Phallephoria: Carnival in Athens

Long before Christianity flowered in Greece, the streets of Athens were steeped in merry Dionysian rituals celebrating life - and the fertility that bestowed it. Take a stroll through the historic centre of Athens on the evening of the 29th February, and you may well experience one of these ecstatic pagan processions for yourself. Each year, at the tail end of the Greek carnival season, an authentic revival of the ancient carnival tradition, Phallephoria, sees a lively troupe of nymphs, maenads, satyrs (and other key figures of the Dionysian retinue), wind their way from the Acropolis Museum to the ancient cemetery of Keramikos, dancing and singing to the sounds of bagpipes, flutes and other Bacchic beats ... just as their ancestors did 1,700 years ago. Every facet of the fertility celebration – from the satirical songs, to the masks and costumes - has been authenticated by extensive academic research to be as true as possible to the original Phallephoria procession. Right down to the prolific phallic symbols that play a saucy leading role (the clue was in the name!).