Keeping the Kallikantzaroi Out: A Village House in the Twelve Days
From Christmas to Epiphany, Greek villages expected goblins down the chimney. The defences were homely and exact: a fire kept alive, a sieve by the door, holy water at the end.
Floor plan
The Galleries
Every exhibit we have hung so far, arranged by wing. Choose a wing to light only its rooms, or walk the whole floor from the most recent piece backwards.
6 exhibits on the walls
Icarus and the Middle of the Sky
Daedalus built a dancing floor, a labyrinth and finally wings. His son fell, but the warning he ignored was subtler than “don’t fly too high”.
Orpheus and the Length of a Look
Orpheus charmed the rulers of the dead into returning his wife on a single condition. Virgil and Ovid tell how he broke it, and disagree about why.
Medusa by Three Lamps
Hesiod placed a Gorgon at the edge of the world; Ovid gave her a past and a grievance. All the while her staring face kept watch on shields, roofs and temples.
Persephone, Seen by Her Mother’s Torchlight
The oldest telling of Persephone’s abduction belongs to her mother: nine days of torchlight, a famine that frightened Olympus, and a pomegranate seed that rewrote the calendar.
Prometheus: One Theft, Two Thieves
At Mecone a Titan dressed bones in fat and tried to fool the king of the gods. Hesiod calls it folly; the tragedy of Prometheus Bound calls it love for humankind.