Digital Technology & Virtual Reality at Ancient Eleon

Field archaeologists and classics scholars are using digital technologies in diverse ways that are transforming investigations of the ancient world. At ancient Eleon in central Greece, our project is a collaboration of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Boeotia, the University of Victoria, and Wellesley College. Our project has embraced digital archaeology as a guiding principle for our recording of excavation progress, analysis of finds, documentation of contexts, and presenting the site in new and exciting ways.

Our digital project began in 2015, when Jordan Tynes, Wellesley College, began supervision of our drone-based photography to create a digital model of the site’s topography and major architectural remains, including Eleon’s Late Archaic polygonal wall and Medieval tower. [Above, Jordan Tynes launches a drone on site (left), and scans an Eleon artifact in the Thebes Archaeological Museum with the assistance of conservator Sophia Michailoglou (right).] We were excited, from the beginning, by how the Pix4D combined images to create both 2D photo-mosaics of high resolution and 3D models of great accuracy. [Below, a comparison of an aerial photo of the polygonal wall at Eleon (left) with the rendering of a 3D photogrammetric model.]

With additional support for equipment and student-training from Wellesley College’s Friends of the Library, we developed a protocol to track excavation results with daily drone flights and more detailed photogrammetry of select trenches. Using an Artec Spider hand-held scanner we began to create digital models of artifacts, accurate to 0.5 mm. Fortunately, this work coincided with our focus on the burials of the Blue Stone Structure, producing highly detailed models for the Early Mycenaean tombs, their contents, and the surrounding architecture [seen below].

Back at Wellesley’s Knapp Center, we have created a Virtual Reality experience that offers a high quality simulation of the excavated remains within the Unity game engine. A preliminary version of this interactive model presents the tombs as they were revealed at the end of the 2016 excavation season (link to video). We are now working on a version that uses data from the fully uncovered Blue Stone Structure, including important tombs just beyond the enclosure. Wearing a headset and navigating with gaming controllers, users are able to traverse the tomb architecture, read labels about the excavation results, and manipulate select artifacts that are placed on a virtual table beside the excavation trenches [Below, an Early Mycenaean brichrome jug as represented through digital scanning (left) and controlled within the VR environment by Wellesley student Kate Hall (right)].

This past season, a team of digital archaeology students collected new imagery of architecture and artifacts to ensure that the model incorporatescomplete and consistent information. We also had the pleasure of sharing the Virtual Reality prototype with our full excavation team in Greece, gathering feedback from those who know the site best! [Below Brendan Burke (left) and Janelle Sadarananda (right) evaluate Virtual Eleon, with Jordan Tynes and Nefeli Theocharou observing.]

The field of archaeology will continue to develop new and exciting applications from the Digital Humanities. We’re proud that our research team at ancient Eleon works at the forefront of these research methodologies, and we hope to continue to do so in the years to come.

A selection of 3D models and a video of user interaction within our prototype environment can be viewed at the excavation project website: https://ebapexcavations.org/digital

Bryan Burns & Brendan Burke
Wellesley College & University of Victoria; co-directors of Eleon Excavations

The Fred Winter Collection

Athens: Agora: view of front sides of Block A256 (Professor Fred Winter, 1984)

Argilos 2019

Étudiants au travail dans le bâtiment « L »

La mission archéologique gréco-canadienne d’Argilos 2019 a pris fin le 6 juillet après 6 semaines de fouilles, consacrées pour l’essentiel à la poursuite du dégagement du grand bâtiment commercial « L ». La fouille a été menée par une grosse équipe, constituée d’une quarantaine d’étudiants stagiaires encadrés par des archéologues et assistés par des ouvriers d’expérience. À cette équipe se sont joints plusieurs spécialistes (archéozoologues, archéobotanistes, céramologues, conservateurs, etc.) et tous ont fait de cette campagne une belle réussite !

Chloe, Silvia, Peter et Isabela dans la pièce « L2 »

L’objectif premier était de terminer la fouille des 12 ateliers/boutiques de ce bâtiment commercial afin d’en préciser les phases d’occupation et les produits qu’on y fabriquait et ou vendait. Nous savons maintenant que la construction du bâtiment remonte au milieu du 6^ème siècle avant notre ère, ce qui en fait le plus ancien édifice commercial de la Grèce de l’âge du fer. Les archéobotanistes ont apporté leur concours pour nous aider à comprendre ce qui était entreposé dans ces boutiques.

Les archéobotanistes, Sofia et Anastasia à l’œuvre!

Notre archéozoologue, Angelos Gkotsinas, a poursuivi son étude des ossements provenant de ces échoppes et un nouveau membre de notre équipe, Dimitra Mylona, s’est intéressé aux arêtes de poissons. Les résultats préliminaires de ses analyses indiquent que les habitants d’Argilos, bien que vivant en bord de mer, appréciaient tout autant les poissons des lacs et des rivières de la région. Justine Lefebvre a continué son étude des objets de bronze, Laure Sarah Éthier Boutet celle de la céramique hellénistique.

Les découvertes ont été nombreuses, parmi lesquelles une grosse jarre servant à contenir des liquides, munie d’un bec verseur. Il a fallu beaucoup de patience à notre restauratrice, Vasileia Liakakou, pour nettoyer et remonter ce vase.

Découverte d’une grande jarre.

La restauratrice, Vasileia Liakakou, au travail et Keven Ouellet le curieux !

Il faut aussi rendre compte du travail exceptionnel de nos cuisiniers, Alexandre Perreault et Jeremy Morissette, qui ont du nourrir tous les jours une équipe de plus de 60 personnes !

Buffet froid après une journée de grosse chaleur !

Le cuisinier, Alexandre Perreault, devant son BBQ. 

Rappelons que la mission archéologique d’Argilos est une école de fouille où les étudiants stagiaires, en plus de s’initier aux méthodes de fouille, apprennent à différencier les nombreuses catégories de céramique trouvées sur le site. Ils sont donc responsables du lavage et du catalogage des objets trouvés dans la pièce qu’ils fouillent.

Catalogage des objets.

Les samedis sont consacrés à des visites des principaux sites archéologiques et musées de la grande région d’Argilos (Pella, Vergina, Thessalonique, Stagira, etc.). De plus, un long weekend de trois jours est organisé sur l’île de Thasos, où les étudiants, tout en visitant les vestiges archéologiques de l’île, peuvent aussi découvrir les plaisirs de la vie moderne !

 En visite à Thasos.

Cette année, en plus de ces activités culturelles, les plus téméraires de nos membres ont escaladé la montagne la plus élevée de la région, qui culmine à 2031 mètres d’altitude !

 Au sommet du mont Kerkinis, 2031 mètres !

 Voilà donc une autre belle saison de fouille qui tire à sa fin. Un grand merci à toutes et à tous pour avoir fait en sorte qu’elle soit un grand succès !

Jacques Perreault
Professeur Titulaire, Université de Montréal; Co-directeur de la fouille

The Fred Winter Collection

Lesbos: Eressos acropolis (Professor Fred Winter, 1984)

The Inaugural season of the BEARS project: Archaeological Survey in Porto Raphti

The 2019 BEARS team on the Pounta peninsula with Raphtis island in the background.

This June a team of a dozen Canadian and international researchers and students descended on the bay of Porto Raphti in Eastern Attica in order to begin the first season of a new Canadian Institute field survey project focused on clarifying the role of the bay in its regional context throughout antiquity. We are happy to report on a very successful first season – although our team was relatively small in number, the hard work and dedication of the crew produced a great amount of information, and already after only four weeks in the field we have the beginnings of answers to our major research questions.

A view south towards of the mouth of the bay of Porto Raphti from the Perati massif to its north, showing the locations of the islands Koroni, Raphtis, and Raphtopoula and the Koroni headland.

The modern town of Porto Raphti sits astride a large bay that is divided into northern and southern sections by the small peninsula of Pounta and largely protected from nasty weather and currents by two islets that guard its mouth – the larger island of Raphtis and its tiny neighbor Raphtopoula. The northern half of the bay provides an excellent natural anchorage and is currently the site of its main harbor – a visitor to the town will see many picturesque yachts and fishing boats bobbing near the port here. The southern half of the bay is graced with many long stretches of reasonably pleasant if objectively mediocre gravely beach, popular among Athenians on summer weekends.

The northern section of the bay as seen from atop Raphtis island, showing the locations of Pounta, Raphtopoula, and the Perati cemetery.

Perhaps because of the excellent qualities of its port, the bay was the site of activity during many prehistoric and historical periods. Visitors to the region had long noted the presence of lithics and pottery datable to the Early Bronze Age (EBA) on the Pounta peninsula, a major Late Helladic IIIC (Mycenaean) cemetery known as Perati was excavated above the Erotospilia torrent bed north of the bay, and additional surface scatters of EBA and Mycenaean pottery had been noted on the Raphtis and Raphtopoula islets. In historical times the area was the site of two Classical Attic demes (Steiria and Prasiai), a Hellenistic fort occupied by Ptolemy II’s Egyptian mercenaries is attested at the site of Koroni in the southern part of the bay (parts of the site were excavated by American archaeologists in the 1960s), and there is quite a lot of poorly understood Roman material around the area, including the mysterious Augustan-era marble statue that sits atop of the Raphtis island (based on local lore holding that the statue once wielded a pair of golden scissors, it is known as the Raphtis (tailor) from which the modern area gets its name).

BEARS team members relax on the boat ride back from work.

The goals of Bays of Eastern Attica Regional Survey (BEARS) center on clarifying the nature of these known periods of habitation, and expanding our knowledge of the connections and interactions between the bay and adjacent areas, including the region of Brauron to the north. To this end, we spent most of the 2019 campaign conducting gridded collection on three known sites (the Pounta peninsula, the Raphtis island, and the site of Koroni). At Pounta, we hoped that a controlled and intensive collection of lithic material from the surface would indicate whether cores of obsidian were being processed at the site – we expected that this bay would be a logical location for the intake of Melian obsidian to eastern Attica (an area with a huge amount of activity and lots of obsidian from this period). On Raphtis, we hoped to clarify a point of contention among scholars of Mycenaean Greece – whether the settlement associated with the burials at the Perati cemetery might have been located on this rocky islet. At Koroni, we wanted to address another controversial point – whether the supposedly single-period 3^rd-century Ptolemaic camp here really had a longer history, with Archaic or Classical periods of use that might be associated with the deme of Prasiai. In addition to our gridded collections on these sites, we mapped features on Koroni, Pounta, and Raphtis, conducted some extensive investigations (somewhat humorously known as “creative walking” exercises by the students) of the hinterlands and valleys that connect Porto Raphti to neighboring regions, and conducted drone photography in order to generate high quality orthophotos of the sites we documented.

A BEARS team member entering data into a project iPad while mapping features with the dGPS on the Koroni peninsula.

Although I may be highly biased as the director of the project, from my point of view our finds were quite spectacular, both in terms of quality and in terms of their value for answering our research questions. Usually surface sherds are heavily worn, and diagnostic sherds like rims, handles, and bases are few and far between, while lithics generally comprise a vast minority of the material collected. But the finds that we were generating from our grid squares were more like what you would expect from an excavation. On Raphtis we not only found that the island was covered with an extremely dense scatter of LH IIIC and Roman pottery, but that much of this pottery was incredibly well-preserved – our teams on Raphtis collected thousands of sherds of painted Mycenaean material, which is extremely rare to encounter on the surface. We also recorded an abundance of small finds, including weights, figurines, glass, and several Roman lamps. Likewise, at Koroni many of the amphora fragments and tiles looked like they were just made yesterday. At Pounta the quantity of obsidian was quite shocking for a survey archaeologist – we collected over 7,500 lithics from only a few dozen 20x20 meter grid squares.

An array of figurines and other small finds alongside many crates of pottery from the first season of BEARS in our lab at the Brauron Museum.

Needless to say, all of this material was immensely helpful in moving us towards answering our research questions. It appears that obsidian cores were indeed being processed on Pounta, but there may have been some other kind of processing happening there as well – the only finished tools identified by our lithics analyst were tools for perforation, and we documented some unusual ground-out circular features along the peninsula, perhaps used for crushing or pounding some kind of material. The density and extent of surface finds from Raphtis suggests to us that some major activity was happening on the islet in the LH IIIC period. Whether or not it was in fact the settlement associated with the burials at Perati is something we will continue to investigate in future seasons. Finally, on Koroni our work yielded the first definitive evidence of Archaic and Classical activity from the site, in addition to a bit of LH IIIC pottery.

We only use the most sophisticated tote bags for tile weighing on the BEARS project.

All in all, the team had an excellent first season of survey. The only problem is that our students may get a false impression of what survey finds are like! If that is the worst crisis that endured during the course of the project, however, I will be very satisfied as a director.

Sarah Murray
Assistant Professor, University of Toronto; Co-Director, BEARS Project

The Fred Winter Collection

Sagalassos: views of theatre: orchestra and stagehouse from top centre of auditorium (Professor Fred Winter, 1984)

From Iced Capps to Frappes: My Summer In Greece

I read the following quote within a notebook at the Benaki Museum that states, “Athens, the city with a thousand faces and many contrasts, is waiting for you to come up with your own special reason to love it. Take a stroll beneath the Acropolis, and hear the stones telling stories and myths. If you are able to find art in every day’s life, to relax with an endless coffee in the bustling centre, to comprehend the worries of a modern-ancient city and start your evening out when Europe goes to sleep, then you will adore Athens. And take notes…” I have kept this quote with me, since the first month that I arrived, because somehow this passage captured what I had imagined my life might be like over the course of my three-month internship.

As a student who is interested in Greek social and political history, embarking on an internship within the heart of Athens allowed me to gain a new and more enlightened perspective on the history hidden within Greece. Visiting multiple ancient sites, museums and monuments as opposed to simply reading about them and seeing their pictures in textbooks was enriching. Being able to palpably contextualize the size and location of certain sites allowed me to view the ancient world through a new lens, and it truly felt like my eyes had developed their own form of virtual reality.

While working at The Canadian Institute I not only enhanced my professional skills, but I learned a vast amount about history, mythology, archiving, living abroad, academia, and even a bit of Greek! The majority of my work consisted in updating and organizing the existing archives. I was able to create an excel sheet that documented the existing electronic archives in a manner that paralleled the physical archives. I also archived a numerous amount of documents myself that dated back to the 1980s. In addition to this, I filtered the CIG website of any inconsistencies that might have existed in both the English and French version of the site. These tasks were rewarding because I knew my work was genuinely beneficial to both the Institute and to myself. It was additionally rewarding because whilst mastering my archiving skills, I also thoroughly understood the detailed history of the institute via the many archived documents I looked through. During my first month, the fellow Barbara and I had also helped with the open meeting which was a pride and honour to take part in.

Thanks to the Institute, I was also informed about many events that took place within Athens with regard to Greek history and archaeology. Attending multiple open meetings, lectures, receptions, and even a Canada Day event at the Acropolis Museum was a huge part of my learning experience. Aside from lectures, I was also able to learn a vast amount of information from the many museums and sites I visited, and even from professors within the community. I also cannot forget to mention darts night, a Canadian Institute tradition where I met many people from the archaeological community in Athens and learned to play darts.

My learning experience extended itself into my understanding of different cultural lifestyles. I learned about the details of local life on different islands (especially local cuisine), the state of the Loggerhead turtles in Zakynthos, Greek mythology via theatrical performances, and the attributes of Greek festivals such as the Miaoulia festival in Hydra. I went on many excursions but a few of my favourites include Hydra, Syros, Zakynthos, Mycenae, Olympia, and Meteora.

On every excursion that I embarked on, I was awestruck by both the artificial and natural beauty of Greece. Meteora, for example, was a place that truly left its mark on my memory. The existence and manner in which the monasteries were built is absolutely amazing.

I was ecstatic to be living in a city where I was able to immerse myself in a variety of cultural and historical experiences, such as eating dolmades beneath the acropolis with the sound of Zorba being played by a band in the restaurant. I am extremely grateful to the Canadian Institute for providing me with this unforgettable opportunity to both enrich my knowledge of Greece and to enhance my professional skills. I can say with confidence that my life has changed quite a bit in the course of three months thanks to this lasting experience, and I am already looking forward to returning to Athens again soon!

Monica Santos
York University intern, summer 2019

The Fred Winter Collection

Ankara: the great Roman thermae, with details of the piscina and the huge hypocaust area (Professor Fred Winter, 1984)

Four Down Two to Go: Life in the Trenches

It is a quiet Sunday morning at the end of July in Siteia in eastern Crete. Where else would the intrepid field archaeologist be at this time of the year? After four weeks of digging and with two more ahead of us I would have liked to have slept in, but our cat, Luna, and our son’s pug, Bella, are now accustomed to rising six days a week much, much earlier to have their breakfasts. Just two more weeks and a more normal lifestyle awaits all of us.

This is the eighth year of the Greek systematic excavations at the Pre- and Protopalatial Minoan house tomb cemetery at Petras Kephala on a hill overlooking Siteia. They are directed by Dr. Metaxia Tsipopoulou (Director Emerita, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport) who also excavated the Minoan settlement and palace at the Petras hill nearby. As I have summarized in my previous blogs over the years as Director and guest blogger, the cemetery’s history is long and complex. It was used for the interment of the elite members of the Petras community for around 1,000 years, that is, from Early Minoan IB (ca. 2800 BC) to the end of Middle Minoan IIB (ca 1800 BC).  Due to the nature of the underlying limestone bedrock where the cemetery is located, half of it is built directly on the relatively flat bedrock. The adjacent part, however, is in a sloping hollow where successive phases of house tombs were constructed one on top of the other to a depth of over 2 m!  Thus, in this area it is like digging a stratified settlement site with multiple floors. The running count at the moment is that there were at least 34 funerary structures at one time or another where the skeletal material was deposited, normally in secondary context.  For this reason the digging is complicated and slow. In the ca 4 x 4 m area that I have focused on now for three field seasons there are the remnants of ten different walls!

As the skeletal material is particularly plentiful in these house tombs the uncovering and the complete documentation of it is a slow, meticulous process carried out by an experienced team of osteoarchologists from the University of Thessaloniki. The archaeological field crew is international in scope as always, coming from the US, Ireland, Australia and Spain, besides Greece. This year I am the sole Canadian, alas. The visit by Professor Angus Smith (President, CIG Board of Directors) and two of his graduate students, Kelsea Dawn and Sydney Bryk, from Brock University provided more Canadian [Brock!] Content, if briefly. Angus presented me with a certificate from the Board of Directors that indicated that my name had been added to the “Honour Roll” plaque at the Institute for my years of service in furthering its mission. I was very touched by the recognition!

While the finds so far have not matched last year’s spectacular series of discoveries, they are nevertheless of great importance. More evidence has been uncovered that demonstrates Petras’ role in the exchange networks from Crete to the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. The number of house tombs is unsurpassed in any other contemporaneous cemetery on the island. Many of the deposits of skeletal remains have ceramic vessels as offerings that permit secure dating of the contexts. And, finally, the excavation of the ceremonial complex that was built directly on top of the ruins of the house tombs in the Post-Palatial period continues to reveal how extensive and varied it was.

This year, as last, the weather was a significant member of our crew. In addition, to the usual heatwaves and then strong winds, an unexpected  torrential rainstorm (with much lightning and thunder) struck one morning just before we were about to start our commute to the site at 6:45 am. For over 90 minutes the skies pelted the Siteia region with significant amounts of precipitation. For that day we stayed in and worked on our trench notebooks, of course. The next morning when we reached the excavations we found many of the house tombs that we were excavating had filled with water, ranging from 10 – 70 cm in depth.  Until a pump could be found an impromptu bucket brigade formed to bail out the “lakes”.  For a week or more afterwards our Munsell readings were of “damp” sediments and not the normal bone “dry”.

As in past years I have posted [“Grubbyminoan”] on Instagram a series of images with scenes from the excavations and its diggers at work and at rest, under the hashtag: #petras_excavations_2019. Please check them out!

The final two weeks of an excavation are usually the most challenging with many tasks to complete before it is “closing time” for the summer. A heatwave now would not help. That all awaits us. In the meantime, the sandy beach at Chiona at Palaikastro and a fishy lunch call. The future of the past will happen in due time.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director Emeritus, CIG