Friday, January 31, 2020

Welcome, Ben and Mae!

Earlier this month we welcomed two new interns, Ben Nyland and Mae Fernandes, who will be with us in Athens until April. Ben’s main project is to continue the digitization of documents for the Institute’s archive, while Mae is concentrating on updating and correcting the Institute's library catalogues.

Ben Nyland is a graduate of British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University where he studied archaeology. In the future he plans to continue his studies of archaeology at a graduate level.

Through his undergraduate career Ben slowly began uncovering his interest in history and the ancient world. His interests lay primarily in the monumental architecture left from centuries of Greek life, as well as the many marine sites which inhabit the adjacent waters, and how ancient remnants interact with modern peoples of the area.

While in Greece, Ben plans to obtain a more comprehensive and immersive understanding of Greek culture both modern and otherwise. He also intends to learn more about archaeology in practice to further refine his plans for future topics of study.

Mae Fernandes is in her third year at the University of Waterloo, majoring in Classics with a business minor. Her main area of interest is Greek philology, language and literature. Having encountered Greek drama in high school, she decided to take an introductory Greek course in her first year as a prospective history major. Through this course, Mae discovered a passion for languages that led her to pursue her interest as a major. In the future, she hopes to continue to learn how to better incorporate art history and other areas of Classical Studies in her understanding of peoples and societies through language and literature.

Through her experience at the Canadian Institute in Greece, Mae looks forward to gaining a more direct experience of Classical art and architecture outside the classroom and within a Greek culture.

Jonathan Tomlinson
Assistant Director

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The Fred Winter Collection

Rhodes city, acropolis, temple of Apollo, views and details (Professor Fred Winter, 1986)

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

The Fred Winter Collection

Lindos, the acropolis, telephoto view from "Tomb of Kleoboulos" (Professor Fred Winter, 1986)

Friday, January 17, 2020

A Tale of Two Wells

The Institute’s first event of 2020 will take place on Wednesday 22 January, starting at 7.30 pm in the in the library of the Institute (Dionysiou Aiginitou 7, ground floor, Ilisia. Metro: Megaro Moussikis). Dr Maria A. Liston (Associate Professor, Anthropology Department, University of Waterloo) will give a lecture entitled, “A Tale of Two Wells:  Mothers, Midwives and Perinatal Death  in Athens and Eretria, Greece”.

“The death of one or more infants would have been a nearly universal part of the lives of women in Ancient Greece. Yet until recently, other than a very few burials of women and infants together, there has been almost no evidence for this. Infant remains are rare in cemeteries of nearly all periods. However, the analyses of two wells in the Athenian Agora and Eretria, Euboia provide some of the first evidence for perinatal death and the decisions that were made regarding infant remains. They offer insight into the role of midwives, the interventions that could take place in difficult births, and the causes of infant death. We cannot know how much agency the mothers had in the decisions made about their infants, but these remains provide unusually detailed evidence for the practice and outcomes of childbirth, a central event in the lives of ancient Greek women.”
You are all most welcome to join us next Wednesday for what promises to be a most interesting presentation.

Jonathan Tomlinson
Assistant Director

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

The Fred Winter Collection

Views of, and from, the medieval walls of Rhodes City (Professor Fred Winter, 1986)

Tuesday, January 7, 2020