By Glenn Maffia I visited the Temple of Apollo again today, and I felt a distinct air of trepidation rising within me. I have never felt that upon previous visits. Something is perplexing me, and I cannot quite place my finger on this curious feeling of foreboding. There remains an uncertainty surrounding the site as…
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By Glenn Maffia The invigorating headline from last week’s edition of ‘Voices’ certainly caught my eye as soon as it hit the newspaper stands. It transpires that someone, in a modicum of authority, has finally gleaned that a major focus of educational value within Didim has been standing here, in full view, for over 2,000…
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By Glenn Maffia I could not quite comprehend the immense gravity of the deed, the sheer betrayal of our most intimate trust, or merely the sheer depths to which we, as a nation, have sunk. And this emanating from one of the bastions of dignity entrenched within the fabric of societal values that have seemingly…
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By Glenn Maffia Let us begin by awarding some credit to Didim’s Deputy Mayor, Emine Öznur Gündoğdu, for attempting to field some extremely pertinent questions from my colleagues at ‘Voices’. The synopsis of the interview certainly raised issues which would be of relevance to a multitude of people. Whether those people were altogether satisfied with…
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By Glenn Maffia News of a man etching his and his girlfriend’s name, “Ivan + Hayley 23”, into a wall of the 2,000-year-old Colosseum in Rome caused much indignation across the world. Mainly, I suspect, due to the sheer ignorance exhibited by the perpetrator when he claimed that he “did not realise it (the Colosseum)…
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Following on from my previous article writes Glenn Maffia, I believe it may be necessary to qualify some of the evidence which I referred to. Most notably, the abject attitude of some local people towards this incredibly rich vein of historical artefacts, which are seemingly endless in their scope, the innumerable disparate peoples and cultures,…
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Just prior to Christmas, I received a number of communications from my sources within Europe concerning the future of investigations into the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, writes Glenn Maffia. Nothing concrete, you must understand, but nonetheless intriguing in the way that such archaeological tenets are being evolved, or rather dissolved, by the institutions engaged…
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By Glenn Maffia There appear to be few pertinent ideas circulating within our present age, an age of mass media disseminating dogmatic ‘information’ across the political and financial arenas of this ever-shrinking world. I have noticed conversations I overhear in public are generally in broad agreement with each other as the kernel of that ‘news’…
Read More By Glenn Maffia A rather curious snippet of information came to my attention of a rumour circulating that the three standing columns at the Temple of Apollo are recent reconstructions. I found that quite laughable. Though then realised these ill-informed pieces of nonsense could impair people’s judgement of this magnificent site. So I decided to…
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By Glenn Maffia On a recent visit to the Temple I noticed a modicum of maintenance work being conducted within the Chresmographion (the higher section of the three levels), but could not discern any German Archaeological Institute (GAI) personnel, merely local labourers. Sparse on the ground That is not to say the archaeologists are entirely…
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