The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

Loutro Oraias Elenis in the Rain, a Church, and Thoughts of Going Home

Yesterday afternoon, there was an American-style summer thunderstorm here in Loutro Elenis.  Complete with hail, lightening ground strikes, torrential downpours, and thunder, the storm represents (to my mind) another example of American cultural imperialism.  The Corinthia, typically, gets very little rain in the summer and thunder storms are relatively rare.

The nice thing about this storm is that it seemed to tell me that I should be going home.  And I am.  Tonight.

It also brought to mind a nice reminder of summer field seasons in the past.  In 2001, I was doing an extensive survey with the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey.  This involved hiking by myself through the mountains of the southeastern Corinthia and noting what I saw.  One late June afternoon, I came across the barely nucleated settlement that we now call Lakka Skoutara.  Just as I had finished doing a little walking tour of a few of the abandoned houses -- the very abandoned houses that we prepared for publication this summer -- a late June thunder storm rolled through the mountains.  I panicked and tried to find the biggest (but shortest) olive tree for some shelter when I caught the slightest glimpse of a tiny, whitewashed dome.  My keen, Byzantinist-trained mind immediately realized that there is only one kind of white-washed, domed building in the Greek countryside.  A church! 

It turned out to be a small, rural chapel dedicated to St. Katherine who is not particularly known for protecting wanderers, extensive surveyers, or travelers, but she obliged my immediate needs nonetheless and provided me shelter from the storm.

As I look forward to going home and returning to my more normal routine, I couldn't help but think that the rain yesterday put a nice bookend on our work here in the Corinthia.  First, it evoked my first experience of the Lakka Skoutara basin, where David Pettegrew and I concluded almost a decade of observation and documentation this year.  It also foreshadowed my return to the US with a quintessentially American weather.

So, thank for the patience with my somewhat erratic blogging schedule.  Once I get back to the US and settled in, I'll return to my normal blogging routine and post updates on my summer fieldwork, plans for the fall, and various other topics. 

Collapse

Over the past week, David Pettegrew and I have been able to observe the various processes which caused a series of rural houses to collapse.  One key issue is with their tile roofs. 

A number of houses seem to have had their roofs systematically stripped of tile.

In some cases, the tiles slide off the roof as parts of the roof gives way over time.  As the tiles slide off the roof, they frequently form halos around the house...

In other instances, the tile roof stays more or less in tact, but the walls of the house begin to splay.

In some cases, the home owner tried to buttress the wall with another wall, but this did not seem to work entirely in this case.

When the walls collapsed, the tile roof caved in on the interior of the house.

If the interior of the house doesn't get squashed by the collapsing roof, then the various interior partition walls (which were often just plaster and mud) collapse as well.

 

Provisional Discard

David Pettegrew and I have been visiting a photographing a settlement in the Corinthian countryside.  Today we observed a few commonplace examples of what archaeologists call provisional discard.  That means discard that occurs in an orderly fashion after an object is no longer needed for its primary use. 

Provisional discard is part of the numerous processes through which artifacts become part of the archaeological record from their place in more everyday life.

Construction in the Corinthia

Four construction styles appear in one building in the southeastern Corinthia.  A Cinder block pediment rests atop a fieldstone wall with tile chinking.  Meanwhile a twisted piece of metal holds the now collapsed roof beam in place.

Pyla-Koutsopetria Blog Statistics

As we get ready to leave the island and shut down our empire of the new media for the season (although some new v-logs will appear on the PKAP YouTube channel), we thought we might report on some of the statistics for the blog.  This is largely in response to the most asked question: "do people actually read your postings?".  The answer is emphatically yes.  Here are the page views for the past month:

Archaeology of the Mediterranean World: 2061
Pyla-Koutsopetria Season Staff Blog: 1239
Pyla-Koutsopetria Graduate Student Perspectives: 1551
Pyla-Koutsopetria Undergraduate Perspectives: 1192

Total: 6043 page views

Thanks for reading!

Narrating Pyla-Koutsopetria

One of the simple pleasures of the end of fieldwork are the various papers that we write and the opportunity to present in narrative form the history of the site.  There is nothing particularly binding about the following narrative, nor is it even a working hypothesis, but a collection of potential interpretations in narrative form.  It sure beats the dry-as-bones digitalizing and number crunching that will be at the core of our more formal analysis!

By the later stages of the Late Bronze Age the various settlements in the area consolidated their population on the height of Pyla-Kokkinokremos.  Taking advantage of the imposing positions afforded by the coastal height of Kokkinokremos and the now-infilled harbor, this settlement must have controlled an impressive stretch of the coastline with views incorporating around the curving aspect of Larnaka bay.  This community comes to an abrupt end sometime around the year 1200 after existing for less than a century.  There is no real evidence of continuity between this community and later settlement in the area.  So, during the Archaic-Classical period it was probably a new population who established the small, fortified settlement on the height of Vigla surrounded by not insignificant shrines both inland and on the coastal zone.  By the Hellenistic period (4th-2nd century BC), it is possible that the small settlement on Vigla received a garrison perhaps of mercenaries funded by the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt who sought to hold fast to Cyprus and awarded the governors of the province the status of strategoi (or general) reflecting the military significance of their post.  The Roman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean brought to an end the almost constant wars between the various successors of Alexander the Great and regional powers. This is likely revealed at our site by the gradual occupation of the coastal plain of Koutsopetria.  During Late Antiquity, or the Late Roman period, the coastal site of Koutsopetria reached its heyday. The substantial Early Christian basilica formed the western border of a prosperous coastal town. To the east of the church there appears to have been domestic space, but there are suggestions of another monumental building based on stray architectural fragments found during the survey. There is also evidence for what may have been modest harbor-side facilities.  Only recently have we discovered some faint traces of post-ancient occupation on the site. Our excavation has revealed a substantial post-ancient fill that preserved some pottery that we can tentatively date to the 10th-13th century. The fill was associated with a wall that seems to be a substantial, late refurbishment of the area near the basilica.  Later still, In the post-Medieval period there are only traces of activity across the site. There’s a rough wall that flanks the modern coastal road and the faint remains of a possible 19th century road running along a barely visible coastal ridge.

More PKAP Video on YouTube

Here are some more PKAP Video from our YouTube channel.  Check out the interview with our filmmaker Ian Ragsdale here.

Pyla-Koutsopetria Filmmaker Ian Ragsdale

Things are getting hectic here as PKAP heads into its final phases, so I'll let our resident documentary filmmaker provide some content.  Below is a short email interview with Ian Ragsdale.  I've asked him the same questions that I asked to Joe Patrow, our last documentary filmmaker, two years ago.  For that interview click here. 

What were your goals in shooting a documentary with the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project?

As an aspiring archaeologist as well as a professional videographer, I arrived in Cyprus with a variety of goals.  My most basic goals are to provide PKAP with videos to increase the exposure of the project, its mission, and its directors.  It is my hope that these videos will assist PKAP to educate students as well as retain and attract new sources of funding.  Before I arrived, I honestly did not have clear concepts about what form such videos would take, but my goal now is to create short video posts covering the personal and archaeological experiences of members of the field team (already available online) and additionally make a 30 to 60 minute documentary about the archaeology of the project.  On a professional and academic level, this video project is a great way for me to show a diversity of filmmaking skills in a new environment and gain real archaeology field work experience.    This experience should also prove critical in my applications to graduate school.  On a personal level, the trip to Cyprus has been a refreshing break from a strenuous and chaotic freelance videography career.  I haven't been to Europe to shoot movies since 2003 and 2004, and it's been a wonderful and challenging opportunity.  As expecting parents, my wife, who is also here in Cyprus, and I are also happy that we've already taken our child on an international trip.  It sets a good precedent for the future!

How is your work different from PKAP’s earlier documentary work, namely Joe Patrow’s award-winning Survey on Cyprus and Emerging Cypriot, his series of shorts?
My work is different from Joe's in a few ways.  Most fundamentally, Joe worked with PKAP before the project undertook any excavations, so the work going on at the PKAP site has been incredibly different from what he captured on camera.  While artifact collection and processing has been similar, the simple fact that PKAP is now digging into the ground has given me a whole new category of field methods to cover. I've been able to build on Joe's work by covering a variety of field methods and other scenes non-existent at the PKAP site when Joe was last here.  As an aspiring archaeologist, I also have a different perspective on the work that PKAP is doing.  Although I am working on videos for the general public, I'm also trying to specifically reach the aspiring-archaeologist undergrad set with interviews and videos that address the questions and interests of someone curious about archaeology as a profession.  Since I am in that same place in my life, it's a great perspective for me to try and give others watching my videos.

Can you describe your relationship to the Project?

Although I have been brought to PKAP as a professional videographer, I feel like much more than a hired hand sent out to capture video of Mediterranean archaeology.  I'm living, eating, and riding bumper cars with field team members and sweating in the trenches excavating whenever I get the chance.  I've unearthed artifacts, measured ancient walls, and earned my blisters just like everyone else.  About the only thing that is different is every evening I go into my room and edit video, and occasionally I appear randomly with a camera and demand an interview.  Because I have four weeks here - three weeks of excavations and one week for interviews - I have been able to get all the footage I need while also getting some experience digging.  I must also say that the closeness that I feel to PKAP is not only because of my interest in the work going on here, but truly because of the warm reception I have received from the staff and the field team.  I can only hope that the PKAP directors don't mind me being chummy...

Did anything surprise you about working closely and being a member of the PKAP team?

It's a fairly stock response, but I didn't have too many preconceptions.  I've been on many group trips with close quarters, shared meals, and long hours, so I experienced no hardship in that sense.  One thing that has been interesting is that, as a filmmaker, I have been afforded the opportunity to constantly step back and "people-watch" at the PKAP site.  There are a great many wonderful individuals on the trip here, and together they have formed many strange and unique alliances and small-group cultures without developing cliques.  Moving from trench to trench across the site, I have been able to interact with all the workgroups and see their quirks and listen to their conversations.  I have been surprised and pleased at how much fun folks can have in 105 degree heat, no wind, engulfed in dust, and with no relief in site but a handful of pizza-flavored bagel chips at 5:00.

Do you feel that your presence and work on the project contributed to the project's overall goals?

It's been great to see the openness, on the part of the project's directors, to so-called "new media" interacting with archaeology. Only since the invention of YouTube is free bandwidth for video available to anyone to present their videos to the world, and PKAP is all about taking advantage of such tools.  I think that the final word about my impact on the project's goals will come several years down the road, as funding and other attention is directed towards the project via the videos.

What did you have to teach the archaeologists in order to make your work there successful?
I'm an extremely flexible filmmaker and I like to shoot with minimal impact on my subjects, so I didn't really have to fight anyone to conform to some Kubrick-esque demands in order to get a critical interview about a trowel.  I think the most important thing that a filmmaker can do is to instill confidence in his or her subjects so that they can feel comfortable letting the filmmaker, for instance, crawl over their newly-discovered antiquities trying to pull off a neat shot.  My work in the trenches really showed that I was serious about archaeology and would present both the work and the people faithfully.\

How much footage have you accumulated during your three weeks of shooting?
So far I've shot twelve hours, but I anticipate on shooting 18-20 hours total once I've completed the formal interviews next week.

How was the footage shot -- can you give us some technical specifications without being too technical?
I'm shooting with a Panasonic DVX100 miniDV camera, editing with Final Cut Pro, producing special effects using Motion, and creating original background music for the YouTube clips using Garage Band.  I always shoot with a polarizing filter on my camera, which is a filter that reduces glare from the sky, sea and other reflecting surfaces so that I can get nice shots of the blue sky over Cyprus.  This filter also protects my lens from dust and grit, which is a reality on an archaeological dig.  Whenever practical, I shoot with the camera on a tripod.  Shooting handheld makes it must faster to switch from shot to shot, and it is sometimes easier to pull off pans with just the hands, but having the camera on a tripod is extra insurance that my shot will be steady enough to use in the final product.

What will happen to the footage? Does it have archival value?
PKAP has already purchased an external hard drive that will hold this year's footage in a totally digital, versatile form, and which PKAP will keep for future use.  I believe that the interviews may hold some archival value, as they capture, in a nutshell, the perspectives of PKAP staff in 2009.  If the PKAP site ever undergoes full-scale excavation or even conversion to a tourist attraction, then the interviews could be an interesting feature of a visitor's center or excavation archives.

What are your future goals with the project?
As I begin graduate education in anthropology and archaeology, it would be wonderful to continue my association with the project as both a member of the field team and a filmmaker.  Right now though I'm really living in the moment, still trying to figure out what I'm going to shoot in the fifteen minutes following completion of this questionnaire.

What other projects are you working on now and how can we follow them?
In the past year I've shot documentaries on slow food, family farms, and Olympic gymnasts and have traveled to Tuscon, Philadelphia, and all over Texas for my work.  I'm based in Houston and my production company, Big Ape Productions has a website: www.bigapefilms.com.  The site is new, but we are updating it with content as fast as we can.

More Pyla-Koutsopetria on YouTube

Our resident filmmaker, Ian Ragsdale, has produced three more video log (vlog) shorts on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.  As the students prepare to return to the US leaving the trench supervisors and senior staff a hectic week of processing finds and rapping up final documentation, it seems fitting to begin with a video dedicated to the hard work and fun that our volunteers contributed to the project over the last month.

 

Dallas Deforest provides a nice insight into the background of a trench supervisor... we'll head out this morning to continue work on his trench which is now over 2 m below the surface!

Another perspective on life in a trench...

More to come soon!

The Last Week of PKAP Fieldwork in 2009

The entire Pyla Koutsopetria Archaeological Project is looking down the home stretch of the 2009 field season.  I find myself repeating in my head each morning: "if I can only make it through Friday, we'll be fine...".  Our enthusiastic group of student volunteers begin to leave on Sunday morning and the senior staff will shift their focus from the dirty work of excavation to the tidier work of producing final reports.  As part of the end-game process, the senior staff has met regularly to parse out our top priorities for the next 10 days on the island.  What absolutely has to get done before we leave?  We must process some of our finds -- especially those from secure or sensitive contexts, we must draw and photographs trenches before they are backfilled, and we must produce comprehensive reports on each area excavated. 

A few of our trenches still need considerable work to bring them to a successful conclusion.  One of the cruel realities of excavation is that the most sensitive contexts tend to appear at the end of the season.  At least three of our trenches -- one on Vigla, one in Koutsopetria, and one on Kokkinokremos -- are finishing up over the next few days with the most delicate kind of excavation.  Teams in each trench scrape down floors, carefully remove floor packing, or excavate foundation trenches related to significant walls in order to extract the chronologically significant ceramics to ensure the we do not contaminate the material in these contexts with material from other less secure layers.

I've both spent time in the trenches and digitizing trench plans to make sure that a digital plan exists for each excavated stratigraphic unit.  We've also begun to enter the ceramic data produced by Scott Moore in the museum into our finds database.  Entering data while in the field ensures that we can analyze results on the fly and produce a final report for the Department of Antiquities quickly and efficiently at the end of season.

So the blogging may slow down as we are faced with the frantic dash to the finish of the PKAP season, but fear not, we'll keep you in the loop.