#empúries

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Pottery recipient in the shape of the river god Achelous. Found in the Ancient Greek colony of Emporion, modern-day Empúries (Comarques Gironines, Catalonia).

Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Girona.

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Empúries (Emporion/Ἐμπόριον), Catalonia

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Mapa de les colònies fenícies i gregues.

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https://vrallart.com/vr-exhibitions/em/intermedit_project/

Do you have virtual reality glasses? You'll be able to visit the 3D exhibition "The Mediterranean Exchange in Antiquity", where you'll be able to step inside the reconstruction of the Ancient Greek city of Emporion (modern-day Empúries, Catalonia), Punic archaeological sites in Eivissa (Balearic Islands), and the Roman oppidum of Ensérune (Occitania). You can also see 3D scans of archaeological objects found in all these places.

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Above: an Ancient Greek terracotta doll that belonged to a child in the 5th century BCE. Found in the archaeological excavations of the necropolis of the Greek colony of Empúries (in the north of Catalonia), found in a child’s tomb with a figurine of a baker and a decorated jar. It has conserved the white colour in her dress and red colour in the polos (cilindrical hat-crown). Other dolls were found in other children tombs in the Empúries Greek necropolis.

Below: an Ancient Roman articulated ivory doll found inside the sarcophagus of a 5 or 6-year-old girl in the paleo-christian necropolis of Tarragona (in the south of Catalonia), 3rd-4th century AD. With the doll, archaeologists found threads of gold: what remained of the doll’s dress.

These dolls can be seen in the Empúries museum and the Museu Nacional Arquelògic de Tarragona, respectively.

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De Salses a Guardamar i de Fraga a l’Alguer: les comarques de parla catalana una a una. 15/88: l'Alt Empordà (Comarques Gironines, Catalonia).

Alt Empordà (“High Empordà”) is the Northern half of the historical Empordà area, which has been an important centre for the history of Catalonia ever since the Middle Ages. Alt Empordà is located in the North-Eastern extreme of the Catalonia below the French border. Its capital city is Figueres.

The name “Empordà” comes from Emporion (‘Eμπόριον), an Ancient Greek market colony (in fact, in Greek it means “commerce” or “marketplace”) situated in modern Sant Martí d’Empúries, in the coast of Alt Empordà. The ruins of this Ancient Greek city, as well as the Roman part of the city, can still be visitied. The ruins of another Ancient Greek city called Rhode, foud inside the 15th-century fortress of modern-day Roses, can also be visited but only the harbour part of the ancient city has been excavated so far.

Alt Empordà has been home and inspiration to many artists, such as Salvador Dalí or Josep Pla. Empordà as a whole was also inspiration of one of the most famous Catalan songs of all times: the 1990s hit L’Empordà by Sopa de Cabra. The sardana, considered Catalonia’s national dance, has special vitality in Empordà and the central square of its towns is often scenery of the local people dancing it.

Photos from shutterstock, daliagerci, m_esparch, empuriabrava.com, michelin voyages.

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Moisaic from the 1st century BC in the Roman city Emporiae (located in modern-day Empúries, Comarques Gironines, Catalonia).

The mosaic represents the secene of Iphigenia’s sacrifice in the theatre play Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides. The veiled girl at the centre is Iphigenia, acompanied by her father Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus (Ulysses) and other characters of the Iliad. At the top right corner, there is Artemis bringing a deer to substitute Iphigenia in the sacrifice.

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The ancient Greek colony of Empúries (in Alt Empordà, Catalonia) is the Westernmost Greek city in the world that has been found.

Some sources say that ancient Greeks also lived further south-west, in a city called Hēmeroskopeion or Dianio, that some historians believe would have been located around modern-day Dénia (in the Valencian Country), but no traces of Hēmeroskopeion have ever been found.