The Old Parliament House
Trigger warning: Mention of suicide and mass death.
Εθνικός Κήπος / National Garden
Known as the Royal Garden until 1974, the National Garden was commissioned by Queen Amalia (wife of King Otto) in 1838. Friedrich Schmidt, the German agronomist in charge of the project, imported over 500 different species of plants and a variety of animals to populate it, including peacocks, ducks, and turtles, though many of the plants could not adapt to the climate of Athens and thus died shortly after.
Ζάππειον Μέγαρο / Zappeion
The park is also home to the Zappeion, which is today used as a conference and exhibition center. It was built in 1874 as part of the efforts for the revival of the Olympic Games in the modern world (at around the same time that the nearby Panathenaic Stadium was refurbished), with a design by the Danish architect Theophil Hansen and funding from Evangelis Zappas. Zappas did not live long enough to see it completed, however, and he left his cousin Konstantinos in charge of the project after his death.
The building was later used as the Olympic Village during the 1906 Intercalated Games, and a host for the organizing committee and press center in the 2004 Games. It has also served as the setting for historical events, such as the formalization of Greece’s accession to the European Community in 1979.
Εθνικό Ιστορικό Μουσείο / National Historical Museum
The building which houses the museum is called the Old Parliament House, the site of which was originally occupied by the home of Alexandros Kontostavlos, an Athenian magnate and politician. Following the Greek Independence, King Otto selected it as his temporary residence while the Old Royal Palace was still being built.
The house burned down in a fire in 1854, so that a new building was begun, halted, and finally completed in 1871. The Hellenic Parliament made this new building its home until 1875, when it moved to the Old Royal Palace in 1935. In such a position, the building was witness to important historical events, such as the assassination of Prime Minister Theodoros Deligiannis in 1905, as well as the declaration of the Republic in 1924.
Today, it is the home to the National Historical Museum of Athens, which was founded in 1882, making it the oldest of its kind in Greece. Its collection covers the period of the capture of Constantinople in 1453 to WWII, with special emphasis on the Greek Revolution of 1821 and the establishment of the modern Greek State.
The costumes in this room belonged to members of historic families of the War of Independence and to Maids of Honor of Queen Amalia. By her order, the Honorary Ladies would wear their local dress, while Maids of Honor wore the costume of the Court, which she herself introduced. It was known as the “Queen Amalia costume,” and it combined characteristics from various traditional Greek costumes. It became the national female dress suit, worn by women all over Greece.
This inscription was taken from a clock gifted to Athens by Lord Elgin (known for pillaging the Parthenon Marbles) as a token of gratitude for said spoils, bearing his name in large, Roman-Emperor like letters. Clocks were not common in the Ottoman Empire at the time, as the time of day was marked by the muezzin calls to prayer from the mosques, so while Elgin provided the clock, the Ottomans were responsible for providing the tower. Additionally, the inscription is written in Latin, which, though the population of the Ottoman Empire was multicultural and multilingual, they could not read. Gotta love the guy, right? The tower was eventually burned down during the War of Independence, and it was rebuilt in stone with a new Bavarian clock.
The Massacre at Chios refers to a military attack by the Ottoman Empire on the island of Chios, resulting in the death (25,000), enslavement (45,000), and flight (10,000-20,000) of about four fifths of the total Greek population on the island. At the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, the inhabitants of Chios were hesitant to join the efforts due to their proximity to Anatolia (the peninsula upon which Turkey sits) as well as the potential loss of their prosperity and economic security as exporters of mastic plant to Constantinople. In March 1822, Greeks from the nearby island of Samos landed at Chios and encouraged locals to join their revolt. While some joined and some did not, the response from the Ottoman Empire was to land on Chios and kill thousands over the course of the next few months.
The Souliote War was a conflict between the communities of Souliotes, an Orthodox Christian Albanian community near Souli in Epirus, and the local Ottoman ruler, Ali Pasha. In 1803, the Souliotes began to evacuate Souli after their defeat by Ali Pasha, and about 60 women were trapped near the village of Zalongo in Epirus, being chased by the troops from the Ottoman Empire. Faced with certain enslavement and abuse for themselves and their children, they chose instead to throw themselves off a steep cliff. As they did this ritually, while singing and dancing, this event is known as the Dance of Zalongo.
The museum has an important collection of over 6,000 folk costumes, art pieces, embroideries, and home decorations. There are local costumes from the islands of Psara, Amorgos, Ios, Lemnos, as well as costumes of historical persons, such as the uniform of the Spetsiot freedom fighter Dimitrios Goudis and the Hydriot Prime Minister Dimitrios Voulgaris.
Gold Colored Fox 