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Photo Gallery
Plate 1. A 15th-century map made from Ptolemy's Geography. Constantinople is named "Byzantium Constantinopolis." The "ancient" name "Byzantium" is supposed to have been replaced by "Constantinopolis" by the 4th century AD, two centuries after Ptolemy's time (2nd century AD).
Plate 2. The Acropolis in 1872: the Frankish Tower is still standing and was made with the same stones as the Parthenon. The tower was probably made in the 13th century, and the Parthenon in the 14th. The tower was demolished by pseudo-archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1874.
Plate 3. This drawing is the earliest surviving representation of the Parthenon. It was made in 1436 by Cyriacus of Ancona. According to our reconstruction, the Parthenon was then about fifty years old only.
Plate 4. Oil painting by Jacques Carrey in 1674. The roof of the Partenon was still intact. The minaret of the Ottoman mosque can be seen in the background.
Plate 5. The drawings of Jacques Carrey in 1674 are the only representations we have of the Parthenon frieze before the 1687 Venetian bombardment which destroyed many parts of it.
Plate 6. In 1687, the Venetians fired a mortar round which made the Ottoman gunpowder stored inside the Parthenon explode, destroying the roof of the building, then still intact.
Plate 7. The trajectory of the fatal mortar round to the Parthenon on a plan by Verneda.
Plate 8. Georgius Gemistus Pletho (c.1355-60-c.1452-55) was the greatest Greek philosopher of the 15th century. He may be the real author of "Plato's" writings.
Benozzo Gozzoli, Georgio Gemisto Pletone, 1459-1461, Magi Chapel in Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy
Plate 9. The Greek philosopher Plato is supposed to have lived in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.
Luni marble, copy of the portrait made by Silanion ca. 370 BC for the Academia in Athens. From the sacred area in Largo Argentina. (c) Marie-Lan Nguyen 2009
Plate 10. "Mystras or Sparta" by Coronelli, 1686. At the time, it was still known that Mystra had been named "Sparta" before. Today, Sparta is wrongly assumed to be located in Lacadaemon, three miles east of Mystras. On other similar pictures, one can read "Mystras, once (called) Sparta."
Plate 11
Plate 11. On this 16th-century map Santorini is still called "S. Erini" ("St. Irenes")
Plate 12. On this 17th-century map Santorini is called "Therasia or Santorini."
Plate 13. On this 19th-century map Santorini is called "Santorini (Thera)." Thera, which according to standard history is an "ancient" name, looks more like the recent alteration of the name "Therasia." Therasia now designates a smaller island of the archipelago.
Plate 14. The Antikythera mechanism. It was recovered off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. It is supposed to date back to around the 2nd century BC.
(c) Marsyas (assumed) 2005
Plate 15. A reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism. This stunning artefact able to predict astronomical positions and eclipses is extremely similar to the European clocks of the 14th century AD. It was probably made around this time too.
(c) Mogi Vicentini 2007
Plate 16. A portrait of Giovanni Battista Tolomei (1653-1726), a member of the powerful Tolomei family in Italy. The Latin name of the family is "Ptolemaeus" (=Ptolemy). He is probably a descendant of Claudius Ptolemy, who probably lived much closer to us than conventional history thinks he did.
(c) Public domain
Plate 17. The total solar eclipse of 1133, visible in Greece, is most probably the total eclipse described by Thucydides, who cannot have lived prior to the second half of the 12th century AD. The traditional dating of this eclipse (431 BC) has to be ruled out as it was never total.
(c) Patrick Rocher - IMCCE - Paris Pbservatory
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