DURfaces, Walls and Delphi!

Things in Greece are coming to a rapid and alarming conclusion. I can't believe that I only have a meagre two weeks to enjoy myself here at Tragana. It feels odd as on one hand I cant imagine that I have in fact been over here for 2 months already, but on the other I am relieved that I am going to be able to take time to recover from the rigours of excavation and the harsh living conditions. This last week has been, as always, both interesting, difficult and incredibly memorable all at the same time. Unfortunately, I find myself at the computer without my USB flash drive so photos will have to wait. IM SORRY I FORGOT!

Excavation wise, we have been chasing a beautiful pink marl plaster floor that we think is just below where we are currently at. Unfortunately, between us and the prize have consistently turned up layer after layer of 'surface'. Surfaces are the most annoying thing in the world to excavate. They are indicated by a slight hardening of the soil, maybe a colour change, and perhaps if you are lucky some flat lying sherds of pottery or a bunch of pebbles. They are very difficult to identify while digging as you are required to feel subtle differences in soil density with your trowel. Even when you 'find' them they are almost always patchy and you loose them within seconds. As they are supposed to indicate occupation of the area, we have to take photographs and everything every single time we come across one. Most of those in our trench are convinced these surfaces are nothing more that phantoms and have so named them 'DURfaces'.

While digging our way towards the marl floor, we uncovered two very substantial walls running on a completely different axis to what we have already in the trench and also quite a bit deeper. This means that they are walls from a different occupational period and are very exciting. They are part of a new building which our trench seems to luckily encompass the inside. We are looking very forward to proceeding deeper to see what we will find inside this new building.

This weekend our trip was to the famous and magnificent site of Delphi. This is the place of the legendary 'Oracle of Delphi' which was world famous all the way from Archaic Greece (c. 800BC) to Roman times. People from far and wide made pilgrimage to the site in order to ask the oracle about what the future had in store for them. Cities and Empires from across the globe also asked about pressing political concerns, matters of war and colonisation. It was indeed one of the most important sanctuaries in Greece. The place is pretty impressive. It is set on the slopes of Mt. Parnassos, and overlooks the extremelly majestic surrounding countryside.

There are remains of a large Gymnasium, a temple to Athena, a large theatre and a huge stadium used for the famous Pythian Games held every two years. The main attractions here though are the large Temple to Apollo (where the Oracle sat and spoke the words of the god to the pilgrims) and the large city treasuries built by many different states across Greece to hold their dedications to the sanctuary.

After our visit to the various sites and Museums, we were encouraged to attend an optional hike to the top of Mt Parnassos directly behind the site. This was advertised as a 'easy walk to the top of the mountain with exceptional views of the bay and site'. As the guide had only done it 18 years ago, things maaaaay have been a little hazy to remember. It was not an 'easy walk to the top' but a veritable bushwhack through rough, thorny scrub that ripped and tore at our legs. We also lost the trail 3/4 of the way up and had to go offroad to find the edge of the mountain. Me and a couple others went on a scouting mission and finally found the place. It was possibly the best view I have yet to encounter in Greece. You had a perfect aerial view of the site and EVERYTHING around it. It was breathtaking. Photo's forthcoming!

I have to dash because my parents have just called :D

Adiossas and Kalispera!

Penguins, Archaeologists and Temples

Finally I have got my computer sorted out and am able to now post photos (I hope). Hopefully this will add a completely new dimension to the posts and give you a little taste of what I am actually SEEING while over here.

This whole week has been very exciting not only for me personally but for the excavation. We started off this week with a trench that was on a million different levels. It was terraced in so many different places that the whole thing looked like a big mess. We decided to clean things up and try level out all the different excavation units to the same place, hopefulyl allowing us to avoid contamination from different periods. This sounded like a very solid idea to all of us sop we attacked it with gusto. Unfortunately, on Tuesday we uncovered a very large and very flat rock just sitting in the middle of our trench. Many expletives were uttered by the trench supervisor, as this kind of stone is the tell tale sign of a cist tomb and involves monumental amounts of paperwork. The rest of us were actually quite excited about the whole thing.

Needless to say, this diverted attention completely away from our original plans, and work was now focussed on clearing the trench around the grave so that the mortuary excavators could come in and open the grave. Curiously, code words have to be employed when we are not at site and talking about graves because we do not want the locals to think we are finding gold or anything of value. It would lead to looting and crowding of the sight and ultimately damage to the archaeological record. For these reaosns, we call graves 'Penguins'.

This was started on Wednesday afternoon, and things quickly became interesting. The tomb was intact, but the bones were pretty badly preserved. The Mortuary people could tell that it was the grave of a 6 or 7 year old, but gender was difficult to be sure of. Amongst the bones we found a number of really amazing grave goods. About 7 completely preserved pottery vases and jugs were found, all beautifully decorated in very good condition. On the actual body itself were found a bronze ring, two bronze bangles and two bronze pins to either hold hair or clothing in place. The date of the grave is from the Protogeometric period, the period directly after the Mycenaeans starting from about the 10th century BC. All in all we are told that it is one of the best preserved graves from our site, and it is very rare to find one that hasnt been robbed.

We also went to a site called Kalapodi, jsut down the road from Tragana. It is being excavated by the Germans and is alarge temple complex ranging in use from the Mycenaean period all the way through to Roman times. It is quite an impressive site and very well preserved. The Germans are CRAZY. Their baulks look like they have been cut by a lazer. They are so smooth and sooooo clean that you could literalyl eat off them. You can see everything with regards to the different soil layers and layers of occupation. I was quite jealous and will now strive to be German.

The weekend was planned to be very exciting. I was to meet up with some of my university friends who are digging at the Isthmia at Corinth. We were to rent a car and drive all over southern Greece visiting Sparta, Pylos and Epidaurus. Unfortunately, while we did manage to meet up without amny problems (a monumental achievement), our plans were cut short when we could not find a single place at the airport which had the right kind of car we needed. THis put our entire plans into a tail spin as we had to now rely on public transport, which we had NOT been planning on. We had to wing it. After much deliberation and trudging all over Athens, we eventually found the bus stop to Sounio, a little town on the southern coast of Attica. Its claim to fame is the majestic Temple of Poseidon, poised on a cliff face overlooking the Aegean sea and the island of Aegina. The whole setting was incredible, and the view spectacular. I am sure that even a god must have been pleased.

We made our way back to Athens and I showed my friends around the Plaka area (I swear I know Athens like the back of my hand now), before heading to the metro station to make the long trip to Corinth via train. We arrived quite late and managed to have an amazing meal right on the water front. The next morning we decided to head into the Corinth markets which are pretty much jsut the weekly farmers markets. We managed to grab some amazing tasting fruit for breakfast (not to mention the GLORIOUS home made turkish delight). The markets were busy but very charming. We enjoyed them immensely. The plan was then to head to Loutraki, famous as one of the prettiest beachfronts on the entire gulf. We managed to figure out the bus routes there and arrived without much hassle, but found that the whole place was much to busy to be enjoyed and returned soon after. We also found out that it would be impossible to go to the Theatre of Epidaurus later that evening to watch a play because some famous French orchestra was playing there and the tickets were completely sold out. I was very dissappointed about the whole day but it was amazing to hang out with Rennie and Jennie again.

Today has been quite low key. After a big night last night durting which much Beer Pong was played and alcohol consumed, Rennie and Jennie decided to take me around Ancient Corinth, and we managed to get permission to go behind the barriers into the Peirene Fountain because 'they were doing research'. One of the greatest moments of my life was when we were stopped and asked what we were doing. We jsut looked at each other and replied, 'We are Archaeologists with the American School and we are doing some research on the Fountain.' they let us pass immediately. The great thing was. It wasnt a Lie. We are archaeologists :D:D

Halfway (and a bit) Point Already!?

After the adventures of Napflio last week, it was always going to be hard to come back to the routine of dig life. This whole week has been quite the struggle for me personally. The mind is willing but the body seems to be in a state of revolt. I ahve been trying to go to bed early enough that I get decent amounts of sleep, but I am quickly discovering that getting anything more than 5 hours and less than 9 is a death sentence. When you wake up you feel like death. Every single muscle in your entire body screams at you and it feels like you are trying to pull yourself out of a bath of honey (not that I have ever had that experience......). It took what felt like an iron will and the strength of ten men to pull myself out of bed and into a breakfast chair in time for some tea and yoghurt.

As it turns out, it seems that the reason for this horrible siutuation was that I was sick. This came to full fruitation on Tuesday night when while lying in bed, I was shivering with cold. I looked around and noticed that everyone in the room had not even bothered to put on their sheets and were jsut sleeping in boxers because of the heat. I rolled over and muttered to myself 'this cant be good' and proceeded to pull on a blanket and a jumper. I woke up in the morning with a monumental effort and immediately rushed to the bathroom. I wont go into any details but suffice to say, bad diahroea is just not pleasant in any way. I was in no state to go to breakfast let alone to the site, as my brain was feeling like it was going to explode out of my head. I called the field school director and was told I could stay home for the day. I proceeded to get to the local pharmacy, got some meds and then collapsed and didnt move for most of the day. It proved an absolute blessing. The next day I was feeling a million times better, and was pushing very hard to go to the site. Nick relented but put me on flotation duty to make sure I was ok. I didnt mind as we had a good team there that day and got through a lot of work.

The reason for me wanting to get back to digging so soon was due to the amazing things we have managed to pull out of our trench this past week. Not only have we come up with gigantic remains of storage vessels and huge pieces of pottery, but we have also found a beautiful phi-figurine (the best found on site so far). Enough about ceramics though! Much to everyones excitement we have also managed to pull out a bronze dagger, almost fully intact with a point. It is very well preserved, as usually when these things come out of the ground they are badly damaged and shattered. It is probably about a foot long. The best find of the week, and indeed probably of the entire season so far, was a beautifully engraved seal stone. These stones acted as administrative seals or signatures left on clay seals on pottery vessels. More importantly, is that the one we found is in context which means it is infinitly more valuable than other seal stones found on the site so far (which are only 2 or 3 and all found through sieving). Needless to say, the moral in our trench is sky high and we can't wait to get back to digging deeper. The mantra of archaeology and indeed the answer to almost all our questions seems to be: 'dig deeper, we will see..'

The weekend trip this time was around Boetia, which is pretty much within a 50 km radius around home, so it was jsut a day trip. We started out visiting the Mycenaean fortress of Gla which was very impressive in both size, architecture and use. Around Gla is the famous Kopaic Basin, which was completely and ingeniously drained in Mycenaean times by diverting the flow of six whole rivers into surrounding fissures in the ground and forming a gigantic and extremely fertile plain. Gla was probably used to guard the surrounding countryside. We visited one of these huge fissures in the surrounding mountainside, and were suitably awed. We then made our way to the town of Orchomenos, which may very well be the controlling centre which had power over our own site of Mitrou in antiquity. There wasnt much to see there as the modern town is over much of the site itself, but a very large and well built beehive tholos tomb is still around, which I must say seemed to me to be of much better quality than even the ones at Mycenae. We then made our way to the site of the battle of Chaeronea. *insert MAJOR Ancient History Tingles*. Charonea is the place where Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great (in his first battle) defeated the combined forces of Boetia and Athens and gained a measure of control over Greece. It was also here that the fanatical courage of the Sacred Band of Thebes was displayed as they stood firm against Alexanders charge and were killed to a man. I love it! :p

I then decided to stay on and join in some of the optional trips as we went to Thebes and Leuktra. Thebes had nothing to display as the entire city is lying directly over the citadel. It is a shame because what has been gathered by rescue excavations suiggests that it may have been Thebes and Not Mycenae who was in charge of the entire Mycenaean world. It would answer many huge questions if Thebes could be partially excavated. Leuktra was jsut as amazing as Chaeronea, if not more so. It was there in 371BC that the Thebans inflicted on the Spartan Army its first ever complete defeat and shattered the aura of invincibility that surrounded them up to that point. It also marked the end of Spartan domination, and the beginning of Theban leadership over Greece. I lvoed it, even though it was only an open plain and a small monument.

The trip was the longest we have been on so far, even if it was only locally, and we only got back around 8:30pm. I went out to the butcher shop for a well earned meal and then retired to bed for some more sleep.

PS> GO THE SPRINGBOKS! We shall not speak of the cricket.

Napflio and the Argolid!

The fourth week of excavation was very easy for me personally. The way the field school works is on a rotational basis. Different tasks are rotated out to different students on a daily basis. This means that you normally spend about 4-5 days in your trench, and 2 days out doing other tasks. Unfortunately, due to the amount of walking wounded we have at the site due to injuries and illness, I have been permanently on site in my trench since the first week. This meant that I had a backlog of Apothiki, Flotation and Surface Survey duty that pretty much all got taken care of last week.

Work at the Apothiki involves lots of pottery washing and flot sorting. This is quite possibly one of the most mindless jobs ever invented by human kind, but it is essential to the smooth running of the dig. Flotation work is also fairly annoying. It involves wet sieving all the soil that has already passed through a dry sieve, and skimming off the scum that floats to the top which tends to be plant or carbon remains mixed in amongst lots of contaminants. You dont get to see much reward for all your effort but you do get very very wet, which is an absolute blessing in heat that can get up to around 50 degrees. Surface Survey has been described by many as hell on earth, mainly because you are forced out into the blistering sun with no shade to rake up long grass and weeds and pick up any artifacts off the surface. Unfortunately this is also probably the most important activity out of these three as it allows us to gauge the archaeological potential of an area. My week pretty much consisted of these 3 activities in a row, and then a day of trench work. I was actually extremely thankful for the break though as I was developing some worrying symptoms. I had a really sore throat at one point, as well as a continuously bleeding nose when it was blown. Coughing was also frequent. I got bundled into the car and taken to a medical clinic in the next town along with some other invalids but was assured that I was fine, and all I needed to do was try shield my breathing from all the dust. Im back to 100% now!

We had friday off from the site as we were heading to the beautiful Venetian city of Napflio in the Argolid Plain of Greece for the weekend. I have looked forward to this partiucular weekend trip more than anything else in Greece and was extremely excited. I dont QUITE know how you manage to wake up early for a trip that is supposed to leave at 6am in the morning but I managed quite well. The Friday morning we had a 4 hour drive towards Napflio but we had stops to make on the way. Our first stop was the amazing site called Korphos. This is a BRAND new site, that has only had preliminary survey work done on it. The American School funded project was actually on its final day for the season while we were there and the two co directors offered to show us around the huge 8.5 hectare property. The place was a shambles. Rocks were EVERYWHERE. At some points you couldnt step on the soil even if you wanted to. Still it was one of my favourite sites jsut for the sheer potential of what they are sitting on. I am going to try see if I am able to apply to work there for their next season where they will hopefully be opening up some test trenches.

We also visited Epidaurus with its Asklepion and theatre before heading to check into our hotel at Napflio. We were at Napflio for barely 2 hours when a few students and myself decided to tag along with our Field School director to visit a place called the Kastro Larissa about 20 minutes away. this is a huge Byzantine or Frankish castle (im not sure which) that stands on a large promontary that overlooks the ENTIRE Argive plain. The view was astounding. You could literally see EVERYTHING. I could make out the Mycenaean citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns and Argos, the Argive Heraion, Napflio, and of course the Meditterranean. On a map all these things have always looked so spread out, but it was surprising to find jsut how close everything was to each other. Greece is a small country. From this spot we were clambering all over the battlements and towers of the castle, as we had the entire site to ourselves. We watched a breathtaking sunset and took some impressive pictures before heading back to Napflio to grab some dinner (sweet glorious pizza again).

The next day was a very exciting one as we were headed to Mycenae. I have been there before, but never with someone that knows so much about the architecture and history of the place. We were also lucky enough to be taken around by one the the archaeologists that is digging there this season. Not only was she able to take us behind the scenes into the 'barred from public display' cult centre of the citadel, but she also took us to her trenches and gave us a site overview and tour. It was really good to have such inside access and go behind all the locked doors and gates! We also stopped off at the traditional tourist spots of the 'Treasury of Atreus' and Clytemnestra's Tomb' Tholos Tombs.

That afternoon, after coming home exhausted, I took a couple of hours to rest and hydrate and found an internet cafe in Napflio. Unfortunately the computer that was given to me had a space bar that wouldnt work so unfortunately, blog posting wasnt very successful. 4 of us then decided it would be a GREAT idea to climb to the top of the Venetian Fortress above Napflio. We made the trek up the 900 odd steps to the entrance to the fortress and found to our horror that it had closed about an hour earlier. Now, we were feeling pretty annoyed at this time due to the lack of signs communicating the situation at the BOTTOM of the steps. We were also feeling extremely adventurous and moderately irresponsible. We decided to climb over the walls (as safely as possible of course) and get inside. We did this without much trouble and had the entire fortress to ourselves. We explored around for about 3 hours or so and watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen over the city of Napflio from the battlements. It was one of the most incredible moments of the trip so far and completely worth the risk of getting caught. We made it down safe and sound with the authorities none the wiser, and proceded to find ourselves some food before collapsing into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, we had a busy day ahead of us and we prceded to the Mycenaean Citadel of Tiryns. I wont go into the specifics of the visit but the most interesting and terrifying aspect of this visit was the near fatal accident that occured while we were near the Cyclopean Walls. Inside these walls are great storage rooms and some of the students were inside one when someone must have knock a wall. This caused a very large block of Cyclopean masonry to become disjointed from the roof and plummit towards the group. Luckily it moved fairly slowly and the girl was able to dodge out of the way in time before the huge block came crahsing down. Everyone was safe. The rest of the day unfolded at a more sedate pace as we went to places like the House of Tiles at Lerna and the Museum of Argos before heading home to Tragana.

WHAT A WEEKEND!