It's like being a professor, only more so

Archaeological display in the Athens metro

from the NYT ('Archaeologists Say Greek Antiquities Threatened by Austerity'):

Despite its relatively low pay, the profession of archaeology has long been held in high esteem in Greece; it is a job that children aspire to, like becoming a doctor. And in a country where the public sector has been plagued for decades with corruption, archaeologists have retained a reputation as generally honorable and hard-working.

“They used to say that we were a special race,” said Alexandra Christopoulou, the deputy director of the National Archaeological Museum. “We worked overtime without getting paid for it — a rarity in Greece — because we really loved what we did.”

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"Delphic Letters" exhibit

This exhibit in Delphi makes me want to go back to Greece so badly (that, and the fact that my Midwestern locale is passing through its dreariest-looking time of year):

In a long room in the museum, the Classical bureau, which is directed by archaeologist Athanasia Psalti, has set up an exhibition of 40 stone steles ranging from the Archaic period to the first years of Christianity, representing just a small part of the many epigraphs discovered during excavations in the area[....]
The epigraphs on display include some of the most important resolutions decided by representatives of the 12 tribes that lived in the surrounding regions during assemblies held in summer and in autumn, the ''Ieromimnones''. 

I thought the title was charming. When I googled "Delphic Letters" to find out more about the pieces on display, I discovered that this phrase was once used to describe any piece of exhortative prose. It makes me wonder what it was like to live in a time when classical allusion were (somewhat) common currency.

image credit Pin It