The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

City, Village, Monastery Podcasts from the Modern Greek Studies Association Meeting

I've posted podcasts from our panel at the Modern Greek Studies Association Meeting at our Squinch page. Since I haven't blogged about Squinch much lately, it's probably useful to remind my readers that it is the official website of the Archaeology of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Mediterranean Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America. We post our meeting minutes there, maintain (or not) a very out of date membership list, and post other bits of interesting new for interest group members. The most valuable thing about the site, however, is a little section of podcasts.

We could do better with these. In fact, since our interest group was founded, we have organized panels at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America three times (counting this coming year), at the Byzantine Studies Conference (in 2007), and now at the MGSA meeting, but have only prepared podcasts for a few of these events. Moreover, members of the interest group have undoubtedly given numerous lectures around the world and only one, Timothy Gregory's lecture at the Gennadius Library in 2008 appears on the page.

As the acting web master for Squinch and the Medieval and Post-Medieval Interest Group, I'd encourage any member who gives a public talk to consider recording it and sending it along so that we can continue to expand our collection of podcasts. The only equipment that you need is a little hand held recorder (generally costing less than $80). I generally edit the podcasts using Audacity, a free audio editing program that is nearly intuitive to use.

For those of you too busy to follow the link to the podcasts in this blog post, I've made the talks available here:

1. Athens in the 19th Century: Archaeological Landscapes and Competing Pasts
Effie Athanassopoulos, University of Nebrask-Lincoln
Abstract

2. Ancient Corinth from the Ottoman Empire to the Archaeologists
Amelia Brown, Princeton University
Abstract

3. Between Sea and Mountain: The Archaeology of a 20th-Century ‘Small World’ in the Upland Basins of the Southeastern Korinthia
William R. Caraher, University of North Dakota, David K. Pettegrew, Messiah College, Timothy E. Gregory, Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia and Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory, Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia
Abstract

4. The Sacred Grip: Landscape, Art and Architecture in Mount Menoikeion (19th-20th Centuries)
Nikolas Bakirtzis, The Cyprus Institute, Kostis Kourelis Franklin and Marshall College, and Matthew Milliner, Princeton University
Abstract

Next time you give a talk some place, consider recording it and passing it along to me to post at the Squinch website!

Michael Fronda's "Anarchy, Rivalry, and the Beginnings of the Roman Empire"

For all of you who were unable to attend Michael Fronda's lecture on Thursday, I have made a podcast of the lecture available.  Click here to download the Fronda Lecture.

Three things really stand out about Fronda's lecture:

1. Modern Models and Ancient Evidence. The model that he used to understand the expansion of the Early and Middle Roman Republic called for the identification of so-called "enduring rivalries" between states that Rome exploited to enforce her hegemony over the Italian peninsula.  This model derived from international relations theory and had clear roots in the Cold War efforts to not only understand but also the justify the binary world of Soviet - US relations.  Despite the very clear historical context for the model's development, it suited the ancient evidence admirably.  This was a remarkable example of how history draws upon the present to understand the past.  While this may seem like an obvious observation, it will be an excellent point of departure for our undergraduate methods students who often struggle to understand how the present molds the past without slipping into a kind of simplistic presentism.

2. Text and Landscape. Mike's talk on Thursday (as well as his less formal talk on Friday afternoon in the Department of History) emphasized the role of texts in revealing the political landscape of Italy.  While Mike did not explicit use the word "landscape" in his talk and certainly did not employ the various models that scholars of the ancient landscape have recently come to favor, he nevertheless read the political topography of Italy in a way that linked very local relationships to regional (or even global) regimes of power.  He gave several examples of how the Romans became involved in adjudicating very local territorial disputes and highlighted how the looming threat of Roman political and military power could exacerbated or even produced local rivalries. The projection of Roman power on the local level and typically mediated through local concerns is surely a topic which would reward post-colonial theorizing.  More importantly, it showed how local landscapes could be shaped and "distorted" by the regional powers in ways that might not necessarily be apparent on the ground.

3. The crowd!  As I noted on Friday, Mike's lecture attracted over 70 people and it is clear that others turned away at the prospect of standing throughout.  While we did what we could to promote the talk on campus, it was great to see folks in attendance who I would not have thought to be interested in Ancient Rome. 

Enjoy the lecture and thanks to everyone who helped make the talk a success.

Teaching and Lecture Thursday

Two quick posts today rolled into one.

First, a Teaching Thursday must read: Anne Kelsch's thoughtful post on the Cost of a Cheap Education.  Her post is a critical response to a recent article in Washington Monthly which speculated on the disruptions to American systems of college and university education if it became possible to offer "College for $99 a Month".  Anne's post is a call to reconsider the purpose of higher education in the U.S. Join the conversation by posting a comment! Or, if you have a bigger idea, drop me a line about authoring a post on Teaching Thursday.

Second, if you haven't succumbed to media saturation, then you probably know that Michael Fronda of McGill University will be speaking today at 4 pm, in the East Asia Room of the Chester Fritz Library.  His talk is entitled "Anarchy, Rivalry, and the Beginnings of the Roman Empire".  A small reception will follow the talk.  My sense is that there will be a good crowd on hand, so, it wouldn't hurt to come early, just in case.  The talk is sponsored by the Department of History, The Department of Political Science and Public Administration, and the title sponsor is the Cyprus Research Fund.  The talk fits into the goals of the Cyprus Research Fund by working to introduce students and faculty to cutting edge research in the study of the Mediterranean World.  Complementing, Prof. Fronda's talk will be a preview exhibition of photographs taken the Pyla-Koustopetria Archaeological Project''s Artist-in-Residence, Ryan Stander entitled Topos/Chora.  For information on how to contribute to the fund and support these and other events both in Cyprus and in North Dakota, check out our support page.

See you at the talk!

Michael Fronda Lecture at UND

The big news this week is that Professor Michael Fronda of McGill University has agreed to come and present the inaugural Cyprus Research Fund lecture here at the University of North Dakota.  The talk will be at 4 pm on September 17th in the Chester Fritz Library's East Asia Room.

The title of his talk is "Anarchy, Rivalry and the beginnings of the Roman Empire". 

Here's an abstract for it:

Professor Fronda's paper will examine the growth of Roman power in the ancient world by focusing on how the city of Rome came to dominate the Italian Peninsula.  Through an innovative use of contemporary international relations theory, Prof. Fronda argues that Rome capitalized on the tendency for ancient state relations to be anarchic, on the one hand, but in some way limited by enduring rivalries between particular states, on the other.  Rome’s ability to exploit these fundamental characteristics of ancient, and perhaps all, states led ultimately to the city’s domination of Italy and provided important lessons for the city’s conquest of the Mediterranean world.

The talk is open to the public and a reception will follow.

Mike is my oldest friends in academia and it's great that he's agreed to come and present this talks. It's also exciting that the talk is sponsored by the Cyprus Research Fund and will be the first in a series of annual talks which seek to introduce the Mediterranean world to University of North Dakota community.  Mike is particularly suitable candidate for the inaugural lecture because he has not only spent time working with us on Cyprus, but because he returns each year to the Mediterranean as both a scholar and a teacher. For more information on the Cyprus Research Fund and, in particular, how to give to this fund, click here.

Support for the talk has also been provided by the Department of Political Science and Public Administration.

Treasures from Moving Merrifield

A second post today, but be sure to read today's main post.  I was chatting with our Department Chair, Kim Porter, in her former office and couldn't help but notice this on the back of a bookshelf:

She had asked Gordon Iseminger about it and he suggested that it might have been done by Charles Carter.  His speciality was Near Eastern Languages, with a particular focus on the Hittites, but he worked to identify and translate the fragmentary hieroglyphics inscription held by the University Archives.  It could have also been done by either of the subsequent ancient historians at the University of North Dakota: Linda Ricketts who wrote her dissertation on Ptolemaic Egypt or Walter Ellis, my immediate predecessor, who also worked on the same period.

So what does it say?

Is it a curse on anyone who dares to move the Department of History?

UPDATE:

Chuck Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, Near Easternist, and digital librarian extraordinary, identified the drawing as "a sketch of one of the reliefs at Yazilikayathis which depicted Tudhalyia IV in the embrace of his god":

And thought that it was likely to be Charles Carter's work.

Abstract for the Modern Greek Studies Association Annual Meeting

Over the last week, I've been working with Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory, Timothy Gregory, David Pettegrew to prepare an abstract for the Modern Greek Studies Association Annual Meeting next year in Vancouver on a panel coordinated by the Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology of the Mediterranean Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America.  The paper will focus on our work at the site of Lakka Skoutara and its environs in the southeastern Corinthia.  This is an area originally documented by the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey (2000-2008) and then by the Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project.

It's always challenging to work on a research paper as a group, but in this case, the potential is remarkable.  David, Tim, Lita, and I all conceive of our research at this site in significantly different ways.  Lita is interested in the larger systems in which the site and the regions functions, Tim is an expert on ceramic evidence and the perspectives it can offer, David's interest focus on archaeological methods and formation processes, and I am interested in embedding the site at the intersection of the archaeological and historical discourse.  Such productive tensions will undoubtedly enrich the work and our own understanding of the sites, the region, and the process of archaeology in Greece.

Here's the abstract:

"Between sea and mountain: the archaeology of a 20th century “small world” in the upland basins of the southeastern Korinthia"  

Between the villages of Sophiko and Korphos in the southeastern Korinthia are a number of geographically well-defined and fertile upland basins or poljes, each one accompanied into modern times by a cluster of farmsteads and used for agriculture and pastoral activities. The heavily forested slopes adjacent to these basins were systematically exploited for resin production, a flourishing industry in the wider region especially after WWII, which is now in serious decline. Although physically isolated from major urban centers, these microecologies played a vital role in the 20th century in the subsistence of its local population, which originated primarily in the nearby mountainous village of Sophiko.  Placing these isolated, yet deeply interconnected places into their regional context provides another key case-study for the contingent character of the Greek countryside in the 19th and 20th century.

Between 2001 and 2009, the authors investigated these basins, with a primary focus on the largest, known locally as Lakka Skoutara, through two archaeological projects: the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey (2001-03) and the Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project (2008-09).  The former studied Lakka Skoutara as part of its emphasis on the archaeology of the modern period (19th-20th centuries), while the latter conducted archaeological investigations in several of these basins as part of a larger regional survey of the Saronic coastline.

Typical of the other basins, Lakka Skoutara presents a remarkably robust assemblage of material, including domestic and religious architecture, agricultural installations, and ceramics scatters.  This material reflects the dynamism of changing land use patterns in the Greek rural landscape as well as the formation processes and life cycles of use, reuse, and abandonment connected to domestic residence.  By combining archaeological survey with oral information obtained from local residents, we were able to reconstruct part of the landscape history of this small, low-density rural settlement and its relationship to the wider world. This micro-level analysis of the site complements the broader perspectives offered by regional level data collection, oral history, and comparative studies from elsewhere in Greece.  Lakka Skoutara and its neighboring poljes offer both snap shots of historical processes affecting the countryside over the last two centuries as well as the dynamic archaeological environments of semi-abandoned settlements recorded over the much narrower horizon of a decade of field work.

Kilns at the University of North Dakota

The University of North Dakota has had a long tradition of producing ceramics.  This grew initially out of the University's interest in exploring the potential of natural resources in the state.  In 1910, the Department of Ceramics (originally in the College of Engineering) hired Margaret Cable, a noted potter, to direct a program dedicated to the use of North Dakota clay.  Today, "Cable Pottery" produced by Margaret Cable or her students at UND, is a sought after collectors item and many would argue that it marked the high-point of the North Dakota ceramics industry.

This past weekend, the modern descendents of Margaret Cable, Wes Smith, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, invited me and my wife over the check out their firing of a wood kiln on UND's campus.  Since I spend lots of time looking at pottery on the ground, on my computer screen, and converted into pixels in various funky-colored GIS maps, I figured it was a good opportunity to do some ethnoarchaeology and attempt to understand the process of pottery production.

The first thing that struck me was how small and simple the kiln was.  It was built of dry bricks (no mortar) with a simple vaulted roof which was constructed initially in a wood form.

 

One side of the kiln has the chimney and the other a brick wall that is constructed after the pots have been put in the kiln.  The kiln has several sets of "passive dampers" which were basically loose bricks that the operator could slide in and out to control the amount of oxygen entering the kiln space. 

 

When some of the dampers near the chimney were closed causing the kiln to draw more violently from one end, the resulting flame was impressive.

Students were in charge of stoking the kiln with wood and it fired to over 2000 degrees!!  It ran all day on less than a chord of wood. 

I was struck by the relatively simple construction of the kiln and its efficiency.  Wes built the kiln in less than a weekend.  Certainly these kinds of kilns must have dotted the ancient landscape producing much of the everyday utility wares. 

Being a Tourist in the Eastern Mediterranean

I just finished reading Philip Duke's short book, The Tourists Gaze, the Cretans Glance: Archaeology and Tourism on a Greek Island. (Walnut Creek, CA 2007).  Aside from the cool title, the book provides a succinct overview of the relationship between archaeology on Crete and tourism with a main emphasis on Bronze Age, Minoan sites.  There is a nice review of the book over at Archaeolog.

What interested me the most was Duke's effort to problematize the relationship between archaeologists, the tourist industry (ranging from efforts of the Greek state to present archaeological sites to small, local businesses), and the foreign tourist.  The boundaries between these groups, of course, are fairly artificial: even Duke in his role of tourist ethnographer become in some contexts a tourist himself.  This same feeling comes to anyone who spends part of every year in a foreign country working as an archaeologist; the feeling of shifting from coddled tourist to specialist interlocutor occurs quite regularly as one passes from one environment to the next.  The complex interplay between being a tourist and an archaeologist is particularly pronounced when leading undergraduate and even graduate students around Greece and Cyprus in the summer months.

For example, as a group, we've been flummoxed when an archaeological site is poorly marked, lacking on-site (or even published!) documentation, overgrown, or simply confusing.  In some cases, of course,  the challenge of working out the relationships between the evidence preserved on-site is invigorating and rewarding.  In many more cases, however, it is just confounding as the myriad of complex site-formation processes conspire to obscure the process of excavation, the relationships between the visible remains and features, and the overall significance of the site itself.  At these moments, there is a natural desire to be led through a site and a willingness to accept the hegemonic presentation provided by signs, labels, paths, and pamphlets (whether produced by an archaeologist or a member of the tourist industry or whomever). 

In other cases, especially at popular destinations which tend to be thoroughly presented, the presentation itself becomes the basis for a critique.  Even a beginning archaeology student can often see through overly nationalistic or tremendously simplified presentations of sites. In fact, at some sites in Greece and Cyprus, I've come to anticipate the relatively simple presentations and use them as the basis for discussion the visible archaeology in much the same way that thoughtful tourists would respond to Evans' reconstruction of the Minoan palaces at Knossos. 

Finally, putting together itineraries for students forces one to consider explicitly the basic tourist infrastructure that contextualizes site visits.  For example, a stretch of lovely (if touristy) taverna restaurants will often make a site a more appealing destination.  The requirements for a tour bus or even good access by road conditions the narrative of site visits even for even a group of experienced archaeologist.  In fact, the accessibility of a site regularly features in the larger archaeological narrative.  Sites that are more difficult to access or presented in confusing ways encourages a sense of remoteness, exoticism, and intellectual privilege derived largely from the contrast to the well-marked sites visited by the "average tourist".  So, even the most intellectual visitor, tourist, or archaeologist often draws upon expectations promoted by the "hegemonic" narrative produced by the tourist industry in all its manifestations.

Of course, the hybrid state of the typical archaeologist/tourist is precisely the position that allowed Duke to critique the "tourists' gaze" so well.  The real charm of his slim volume is that it seems like a nice addition to the reading list for our own study tour/field school next summer. 

More Small Town Archaeology...

The archaeological landscape of Grand Forks, North Dakota continues to amaze me.  In August we noted the substantial piles of earth and bricks excavated from the foundation of a new house being built on a lot abandoned since the flood of 1997 (more here).

Last week this earth has been graded into the beginnings of a proper yard around the now half finished home.  Grading the earth has distributed the bricks and other cultural material in a neat halo around the house.

Next door another new foundation has been excavated.  Doing our best imitation of Infiltration we checked out the big hole in the ground and snooped around the piles of dirt taken from the hole.  The foundations of the earlier house are clearly visible in the scarp of the new foundation.

It is also possible to see in the scarp the dark earth presumably deposited by the flood and later dumped into the basement of the house in a neat lens. 

In the excavated soil, we found a nice little assemblage of material including a threaded glass stopper, a square bottle, and plates with blue and white glaze.  The square bottle, stopper and perhaps blue glazed plate date to earlier than the middle of the 20th century and so they should not be associated with the final phase of habitation at the site.

Scrapping away the top soil nearby exposed a more haunting reminder of the final days of the house: a plastic sand bag and sand perhaps positioned to protect the house from the rising waters of the Red River.

We've been fixing up our turn of the century home this last month.  These repairs and modifications left us with a neat example of provisional discard. 

The bricks will work well in our garden, but the old aluminum shutters will probably find their way into a modern midden.

Grand Forks is a formation process laboratory!

Spolia in the Garden

This summer I got a chance to hang out a bit with Jon Frey at the site of Isthmia.  For the past several years, he's been working on understanding the use of spolia -- that is bits and pieces of older monuments -- that were built into the Hexamilion wall in Late Antiquity.  His interests derive from his excellent dissertation on the topic: Speaking through spolia : the language of architectural reuse in the fortifications of late Roman Greece.  In Late Antiquity, the use of spolia became a regular practice in monumental architecture.  Scholars from the "bad old days" understood this Late Antique practice as evidence for the decline in skills among Late Antique craftsmen and the weakness of the Late Roman economy.  For this earlier generation of scholars, the use of spolia reflected the decline of ancient culture.  Now most scholar recognize the use of spolia as an intentional choice on the part of Late Antique architects, and the combination of old blocks, columns, and even inscriptions gave Late Antique buildings the desired variatio (variation) that was central to the aesthetic of the day.  Scholars who study spolia have used it to explore issues of Late Antique and Byzantine attitudes toward earlier buildings and how they sought to incorporate, appropriate and even commemorate these earlier structures in their own monumental environment.

As I mentioned in my brief note on the Kourion basilica on Cyprus, the desire for spolia among Late Antique and Byzantine builders presumably influenced the archaeological processes at play during the abandonment of Late Antique and earlier buildings.  At Kourion, for example, a there is evidence for a group of workers who systematically dismantled parts of the episcopal precinct in preparation for the transfer of parts of that building to another site.  Similar systematic quarrying of site appears elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean.  The energy exerted to obtain high quality spolia does not appear to have been much less intensive than the initial quarrying of stones.

In my own community, Grand Forks, North Dakota, recent construction projects have uncovered the remains of earlier buildings destroyed a decade ago in a catastrophic flood.  The scatter of bricks, concrete, pipes, and even everyday objects form a halo around a new home.  Eventually, I would guess, these fragments of the past will be removed or turned under a well manicured lawn.

As my wife and I begin to do some rather significant restoration work on our own 100 year old house, we've had opportunities to produce spolia of our own.  Being archaeologically inclined we could not simply discard these fragments of earlier construction!  I was admiring my wife's herb garden the other day and noticed that she had lined the space with bricks that had been quarried from a wall in our house.  These bricks had surrounded a hole in an interior wall of our house through which the chimney for a coal or wood stove passed.  Judging by the color and fabric of the bricks, they were probably made from Red River clays -- most likely at the local Red River Valley Brick Company.  They are soft, buff to red in color and tend to have a fair amount of lime in them.  Similar bricks can be seen in our now crumbling foundations.