"GENUINE" IMITATIONS OF MINOAN ART

We are in one of the great museums of the world that proudly exhibit in their showcases Minoan antiquities, samples of brilliant art from one of the first and more human civilizations of our planet. 

 Hundreds, maybe thousands, of visitors admire daily a copper statuette, the pride of this museum. They take pictures, buy postcards picturing this particular item and this goes on day after day, for many years, even decades, now. What the visitors do not know, but neither do the directors, conservers and archaeologists of this museum, is that the statue is genuine only from ….the waist and above.The rest has been manufactured by Kostas Fthenakis, a charismatic Cretan artist that has rediscovered the techniques of ancient Minoan craftsmen and applies them five thousands years later. A person that describes himself as "friend of Minoan culture", a man that saw well-known archaeologists and collectors recognizing the perfection of his work, that accepted in his laboratory kings and Prime Ministers who had heard about the " Fthenakis phenomenon ", a colorful individual who has confused antiquities thieves and illegal collectors who couldn’t recognize the genuine Minoan "pieces" from copies “made  by Fthenakis ”.