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!