Tea at Trianon: The Cyclops of Kozani, Greece: Myth, Mystery, and a Forgotten Discovery

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 22, 2025

The Cyclops of Kozani, Greece: Myth, Mystery, and a Forgotten Discovery

From The Greek Reporter:

The legend of the Cyclops — the towering, one-eyed giants of Greek mythology — has long captured the imagination of philosophers, storytellers, and adventurers alike. Found in ancient myths scattered across the Greek landscape, these beings remain symbols of a lost, supernatural past. But in February 1931, myth and reality seemed to blur in the mountains of Western Macedonia.

Two quiet villages in the Kozani region, Eratyra and Trapezitsa, became the epicenter of a sensational discovery. Following heavy rainfall and landslides, locals stumbled upon a marble tomb of colossal proportions.

A telegram from the prefect of the region to government authorities reported something extraordinary: the unearthing of an enormous human skeleton, its skull bearing a single eye socket in the middle of the forehead. (Read more.)