The Puzzle Museum and its founder mathematician Pantazis Houlis participates in the festival with a series of activities highlighting the history, importance and various types of puzzles.
A. Guided tour of the Puzzle Museum
In the Puzzle Museum there are 5000 puzzles and prototypes, based on impressive mechanisms, millennial history, creative ideas, and are a globally innovative attraction for young and old!
The Museum emphasizes that Greece has the greatest impact on puzzles worldwide, due to the ancient enigma of the Sphinx, the oldest mechanical puzzle that is Archimedes’ Ostomachion, and the constant use of ancient names such as Labyrinth, Pandora’s Box, and Gordian Knot to describe modern puzzles and riddles.
Due to limited time, during the Festival there will be two guided tours for honored persons.
B. Presentation of puzzles through interactive workshops, impressive constructions and many … challenges!
During the Puzzle Festival, Pantazis Houlis with his collaborators and invited Greek and foreign puzzlers/puzzlers will present even more impressive tours through exhibitions, presentations and other events.
And all this, combined with new puzzles presented in recent years, such as Medusa, Karagiozis-puzzle, the Puzzle Bird, Pantazaria, the Boukla cube, Plato’s Cave, the Dodecathlon, the new versions of the Ostomachion, and more.
Some of these puzzles, such as Medusa and the Ostomachion, are presented in a much larger size, so that they look more impressive and attractive to young and old alike, inviting them to solve. At the same time, a connection with the mythology and sciences of ancient Greece is achieved, giving inspiration for even new creations. Finally, the connection of Medusa with ancient Megisti (through Aeschylus and Strabo) may refer to the completion of the last pieces in a puzzle.
C. 8th Megistian Aenigma Agon
In 2008, KEC (Kastellorizo Enigma Congress) was launched, a nine-hour Puzzle Exhibition held at the Kastellorizo Market. In 2017, the MAA puzzle competition took over. And when the Puzzle Museum was founded on August 17, 2020, MAA was incorporated immediately afterwards into the 1st Puzzle Festival in 2021.
Since then, the MAA competition evolves every year, as one of the most interesting activities of the Puzzle Festival. In fact, 2024, as the year of the Olympic Games, will be honored through a new educational puzzle that teaches probability theory and statistics: the Dodecathlon. Many students, but also adults, will run the 100 meters with a more… zoophilic and mathematical way! Who will win the Gold Medal?
D. Guided tour of the mountain through unique paths to get to know the history and nature of the island.
Unique view from a new path that we opened…
The mountains of Kastellorizo are still an unknown place.
Soon, however, through a government program, the countless ancient monuments, the virgin and full of herbs nature, the rare endemic species, and the paths of astonishing beauty that are the arteries connecting our daily life with a new world that rejuvenates physically, mentally and mentally will finally be highlighted and advertised.
We would like to thank the contribution of many volunteers, especially Dimitris Kampouris, Petros Tsokataridis and the Vrilissos Naturalist Movement who (together with Pantazis Houlis) helped open classical trails. Most of all, however, we thank Manolis Roxanas (who again together with Pantazis Houlis) during the winter seasons of 2018-21, contributed to the opening of an unprecedented number of remote trails of many kilometers in proportion to the island.
These new paths not only strengthened the connection with ancient monuments, but also initiated the mapping of a new integrated network that is unique worldwide.
Of course, nature is an integral part of the Puzzle Festival, where tours of the mountains of Kastellorizo connect mind and body. “A healthy mind in a healthy body.” The approach with the endemic flora and fauna, the fresh air with the magnificent view from strategic fortification points, and the meeting of ancient monuments, teaches us the love of the environment, science, and history, along with the cultivation of virtue.
If you want to see some beautiful photos of the island, please visit this link
Pantazis Houlis grew up in Kastellorizo (also known as Megisti). He studied mathematics at the University of Crete.
He completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Western Australia, i.e. Master’s degree in Algebraic Graph Theory (Mathematics), Ph.D. in Control Systems (Electrical and Electronic Engineering), and worked as a Professor at the University of Western Australia until 2012. He holds an extensive collection of 4,000 puzzles, 700 of which are his own inventions and prototypes.
Known in the puzzle community with many honours in puzzle designing, he is a member of the International Puzzle Party (IPP). Today, he is a co-founder and research and development manager of MaxxBrain. His aim is to introduce mathematical puzzles to education for efficient and entertaining learning. MaxxBrain works with several Indian state governments and hopes to expand soon in the rest of Asia. He recently founded Greece’s first Puzzle Museum on the island of Megisti, already attracting many Greeks and international visitors.
