Ξεκινούν σήμερα Δευτέρα οι προαγωγικές και απολυτήριες εξετάσεις σε όλα τα Λύκεια της χώρας. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, οι προαγωγικές εξετάσεις για την Α’ και Β’ λυκείου θα διεξαχθούν από σήμερα έως την Παρασκευή 12 Ιουνίου 2026. Η 19η Ιουνίου έχει οριστεί ως η καταληκτική ημερομηνία έκδοσης αποτελεσμάτων. Όσον αφορά στους μαθητές και τις μαθήτριες της Γ’ λυκείου, οι απολυτήριες εξετάσεις (ονομαζόμενες και «ενδοσχολικές») θα διεξαχθούν επίσης από σήμερα Δευτέρα, 18 Μαΐου 2026, έως και τη Δευτέρα 25 Μαΐου 2026, καθώς στη συνέχεια θα πραγματοποιηθούν οι Πανελλαδικές Εξετάσεις. Καταληκτική ημερομηνία έκδοσης αποτελεσμάτων για τις απολυτήριες εξετάσεις είναι η 27η Μαΐου 2026. Στις 29 Μαΐου οι Πανελλαδικές Με την ολοκλήρωση των ενδοσχολικών εξετάσεων, τη σκυτάλη παίρνουν οι Πανελλαδικές Εξετάσεις, οι οποίες ξεκινούν στα τέλη Μαΐου για τους υποψηφίους των Γενικών και Επαγγελματικών Λυκείων. Συγκεκριμένα, οι μαθητές των Γενικών Λυκείων θα εξεταστούν πρώτοι στις 29 Μαΐου, με το μάθημα της Νεοελληνικής Γλώσσας και Λογοτεχνίας, ενώ για τους υποψηφίους των Επαγγελματικών Λυκείων η διαδικασία αρχίζει μία ημέρα αργότερα, στις 30 Μαΐου, με το μάθημα των Νέων Ελληνικών. Στις 27 Μαΐου ολοκληρώνονται τα μαθήματα στα Γυμνάσια Στα γυμνάσια τα μαθήματα λήγουν στις 27 Μαΐου και οι προαγωγικές-απολυτήριες εξετάσεις θα διεξαχθούν από 2 έως 15 Ιουνίου.  www.ertnews.gr

Το χρηματικό ποσό των 64.850.000 ευρώ θα κατατεθεί στους τραπεζικούς λογαριασμούς 81.800 δικαιούχων από σήμερα Δευτέρα έως την Παρασκευή 22 Μαΐου 2026, στο πλαίσιο των προγραμματισμένων καταβολών του e-ΕΦΚΑ και της Δημόσιας Υπηρεσίας Απασχόλησης (ΔΥΠΑ). Ειδικότερα, όπως αναφέρει το υπουργείο Εργασίας και Κοινωνικής Ασφάλισης σε ανακοίνωσή του: Από τον e-ΕΦΚΑ: Στις 21 Μαΐου θα καταβληθούν 16.850.000 ευρώ σε 36.600 δικαιούχους για παροχές σε χρήμα. Από τις 18 Μαΐου έως τις 22 Μαΐου θα καταβληθούν 14.000.000 ευρώ σε 700 δικαιούχους σε συνέχεια έκδοσης αποφάσεων εφάπαξ. Από τη ΔΥΠΑ θα καταβληθούν: 16.000.000 ευρώ σε 27.000 δικαιούχους για καταβολή επιδομάτων ανεργίας και λοιπών επιδομάτων. 1.000.000 ευρώ σε 1.500 μητέρες για επιδοτούμενη άδεια μητρότητας. 17.000.000 ευρώ σε 16.000 δικαιούχους στο πλαίσιο επιδοτούμενων προγραμμάτων απασχόλησης. www.ertnews.gr

Greece is entering a two-day period of intense atmospheric instability, which will be affected by two barometric lows and will bring Sahara Dust and mud showers. One of the barometric lows comes from the coast of North Africa, while the second from more northern latitudes. According to the forecast by Clearchos Marousakis, the result is […] The post Sahara dust and mud showers to affect Greece, May 16-17 appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party is seeking to give him the power to declare an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending as far as 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from Turkey ’s coast. According to Bloomberg, Turkey is drafting legislation to give President Erdogan personal authority to unilaterally declare a 200 nautical mile exclusive […] The post Turkey to declare unilaterally EEZ up to 200 n.m. appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Daniel’s Answer to the King, Briton Riviere, 1890. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain The Biblical Book of Daniel was supposedly written by the prophet Daniel in Babylon during an era in which the city was conquered by the Persians. While many scholars do still hold to this traditional view, others now believe it is a forgery from the era of Alexander the Great or even later. But what does the evidence actually show? When was the Bible’s Book of Daniel supposedly written? According to the Book of Daniel itself, the author was Daniel the prophet. He was a member of the royal class of Jerusalem. A decade before the destruction of Jerusalem, the Babylonians took Daniel and many others into exile in Babylon. There, Daniel served as a prophet of the God of the Israelites. He also began to write the book bearing his name. Daniel’s career continued for many decades thereafter. The Book of Daniel documents events involving his career up until just after Cyrus‘ conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. Therefore, according to the Bible itself, the Book of Daniel was written throughout the first half of the sixth century BC. Is the Book of Daniel a later forgery? However, this traditional view has come under fire in the modern era. Many scholars today believe the Book of Daniel is actually a forgery written in Alexander the Great’s empire, or potentially even later. What is the basis for this? Essentially, there are two main reasons. The first is that many scholars have argued that the Book of Daniel contains various historical errors. These supposedly show that it cannot be a contemporary account. The primary example of this is the identity of the king of Babylon at the time of the fall. According to historians, the king of Babylon, when conquered by Cyrus, was King Nabonidus. However, in the Book of Daniel, Nabonidus does not appear. Instead, the king of Babylon is a certain Belshazzar. The second major reason is that there are certain features in the book which supposedly fit the Hellenistic Era better than the era in which Daniel would have lived. Examples include the vocabulary. Notably, the Book of Daniel contains some Greek words, which seems highly unusual for a book written in Babylon centuries prior to the conquests of Alexander the Great. Is the Book of Daniel really historically inaccurate? Despite the fact that this is a fairly popular viewpoint in modern times, not all scholars agree. Many still hold to the traditional view that the Book of Daniel was not a forgery but was written by Daniel in the sixth century BC. Archaeology has a large bearing on this issue. As previously mentioned, one of the main reasons the Book of Daniel could have been forged is the inclusion of a seemingly-fictional king named Belshazzar in place of the historical King Nabonidus. However, archaeology has now revealed that Belshazzar did exist. He was the son of King Nabonidus. Contemporary tablets show Nabonidus spent a considerable amount of time outside of Babylon. This includes, specifically, the period in which Cyrus of Persia conquered the city. These tablets reveal that while Nabonidus was away, his son Belshazzar acted as king. In fact, one passage includes the statement that Nabonidus “entrusted the kingship” to Belshazzar. Therefore, the depiction of Belshazzar as king in the Book of Daniel is not inaccurate. Furthermore, although Nabonidus does not directly appear in the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar offers to reward Daniel by making him the third most powerful individual in the kingdom. Why did he not pronounce him the second most influential? Evidently, it was because Belshazzar himself was only the second, not the first, most powerful, he being subject to his father Nabonidus. A depiction of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians shortly after Daniel was taken into exile, 1896. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain Do Greek words in the Book of Daniel prove it is a forgery? What about the argument that the Greek in the Book of Daniel proves it was a forgery written in the Hellenistic Era? In the past, scholars argued that the Book of Daniel contained numerous Greek words. Now, linguists have determined that most of them are actually Persian words and not Greek at all. Given the close connections between Babylon and Persia in Daniel’s era, this is not surprising. Nevertheless, there also are some genuine Greek words in the Bible’s account. However, it appears that these are limited to the names of three musical instruments. Does this show that the Book of Daniel must have been a forgery from the Hellenistic Era? Surely, if it was really the product of Alexander the Great’s empire, then we would expect far more than the mere three technical Greek words in the entire book. Rather than suggesting that the Book of Daniel was written in the Hellenistic Era, this points towards the opposite conclusion. In terms of how any number of Greek words could have found their way into the biblical account, we need to remember that the Greeks already had interactions with the Middle Eastern empires long before Alexander the Great’s time. For example, as early as the eighth century BC, the Assyrians fought against the Greeks on the coasts of Anatolia. Greeks also composed part of the army that fought against Nebuchadnezzar in Egypt shortly after Jerusalem was destroyed. Very plausibly, Greeks could have been brought back to Babylon as slaves during such conflicts. This is perfectly compatible with the small number of Greek words found in the text. Evidence that the Book of Daniel was not a later forgery There is at least one strong piece of evidence that argues against the conclusion that the Book of Daniel was a forgery from the Hellenistic Era. As noted above, the account accurately presents Belshazzar as the reigning king of Babylon at the time of its conquest by the Persians. Significantly, Belshazzar is not mentioned in any surviving non-Biblical source. It appears that later historians, even those from Babylon itself, such as Berossus, simply forgot about him. The conquest of Babylon is described by ancient historians, but these accounts never make mention of Belshazzar. The closest example that we find is Herodotus‘ account of this event. He does mention that Nabonidus had a son who was in Babylon, but he does not refer to him as Belshazzar. In fact, he calls him by the same name as his father. Xenophon appears to make reference of Belshazzar without providing any name at all. Later accounts simply omit mention of this historical figure entirely. Therefore, if the Book of Daniel was a forgery written in the Hellenistic Era, how would the writer have known about King Belshazzar? This is one of the main reasons why many scholars today accept the traditional view that the Book of Daniel was indeed written in the sixth century BC as claimed.

Ancient Greek pottery portraying  Achilles and Penthesileia by Exekias, c. 540 BC; British Museum, London. Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Public domain As far back as the eighth century BC, the ancient Greeks had invented a large, round shield called an aspis that would serve as an essential part of warfare through the Hellenistic era. The designs, or blazons, on these shields would strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. Often called an “Argive” shield, it not only protected its owner in battle but showed his allegiance to a particular city-state or leader. The figures painted on its exterior were also often meant to show the courage of its bearer and to intimidate the enemy. Arguably the most famous such decoration is that of the Spartans, also called the Lacedaemons, with a capital lambda (Λ). Beginning in the late 5th century BC, Athenian hoplites, or soldiers, commonly used an owl, the emblem of the goddess Athena, to signify their identity while the shields of Theban hoplites could be decorated with a sphinx, or the club of Heracles. The double grip of the ancient Greek shield Greece’s great contribution to the use of the shield in battle was the double grip it employed. Known ever after as the Argive grip, it involved one handle for the hand placed at the edge of the shield with a leather fastening for the forearm at the center of the shield. A “hoplitodromos” on pottery dating back to 550 BC. Credit: MatthiasKabel/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.5 At a hefty sixteen pounds, this allowed the shield bearer to have more mobility and to better support the strategies of the phalanx. The shield would rest on the warrior’s shoulders and stretch all the way down to the knees. They were designed for a mass of hoplites to push forward into the opposing army, a move called othismos, and it was their most essential equipment. That the shield was convex made it possible for warriors to use it as a flotation device for crossing rivers, and its large round shape allowed it to be used for hauling the bodies of the dead from the battlefield. Hence, of course, the famous phrase uttered by Spartan women at one time to their men as they left for battle: “Come home with your shield or on it.” These sturdy shields of the hoplites were much stouter than those of the Persians, who fought with the Spartans and other Greek soldiers at Thermoplylae. The Persian soldiers, called Sparabara, held only wicker shields in front of them in battle, which were far inferior to the heavier wooden shields of the Greeks. Although even larger than the Argive shields of the Greeks, the wicker shield naturally had no such protective capacity despite the two meter-long spears that the Persians used in battle. This small bronze relief panel dating back to 575 BC was once sewn onto the leather strap inside a shield. Perhaps most amazing of all is that it bears an inscription, one of a man called Aristodms of Argos. Measuring 16.2 x 8 x 1.5 cm (6+3/8 × 3+1/8 × 9/16 in.), this piece is one of the earliest known signatures of a Greek artist. Shields as valuable religious dedications A bronze badge, part of a shield strap, signed by the creator Aristodamos the Argive. J. Paul Getty Museum. Public Domain At the top edge of the lower square, the signature of the bronzeworker is written in reverse, from right to left: “Aristodamos the Argive made (this).” The intricately-made strap depicts two myths that were favored in that region of Greece. The upper panel represents the recovery of Helen of Troy by her husband Menelaos, king of Argos. Athena, the protectress of the Greeks, stands looking to the right. The lower scene depicts the Centaur Nessos abducting Deianeira, the wife of the hero Herakles. The names of the figures are inscribed beside them. The ancient Greeks sometimes considered shields to be valuable religious dedications, and shield straps are often found in the excavations of sanctuaries. Many such examples come from the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia, where worshippers left elaborate bronze shields as gifts to the gods. The city of Argos in southern Greece was the major production site of this art form. Because the maker of this shield strap, Aristodamos, names himself as an inhabitant of Argos, this work can be taken as important evidence for the style of Argive art in the early Archaic period. A Boeotian shield is pictured on each side of a coin minted in Ancient Greece. Credit: CC BY-SA 2.5 Shield blazons appear first on pottery dating back to the late eighth century. Not all shields featured blazons, however, as there are plenty of vase paintings that leave the shield surface blank or painted a single color. Other shields featured abstract patterns, such as spirals or a number of flat circles, according to historians. The most striking to our eye today are, of course, the shields bedecked with animals, monsters, or even human figures by artists of these ancient times. While most of these designs appear to have been painted, there are examples of bronze blazons from the Panhellenic sanctuary at Olympia, for example, that were cut from sheets of bronze featuring finely-carved details. The blazons showing the faces of Gorgons or other figures from mythology were clearly meant to instill fear into the enemy. The Gorgon, a mythical creature with snakes instead of hair, of which Medusa is the best-known example, was one such creature portrayed on Ancient Greek shields. However, Ancient Greek soldiers also employed symbols that represented themselves or qualities they admired, including a lion, which would symbolize strength and courage. The snake, another common blazon, represented wisdom and immortality since snakes sloughed off their skins at regular intervals and were thought to renew themselves continually. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote the following about Sophanes, the son of Eutychides, the bravest of the Athenian fighters at Plataea in 480 BC: “Two different stories are told about him: one, that from the belt of his breastplate he carried an iron anchor slung from a bronze chain, which he would throw whenever he drew near his enemies so that when they broke out of their position in the ranks to assault him, they would be unable to budge him; then, when his opponents were in flight, his tactic was to pick up the anchor and chase them with it.” Herodotus further explained that “That is one of the stories; according to the other…he did not actually wear an anchor attached to his breastplate, but instead had an anchor as an emblem on his shield, which never ceased moving and was always in swift motion.” The Greek military commander Alcibiades (ca. 452-404 BC) had a golden shield, which according to Plutarch’s history of the time, sported an image of a thunderbolt-wielding Eros. You might notice this wasn’t Zeus throwing his famed thunderbolt, but the god of erotic love, since he was the son of Aphrodite. Alcibiades’ shield emblem, therefore, was a rare and not so subtle reference to his sexual prowess, according to historians. Even as far back as the fifth century BC, some Greek observers criticized the individual designs on shields. As historian Hans van Wees stated, some blazons were criticized for “betraying boastfulness and aggression, in contrast to the ‘modest’ undecorated shield of the wise man, and the simple white-painted shields of the common soldier.” Rise of nation-state symbols as blazons The lambda Λ mark on the shields of Spartan warriors do not appear to have been used prior to the Peloponnesian War, which took place in 431-404 BC, when they were referenced by the Attic playwright, Eupolis. Historians believe it wasn’t until the end of the fifth and early fourth century BC that hoplites from some Greek city-states started to sport “national” emblems on their own shields, showing their allegiance to one particular area. Thebans, of course, decorated their own shields with the club of Heracles. Soldiers from Sikyon were known to paint sigmas on their shields, and the Mantineans displayed the trident. Athens oddly stands out as one area in which soldiers did not use any kind of state symbol on their shields. Any symbols found, for example on Attic pottery, appear to be those that appealed to the soldier for personal reasons. Many other warriors from other city states must also have chosen shield blazons that represented their own personal expression. Related: The Elite Special Forces of Ancient Greece

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