The Mystery Sphere of Athens

When is a mystery truly mysterious? This was the thought that ran through my puzzled mind, when I first saw the magic sphere of Helios, exhibited at the new Acropolis Museum in Athens. Why is this antiquity so terribly understated? Were the museum authorities trying to tell the visitor to move on and not to waste their valuable time looking at this particular exhibit? I was completely fascinated by the strange symbols and inscriptions, together with the statue of liberty lookalike, all covering the entire surface of the marble sphere. My fingers had automatically reached into my camera bag, pulling out my trusty old camera. Within less than a minute I had taken more than a dozen shots of this truly magical globe, covered with what I perceived to be sacred geometric symbolism.