There’s good reason Greek antiquities have lasted thousands of years: They’re pretty interesting, as evidenced by the turnout earlier this month when the LAS Alumni Association organized a gathering at the Field Museum to view 500 of the priceless objects.
Some 200 LAS alumni and friends of the college attended the event for a journey through 5,000 years of Greek history and culture. It was a private viewing of the Field Museum’s limited-time exhibition, The Greeks from Agamemnon to Alexander the Great, which features items from 21 Greek museums. Many items had never been displayed outside Greece.
Items included a replica of the mask of Agamemnon, gold roundels, a boar-tusk helmet, a Cycladic figurine, clay tablet, a statue of Homer, and many others. The crowd on hand was the largest at an LAS alumni event since the association organized a viewing of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Field Museum a decade ago.
Speakers at the event included Greece Consul General Polyxeni Petropoulou and Stefanos Katsikas, professor and director of the Program in Modern Greek Studies at Illinois, which also hosted the event.
“I wish to thank the Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Association and the staff of the Field Museum for working together with us to organize this fabulous event,” Katsikas said.
Event sponsors included Giordano’s Pizzeria, Gary and Debbie Greenspan, the Law Office of George C. Xamplas, Omega Restaurant Pancake House & Bakery, European Union Center at Illinois, Leslie and Dan Vermillion, James and Lauren Dolan, Stefanos Katsikas, Antonis and Joannie Michalos, William Van Hagey, and Flesor’s Candy Kitchen.
