Passion for ancient Greek myths to one degree or another passes every person, because it is so interesting to understand the divinely complex and humanly simple relations between the masters of the elements. In addition, knowing the individual inhabitants, and even better the inhabitants of Olympus, one can guess why the capital of Greece received such a name. It will not be difficult to guess whose profile is decorated with the coat of arms of Athens.
Restraint and depth of the palette
The main heraldic sign of the Greek capital looks great on color photos. Emotional, cheerful, bright Greeks carefully approached the creation of their own coat of arms.
Firstly, the official symbol has two primary colors, azure and gold, and two additional colors, silver and red. Secondly, which is typical, the color of gold does not look bright, yellow, sunny, but tarnished, this is the shade that ancient precious things have, gilding on icons or domes of churches.
Description of the coat of arms of Athens
An important point noted by experts in the field of heraldry is the presence of a very small number of elements on the main official symbol of the capital, the most noticeable among them are the following:
- round shield;
- a kind of laurel wreath framing the central composition;
- azure ribbon with the name of the city in Greek.
The shield is painted azure and has a gold cross. A large silver circle and a smaller azure circle with a thin scarlet pattern along the edge are located on the shield. The central place is, of course, without further explanation, - the profile of the goddess Athena.
Wind of change
Athena, or Pallas, is one of the most famous ancient Greek goddesses, known primarily for her belligerence and knowledge of military strategy, of its positive qualities, wisdom is first of all called.
The image on the coat of arms of the city of this beauty with a tough character did not appear immediately, historians claim that in ancient Greece an owl was drawn on the main symbol. As you know, this bird is also associated with such a concept as wisdom, therefore, the replacement of a representative of the Greek avifauna with a deity is quite justified, especially in such a beautiful image.
The 1835 version of the coat of arms already contained the image of the goddess Athena, and in full growth, with a spear stuck into the ground. After 1917, historians noted another change in the coat of arms, this time in its form. The shield approached the ideal geometrical figure - a circle, the inscription appeared on the rim - "Greek people". The main heraldic symbol of the Greek capital acquired its modern look only in 1981.
