Why the Brits gave Greece a bad name – in India

This should be an exciting time in the long story of the Greeks and the Indians. Leaders of the two countries have exchanged spectacular visits and under their benign gaze, scholars from both places have gathered to compare erudite notes about the many interactions between their ancient civilizations, or rather the multiple civilizations in which Greeks and Indians have been creatively involved.

One potentially helpful contribution to this dialogue is the work of Angeliki Kottaridi, founder of the new Polycentric Museum of Aigai and one of Greece's most famous archaeologists and public educators.

Among her declared ambitions is to promote a more subtle understanding of the Hellenistic world - in other words, the space between North Africa and South Asia where Greek cultural forms, in rich interaction with local cultures and languages, served as a catalyst for...