Central Bank of Ecuador and is stored in their vaults, with most being authentic and valuable artifacts. Nowhere to be found however are the artifacts that were photographed and filmed in the 1970s consisting of gold carvings, hieroglyphs, and Sumerian figures.

No one at the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Church of Maria Auxiliadora or the Central Bank Museum can say what became of the items.

Monsters on ancient coins

CRETE, Knossos. Stater (11.93g). about 425 – 360 BCE. Product of a union between Queen Pasiphaë and a white bull, the Minotaur was a ferocious man-eating beast, imprisoned in the Labyrinth of Daedalus. Theseus slew the Minotaur. This is a rare coin with less than 20 known.

Crete, Phaistos AR Stater. Mid-Late 4th century BCE. Herakles (Latin name is Hercules) was the champion monster-slayer. In a fit of madness, Herakles killed his family; to atone for this grave crime he undertook a series of heroic quests. The Lernaean Hydra was one. Sever one of the Hydra’s heads and two grew back, making the monster hard to kill. Herakles slew the Hydra, helped by his companion Iolaus, who cauterized the neck with a torch as each head was cut off.

SIKYONIA, Sikyon. Circa 335-330 BCE. Bellerophon, riding Pegasus, killed the fire-breathing Chimaera (or Chimaira) with a block of lead impaled on a spear he lodged in the beast’s throat. The fire melted the lead, choking the beast. The Greek city of Sicyon, near Corinth adopted the chimaera as a symbol on coins, which are relatively common, from c. 430 to about 280 BCE

Cerberus (or Kerberos) is a giant, ferocious three-headed dog who guards the gateway to the land of the dead. He is often depicted as the companion of Hades (or Pluto) god of the underworld. As his 12th labor, Herakles wrestles Cerberus into submission and drags him back to the land of the living. Cerberus appears on a magnificent electrum stater of Cyzicus (c. 500-450 BCE).

Medusa often appeared on ancient coinage. One of three sisters known as Gorgons, the image of Medusa was thought to have protective qualities and appeared throughout antiquity.

2,600-year-old perfume bottles

Lekythoi are ancient Greek vessels made by a method known as “red-figure pottery.” These were used to store extremely valuable oil and perfume. They were used by women of the upper social strata and were often buried with them. Very few red-figure lekythoi survive. “Precious scents are very rare, and the work of an artist who lived in ancient times is priceless." The Izmir Archaeological Museum showcased the containers.

Santorini - Thera

The Greek Island of Santorini was in the headlines in early 2025 because of a swarm of severe earthquakes. The earthquake swarm prompted an exodus from the island. Santorini, classically Thera, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Greece's mainland. It is the remnant of a volcanic caldera.

The eruption of Thera was a catastrophic eruption which is thought to have occurred some 3,400 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. It was the largest volcanic event on Earth in recorded history. The eruption devastated the island of Thera, and may have led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on Crete.

Kolumbo is a submerged active volcano. Its most recent eruption in 1650 CE, generated a tsunami causing destruction in the islands of Santorini, Ios, and Sikinos, while the poisonous gas emitted from the eruption killed 70 in Santorini.

Kolumbo’s edifice was created by at least five eruptive cycles, the earliest dating back more than 1M years.

New research into ancient tree rings from half a world away helped settle lingering questions about when Thera erupted. Scientists believe the volcano erupted in the 16th century B.C., about 3,400 years ago, blowing some 24 cubic miles of rock and ash into the atmosphere. The eruption had long lasting and wide ranging effects world wide. Researchers were able to determine colder years in the tree rings of Irish oaks and bristlecone pines in California. Scientists believed that the eruption happened between 1600 and 1525 B.C.

Evidence of a catastrophic tsunami that followed the eruption of Thera was found at Çesme-Bağlararası on Turkey’s Aegean coast, more than 100 miles north-northeast of Santorini.

Researchers found an articulated skeleton of a man (and his dog) believed to have been killed by the tidal wave following the eruption that devastated the Aegean island. Calibrated radiocarbon ages found within the tsunami deposit say the remains date no earlier than 1612 BCE. The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of metres deep.

The myth of Atlantis, described by Plato, may be based upon the Santorini eruption. Excavations in 1967 at Akrotiri made Thera the best-known Minoan site outside Crete.

Only the southern tip of a large town was uncovered, yet it revealed complexes of multi-level buildings, streets, and squares with remains of walls standing as high as eight metres, all entombed in the solidified ash. Pipes with running water and water closets found at Akrotiri are the oldest ever discovered.

The advanced architecture, and the layout of Akrotiri resemble Plato's description of the legendary lost city of Atlantis.

Dense patches of crocus flowers on the fresco ‘The Saffron Gatherers’ from Santorini suggest cultivation. Saffron crocuses are effectively clones dating back to saffron’s emergence in ancient times.

In 2015 archaeologists discovered 39 ingots scattered across the sea floor near a 2,600-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Sicily. The ingots were made from orichalcum, a cast metal which ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote was from the legendary city of Atlantis. X-ray fluorescence analysis indicate the ingots were made from a mixture of zinc (15-20 per cent), charcoal and copper (75-80 per cent) with traces of nickel, lead and iron. Orichalcum is a brass-like alloy, which was made in antiquity through the process of cementation, which was achieved through the reaction of zinc ore, charcoal and copper metal in a crucible.

In Plato's Critias, orichalcum was described as a lustrous metal second only to gold in value. It was used to cover the walls of the inner sanctuary in the Temple of Poseidon in Atlantis.

Dupondius of Faustina the Younger.

Roman coins were made of orichalcum. Orichalcum was officially valued higher than bronze, but sat just below silver and gold. The Romans standardized their use of orichalcum during Augustus's monetary reforms in 23 BCE. The alloy was typically reserved for higher end base metal coins, the prestigious sestertius and slightly smaller dupondius. Coins were brightly gold coloured when newly struck but tarnished over time to a darker or greenish patina.

Roman marching camp found in Slovakia

Archaeologists in Slovakia have uncovered a large Roman military camp likely used by troops of Marcus Aurelius.

The "extremely rare" camp came as a surprise to archaeologists, as it holds the hastily buried remains of numerous soldiers in unusual graves, including wells. Most are thought to be Roman soldiers.

Military equipment found with the remains included spearheads, arrowheads, fragments of helmets, pieces of segmented and scale armor, legionary brooches, coins, and iron hobnails from Roman military caligae. Researchers also recovered everyday items such as an axe, a cutting tool, and a gaming die. Between A.D. 166 and 180, the Romans fought a series of battles against the Marcomanni, who lived north of the Danube River along the border of the Roman Empire in what are now Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Marcus Aurelius reigned as Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and commanded troops in the Marcomannic Wars.

Gold of ancient Syracuse found

Archaeologists have uncovered a rare fifth-century BC Syracusan gold coin during an emergency excavation at the Maddalusa necropolis near Agrigento, Sicily. The discovery was made during the recovery of a Greek tile-covered burial, known as a cappuccina tomb, in the coastal dunes west of the mouth of the Akragas River. The excavation revealed an exceptionally well-preserved gold coin dating to the final decades of the fifth century BC. The obverse depicts the head of Heracles facing left, wearing the leontè—the skin of the Nemean Lion, which he defeated during his first labour. The reverse features a quadripartite incuse square enclosing a small female head, accompanied by the inscription Syra, identifying the coin as an issue from Syracuse.

The coin belongs to a series of emergency gold issues struck by Syracuse during the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily at the end of the fifth century BC. The city minted these coins to help finance its military campaign as it allied with Akragas against advancing Carthaginian forces. In 406 BC, Carthaginian armies captured and destroyed Akragas after a prolonged siege, marking the end of the city’s Golden Age as one of the leading Greek colonies. The Maddalusa necropolis is recognized as one of the primary burial sites of ancient Akragas.

Aquila - SPQR

Jaws flapped about Trump's use of the Nazi eagle.

The Nazi eagle (Parteiadler - Imperial Eagle) was stolen from the Romans. The Nazi swastika was also hijacked.

The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit svastika, which means 'good fortune' or 'well-being.'

An aquila, or eagle, was a prominent symbol used in ancient Rome, especially as the standard of a Roman legion. A legionary known as an aquilifer, or eagle-bearer, carried this standard. Each legion carried one eagle.

The eagle was extremely important to the Roman military, beyond being a symbol of a legion. A lost standard was considered a grave event. The Roman military often went to great lengths to protect a standard and to recover it if lost. In the aftermath of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest the Romans spent decades trying to recover the lost standards of the three destroyed legions. No legionary eagles are known to have survived. SPQR stood for Senatus Populusque Romanus. The meaning was "The Senate and People of Rome". S · Senatus = 'The Senate', P · Populus = 'The People', Q · Que = 'And', R · Romanus = 'Roman'.