Negotiating Muslim identity and diversity in Greek urban spaces

Based on a recent study of indigenous and migrant Muslims in Greece, this article provides an exploration of the spatial expressions of religious identity and practice among indigenous and migrant Muslims in Athens. Through a detailed analysis of ethnographic and visual material, we investigate the ways in which Muslim communities negotiate their religious identities and belonging in a city where there is no official mosque, considering that exclusionary perceptions of Islam constitute an important element of Greek national identity. The discussion concentrates on the management of visibility of Muslim identity through public displays of religious practices. Finally, we explore the ongoing debates surrounding the building of a Central Mosque in Athens as a symbolic claim to acceptance and recognition of Muslim presence and religious diversity in the Greek capital.     

Searching for Ancient Shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea: the Discovery of Chios and Kythnos Hellenistic Wrecks with the Use of Marine Geological-Geophysical Methods

This paper presents the results of two deep-water archaeological surveys recently conducted in the Aegean Sea, and the advantages of using conventional marine geological techniques in deep-water archaeology. Two Hellenistic wrecks were discovered: one in the Chios-Oinousses strait at 70 m, was a concentration of over 400 amphoras in a 1.5-m-high, high-backscattering, morphological high; the second, west of Kythnos island, at 495 m, consisted of a few amphoras scattered in a 20 × 20-m-wide area. Side-scan sonar was integrated with high-resolution sub-bottom profiling, and the integration of the two data-sets proved to contribute significantly to realistic interpretation of the sonar targets.
© 2007 The Authors     

TARIFF PROTECTION IN AN OPEN SPATIAL ECONOMY*

Spatial pricing models have been used to illustrate a tariff's asymmetric effects on consumers located at different points in the protected economy, and to demonstrate that the optimum tariff for a small open spatial economy may be positive. In these models, the distribution of households has been taken as uniform and fixed. We extend the spatial model by allowing households to optimally locate and consume variable amounts of land, as well as the domestic- or foreign-produced good. Land consumption, location rents, and the distribution of consumers are endogenous, responding to tariff-induced changes in the delivered prices of the domestic and foreign goods. Within this limited general equilibrium framework, a neoclassical result resurfaces: from the perspective of private consumers, the optimum tariff in a small open economy is zero. The possibility of a positive optimum tariff, however, may remain intact in a more integrated model where domestic profits and tariff revenues are redistributed within the spatial economy.     

Breccia verde di Sparta,an elusive decorative stone used in antiquity

Breccia verde di Sparta is the traditional name given by the Roman marmorarii of the 19th century to a brecciated volcanic rock whose unknown precise provenance has been determined here for the first time through exploration of the broader area of Psefí (south of Krokees, province of Sparta, Peloponnese, Greece). This location was well known in antiquity and in modern times for having been exploited by the Romans for an important green porphyry named lapis lacedaemonius, nowadays also known as porfido verde antico. This breccia has been seldom used in Roman times for opera sectilia; in contrast, it appears more frequently reused in medieval floors; it is also frequently present in historical lithotecs formed in the 19th and 20th centuries. To fully characterise it and determine its relationships with green porphyry, breccia verde di Sparta samples from the newly discovered source have been thoroughly studied minero-petrographically and geochemically, and their complex genesis has been reconstructed. It appears that after extrusion the original brecciated basaltic andesite underwent extensive hydrothermal low-grade metamorphism, with a complete alteration of the igneous assemblage and minerals that preserved only part of the clinopyroxene phenocrysts. Alteration was accompanied by crystallisation of abundant epidote and chlorite, which imparted its predominant green colour to the rock. These breccias intruded in the lithoclases of the porphyry.