Syros: A Trechanderi and Goelette
| Department | Archive |
|---|---|
| Collection | BSA SPHS Image Collection |
| Reference No. | BSA SPHS 01/0415.1763 |
| Level | Item |
| Description | Glass negative, full plate size, a copy negative. In addition to the SPHS Catalogue number, the number 63 written on the negative. |
| Dimensions | 21.5 x 16 cm |
| Place |
Ermoupoli Nísos Sýros |
| Dates | 1888-1889 |
| Donor/Creator |
Macmillan, Mr Malcolm Dyer, Mr Louis |
| Scope and Content | The original description in the SPHS register reads: "Syros: a Trechanderi and Goelette". |
| Notes | Date of the image is prior to 1890 as photographs by Dyer and Macmillan were submitted to the Hellenic Society's collections and catalogued, see JHS 11 (1890) p. xxxviii.. The donors were were thought to be in Cyprus with E.A. Gardner (see JHS 9: 170) in 1888 and Malcolm Macmillan died in 1889. The term Goelette is derived from the Turkish for a gulet, a traditional design of a two-masted or three-masted wooden sailing vessel. |
| Further information | Scenes from Modern Greek Life Historic images often show scenes from modern life. These are not modern in the current sense, but reflect a time they were taken. Some were captured unintentionally, recording an aspect of contemporary activity while composing scenes of other interest such as ancient or historical monuments. However, many were taken with the express purpose of recording folk life, part of a trend in the latter part of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The process of categorizing these ethnographic scenes of everyday life in image collections reflected contemporary folklore categories: material life (eg. domestic architecture, dress, craft and agricultural production), social life (eg. games, festivals) and spiritual life (eg. superstitions, religious activities). However, a significant idea encapsulated in these ethnographic images was the 19th-century concept of continuity - relics or survivals - of ancient social life and practices in the present. In Greece, this concept of continuity was notably promoted by the scholar of folklore (laographia), Nikolaos Politis, and held by many British classicists and archaeologists of the time. In fact, the Irish classical scholar, J.P. Mahaffy encapsulated this idea in his 1876 travel book, Rambles and Studies in Greece: "Everywhere the modern Greek town is a mere survival of the old". These survivals were often linked to classical literature, cult and myth by scholars of the Greek world. It is clear that these images are not simply quaint historical scenes, but they embody principles inherent in the discipline of Hellenic Studies in the recent past. |