The water, the town along a beach, the mountains…all ought to be clues to today’s Mystery Photo. Figure out where this photograph was taken, and send your ideas to elliott@brack.net, to include your hometown.
Only our two super sleuths, George Graf of Palmyra, Va., and Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. gave solutions to the last Mystery Photo. The photograph came from Sharon LeMaster of Atlanta via Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill.
Graf writes “This is a sculpture of an ancient Greek mermaid, located on a sea jetty in the city of Gythio, Greece. There is lots of ancient history around Gythio. There is a very small island called Cranae, connected by an artificial causeway to the town. The island is mentioned by Homer in the late 8th Century BC as the place where Paris of Troy and the beautiful Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, spent the night together before they left for Troy. As you know, Paris taking Helen to Troy was the reason the Trojan War started. Cranae also had the facilities for the extraction of the Tyrian purple dye from the murex snail. The purple dye was extracted from a type of predatory sea snail (the murex snail) that lived (and probably still lives) in abundance in the Laconian Gulf and was used for dyeing royal garments and exported to the emperors and royals in the Byzantine and Roman Empires.”
Peel tells of the sculpture: “The Mermaid of Gythio was created by sculptress Rosa Iliou from Athens, and was donated to the Municipality of Gythio in 2005 by George and Menelaos Geroulakos. It was placed at its current location after the new pier that was built in 2015. The pier is an extension of the previous one in order to increase the capacity and enhance the arrival experience of the passengers and visitors who come to the port each day.”
Follow Us