Dictionary for… unknown words in museums

Kotyli, ketrismata, mystili, philima, porkis, cebe, folida, filitia, are words that everyone “encounters” who visits a museum, an archaeological site or reads a related book. Words, which for most are unknown. Not a few times some of them try to make sense out of the root of the words or from the context, but most of them leave with many questions.

A retired agronomist wanted to cure this … headache, who – although an excellent connoisseur of the Greek language – also had difficulty understanding the clarifying words under the museum exhibits. Thus, he created a printed…guide, a dictionary of the special terms of the exhibits found in museums and archaeological sites in Greece, but also of the books related to them.

Many hundreds of words with their interpretation, with references to more detailed explanations and even photographs, give the reader a powerful resource to better understand the times in which he is guided. “This dictionary was released in very few copies, because I mainly wanted to address it to myself. This dictionary filled the gap that I had, because it was difficult for me that I could not interpret some words in my tours in museums and that looked bad to me”, Kostas Palahanis from Thessaloniki, originally from Sidirokastro, tells the Athens/Macedonian News Agency Serron.

The desire arose from the student years of the now 74-year-old Mr. Palahanis, when he himself, going to archaeological sites or museums, would leave with unknown words. Then he decided to start recording them on a piece of paper. In the following years, having in the meantime learned to operate the computer, he transferred them to a database, where they were sorted in alphabetical order. At the same time, he was looking for their interpretations, something he began to devote much more time to when he retired about ten years ago.

“I consulted dictionaries, of which I had many at my disposal, as my wife is a philologist, I read relevant books, I spent many hours in the library of the philosophy school of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and there, through scientific books, I managed to cross-reference the work that I had done until then. What I have collected is not snugly placed in there, but absolutely intersected. In fact, where the opinions differed, I preferred the version of the Lindell-Scott dictionary, which I consider to be valid”, he says.

But as each word opened a different path for him at some time or connected with something else, the “Guide” ended up consisting of thirty-three chapters, divided into three sections.

In the “dictionary”, in the “most important elements of the technical culture and daily life of the ancient Greeks” and in the “various interests”, such as month names, mythological names, holidays, mixed-race beings, Olympic games and sports and even expressions that reached the days us. “When I was preparing the dictionary, I found that the words were cut out of their natural environment. For example, interpreting the word “agnythes”, which means textile weights, I tried to fit it into its organic unity, and thus a whole chapter concerning clothing was created. Accordingly, there are chapters on weapons, painting, sculpture, mosaics, measures of length, coins, seals, musical instruments, toys, etc., he explains. The main sources, he says, are the vases and the few inscriptions that have survived. “The vases gave us a lot of information and because they are dominated by the themes of mythology, I also created the third chapter, which is the figures of mythology, the Olympic games, etc.,” he adds.

As he states, this particular dictionary is the only one of its kind and – although he does not claim to be infallible – he believes that very few words have escaped him. In fact, with its publication, he felt great satisfaction, like any professional, artist or craftsman who completes his work.

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.