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Watch: Greek revellers throw coloured flour at each other in 200-year-old carnival tradition

Holly Patrick
Monday 18 March 2024 14:14 GMT
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Watch as revellers in Greece celebrate "Clean Monday" by throwing coloured flour at each other on 18 March.

The celebrations, also known as "Pure Monday", mark the end of carnival season and the start of Lent.

It is a period of spiritual purification in preparation for the solemnity of Orthodox Easter.

Observers also fly kites, which have been an essential part of celebrations in the country for over a century.

Evidence of Easter-season kite-flying in Europe has been found by scholars to go as far back as the 17th century.

They are mostly likely symbolising raising a soul to God or Jesus’ resurrection, and many Greek people also consider it a desire to reach for the divine.

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