The Fred Winter Collection

Relief on the front of the theatre scaena at Perge. (Professor Fred Winter, 1988)

A Multipolar Economic World in 19th-Century Greece; More Amphipolitics

The history of Early Modern Greece as seen from the perspectives of studies and overviews in English is one of the end of the period of Ottoman control, the revolt to free parts of the Greek-speaking lands, the creation of a new territorial state under foreign imposed monarchies, the bitter internal politics that led to adventurism and national bankruptcy and the slow expansion of the territory of the nation. This is mostly a history featuring prominent men, revolts, wars and international relations with an emphasis on the government in Athens. There is much more, however, that has been written in Greek concerning this formative period and many more ways to look at Greece in the “long 19th century” between 1798 and 1912.

On Wednesday, November 26th at 7:30 pm in the Institute’s Library Professor Athanasios Gekas, the Hellenic Heritage Chair in Modern Greek History in the Department of History at York University in Ontario will give a lecture entitled, “Vanished States. A Regional Approach to the History of the Greek State in the Long Nineteenth Century (1798-1912)”.

The recent controversy surrounding Greece has revived debates on the history of Greek state formation. In the past, historians and social scientists of Modern Greece suffered from the ‘backwardness syndrome’ - how ‘modern’ the Greek State was in comparison to European states - and placed too much emphasis on the ‘success’ of the nation-state after the revolution of 1821. The talk suggests that we think more broadly chronologically and conceptually to include various island states, now vanished, that formed and were gradually absorbed by the Greek Kingdom during the long nineteenth century: the Ionian State, the Principality of Samos and the Cretan Republic. A regional approach allows us to compare and contrast the various trajectories and regional histories of economies, institutions and identities and avoid a teleological and homogenizing approach to the formation of the Greek state. The history of these states explains the dependencies of modern Greece to colonial empires (British, French, Russian) and the Ottoman Empire during a period of escalating antagonisms in the Mediterranean and stresses continuities instead of presumed radical breaks by showing the role of empire on Greek state formation.

A more nuanced picture of how Greece came to have the characteristics it has today awaits you on Wednesday.

More Amphipolitics

Until last Friday night I had resolved not to comment further on the excavation of the Kasta tumulus at Amphipolis. When I saw, however, my colleague Prof. Maria Liston who is a physical anthropologist at the University of Waterloo interviewed via Skype on Alpha TV concerning what might be learned from the human skeletal remains that were found in/around the grave below the floor in the third, innermost chamber I knew it was a sign for a “final” review of the situation. Maria’s considered general observations were reinforced by Prof. Sevi Triantaphyllou’s comments in the Sunday edition of To Bima. Sevi is another experienced physical anthropologist who teaches at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. She heads up the team excavating and studying the human skeletal remains from the cemetery at Petras. She also studied the skeletal remains from the Mycenaean cemetery at Ayia Sotira in the Peloponnesos excavated by a team from Brock University.

SKAI TV produced an animated 3D video of the tumulus and tomb (http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite4_1_17/11/2014_544664) to assist in understanding what has been found. An imaginative presentation of what the burial assemblage of the presumed male might have looked like was published in the Saturday edition of Ta Nea. Unfortunately there is no evidence that I know of from the excavation which would support such a “reconstruction”. It looks like the Archaic-period warrior-burial assemblages from the Archontiko cemetery to the NW of Pella. An unfortunate consequence of the publication of these images is that there are people who think that this was in fact found in the tomb.

In essence, since what has been reported in the press releases from the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the accompanying images are very incomplete in regard to where exactly the bones were found and how complete was the skeleton, no one outside of the excavation’s physical anthropologist can say anything about the biological sex, height, age or physical condition of the deceased at death. All speculation as to whom this individual may have been related by using DNA analysis is very premature to say the least. This is especially true as no archaeological evidence has been presented so far to date the internment of the deceased. The skeleton could have occurred as a reuse of the tomb later than the actual construction of the tomb. This is another example of the rush to judgment in the Greek media concerning almost all aspects of this most unusual monument with little definitive information to go on. The numerous and frequent statements of certainty that have been presented about who was buried in the tomb, by whom and why, the date of its construction, whether it was unplundered or plundered (and, if so, how many times and when), as well as the potential meaning(s) for the modern Greek nation have dulled the collective senses.

There have been increasing critiques in the social media of this excavation and the methods used, on how and why information concerning the finds have been communicated as has been done so far and on the use of the “finds” to reinforce entrenched political views. There are personality clashes to add spice to this admixture. With all of the pressing issues relating to stewardship and protection of the country’s rich and varied cultural heritage and landscapes being pushed aside to promote touristic development projects, the ongoing, often melodramatic, spectacle called the Amphipolis excavation acts to divert public attention and discussion from what is important in the long term.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Arch of Hadrian in Antalya. (Professor Fred Winter, 1988)

Museums and Exhibitions in the North

Recently my wife and I had the opportunity to visit the Archaeological Museum in Thessaloniki as well as Philip II’s Tomb Museum at Vergina and the new Archaeological Museum at Pella. It had been some time since we saw so many archaeological museums in a short space of time. It provided us with an opportunity to assess the state of museology in northern Greece.

Although the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki is well-known and well-liked by us, it had two surprises. The first was a temporary exhibition along the walls of the entrance hall. The exhibition is called “Letter from the Underground. Writing in Methone, Pieria: late 8th / early 7th century BC”. The subject of the exhibition were the 191 incised and painted ceramic vessels that were found in a huge deposit of broken pottery in an unfinished basement at ancient Methone on the southwestern edge of the Thermaic Gulf. Methone was the earliest Greek colony in the northern Aegean, founded in 733/2 BC by a group originally from Eretria on Euboea.

The material in the exhibition is a sample of the inscriptions and potter’s marks that were incised and painted on these vessels. Some of these inscriptions are among the earliest known in the Greek world, as well as the earliest found so far in the northern Aegean and in Macedonia. What makes this presentation stand out to me, besides the unique nature of the material, is that accompanying descriptions (in Greek and in English) and captions contextualize so well both the meanings of these brief texts and their place in the development of Greek writing. Further, the purposes of these “writings” and the wide economic connections of the colony are clearly demonstrated. The presentation is erudite as well as accessible even to the non-epigrapher.

The second exhibition is in the lower level, spread over two rooms. It is entitled “Europa in Greece. Colonies and Coins from the Collection of Alpha Bank”. Using the myth of Europa as the organizing theme, the exhibit presents Greek colonizing activity beyond the Aegean basin in the Late Geometric and Archaic periods. This is visualized using mainly coins from the Alpha Bank Numismatic Collection and some other artifacts. The colonies of selected Greek city states are presented as trees with branches. It is a simple but clever means to convey the breadth of the spread of Greek societies to the coasts of the Black Sea, the central and western Mediterranean and North Africa. This is the first “globalization” of what we now call Europe.

So it is well worth visiting or re-visiting the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki in the next few months to see these exhibitions and the spectacular permanent displays there.

In September the new Archaeological Museum at ancient Pella opened on the heights to the north overlooking the archaeological site. This is a spacious, large, state-of-the-art archaeological museum that displays a large selection of the finds from the site as well as the spectacular burial assemblages from the Iron Age cemetery at nearby Archontiko. The informative displays and reconstructions that were in the old museum have been augmented by a wider range of finds, including some of the pebble mosaics, large images, more reconstructions, and more texts describing the geomorphology of the region, the development of the settlement, its role as the capital of the Macedonian kingdom and its subsequent history. The displays are logically organized, well-placed and well-lit. The texts that accompany them are mostly readable without having to stoop at close range. The wealth and quantity of the material requires time to see and to appreciate. The view of the expansive site and the basin from in front of the museum puts many things in a better context. This should be a must-see site and museum on any visit to northern Greece.

At Vergina it was familiar territory. The display of artifacts from the tombs and graves are around the preserved architectural monuments all encased in the artificial mound built over them. All of this is in very dark spaces, as the lighting level is very low. The enormous quantity and quality of the finds from these monuments as well as other graves in the area is overwhelming. The normally large crowds, the commentaries of the tour guides, the small size of the descriptive labels and other texts, as well as the lack of lighting on them, combined with the general dim light make it very difficult to learn about and to appreciate properly the items on display. One leaves feeling that you have missed a great deal. For a more leisurely and rewarding visit one should be there first thing when it opens, before the tour buses arrive. As there is a new, very large archaeological museum under construction outside the village on the road towards Veria, maybe the local Ephorate of Antiquities will reduce the amount of material on display at the tombs and reorganize and re-think the display of what remains in order to create a better museum-visiting experience. The new structure can handle the overflow as well as the new finds that keep coming to light around this first capital of the Macedonian kingdom. Unfortunately the palace was not open as it is under conservation and partial reconstruction.

So Macedonia beckons. There is much more to see - including the Greek/CIG excavations at Argilos - besides the tumulus at Amphipolis!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Rockcut "throne of Cybele" from the acropolis at Midas City. (Professor Fred Winter, 1987)

Swedish Archaeology in Greece in the Interwar Period; Rachel Dewan's Awesome Summer Adventure

In 1922 the Greek government gave Swedish archaeologists a permit to dig at ancient Asine in the Argolid. Because of the participation of Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden who was a close friend of the Greek royal family the excavation was able to export the finds to Sweden for conservation and study until the 1930s. In 1997 the late Dr. Berit Wells, then Director of the Swedish Institute in Athens purchased a file with documents relating to the Archaeological Museum in Nafplio. When the file was examined it contained documents relating to the excavations of the Swedish archaeologists digging in the Argolid in the Interwar Years which had come from files of the Directorate of Archaeology in the then Ministry of Religious Affairs and National Education.

On Monday, November 10th at 18:30 Dr. Arto Penttinen (Director, Swedish Institute in Athens) and Dr. Aris Anagnostopoulous (Assistant Director, Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens) will give a lecture in Greek entitled, «1920-1940, δύο δεκαετίες σουηδικών ανασκαφών στην Αργολίδα: ζητήματα της μεταφοράς ευρημάτων στη Σουηδία και ένα «χαμένο» αρχείο του μεσοπολέμου».  They will explore what this archive reveals of the details of how the unusual export of the archaeological finds to Sweden was handled and how this special permission provoked both the local community and the wider Greek society. The lecture is part of the 2014/15 Lecture Program of the Syllogos Filon tou Istotikou Archeiou tis Archaiologikis Yperesias. The lecture will be held at the Historical Archive at Psaromylingou 22 on the cusp of the Kerameikos and Psyrri Districts. The Theseio train station is the closest Metro Station.

A Former CIG Intern in the News

Two years ago this fall Rachel Dewan was our undergraduate intern from Wilfrid Laurier University. She has spent the last three summers digging on archaeological projects in eastern Crete. One weekend she and some of her fellow diggers had an exciting day hiking in the arid mountains above the village of Kavousi (Ierapetra). She shared this experience with a recent op-ed contribution in the online edition of the Globe and Mail newspaper. It is entitled “Beware the hiking trails in Greece (unless you’re a goat)”. You can read about this high adventure at:: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/beware-the-hiking-trails-in-greece-unless-youre-a-goat/article21424723/ . Go girl!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Standing column with a dedicatory inscription panel from the Temple of Zeus at Euromos. (Professor Fred Winter, 1988)