venus cami, II

March 26, 2008 at 1:17 pm · Filed under ottoman

Roman Agora, Küçük Cami, 02-06-2007 [Photo: F.I.].

“A wall, half meter long, discovered on the eve of the Olympic Games of Athens in 2004, the base of a michrab and the first steps of a minaret that can be hardly seen, a vertebra pillar that has rolled down from the Acropolis, large amounts of ink, paint and disrespect, is the monument of “Küçük Cami” on the edge of Rizokastro.

This was, most likely, a mosque of Muslim Gipsies of the Ottoman Athens (Muslims had also their race discriminations), the smallest of the seven temples of the city – that is the reason why it is named Küçük, which means small – which comprises a friction point amongst the supporters of the archaeological realism and of the antiquity lovers, who, without excavation of the many meters of the landfill, discovered there the temple of Aphrodite and made sure to announce this discovery by carving the name of Cypris Goddess on the inscription of the temple.

Who said that modern Greeks do not care about archaeology? They do care but with a unique way of their own which is very “Greek-centered” and, at the same time, barbaric. Significantly, this approach comes from those who accuse Christians for acts of vandalism.

The only thing that remains to be seen is to watch one day robes and burgas fighting each other in such sacred places. Everything is possible in our allegedly multicultural city.”

[text by akestor]

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