Bridging Cultures

In cooperation with the German Archaeological Institute in Athens the Schwarz Foundation is taking this anniversary as an opportunity to shed light on this exciting and extremely multifaceted aspect of Samian history with an exhibition at Art Space Pythagorion, while at the same time presenting the DAI's long history of research on Samos to a wider public.

The island of Samos is located at an important hub of trans-Mediterranean routes that cross the region from east to west and from south to north. The ancient Samian community utilised this special location very early to establish contact with other cultures in Anatolia, the Near East, Spain and especially Egypt. These contacts resulted in an extraordinary flourishing of the city state of Samos in the Archaic period, the 7th and 6th centuries BC. The ancient Samians skilfully drew inspiration from the distant cultures and refined these adaptions according to their own needs. In doing so, they created the basis for impressive innovations in almost all areas of life, which from today's perspective is reflected particularly impressively in the remains of three outstanding engineering monuments, which the ancient historiographer Herodotus described as the most overwhelming works ever realised in Greece. These are the monumental temple of Hera, the aqueduct of Eupalinos and the breakwater of the habour.

The exhibition traces these processes and provides insights into the life of the ancient community. The archaeological genesis of the sanctuary of the Hera reveals itself as a mirror of the socio-cultural development of the ancient Samian community in the constant configuration process of ‘own’ and ‘foreign’ elements. The exhibition sheds light on the motivations and mechanisms behind the far-reaching contacts and the associated cultural processes of adaptation, rejection and remodelling, highlighting the special bridging function of the region as a contact zone between Orient and Occident.