The Fred Winter Collection

Lindos, seawrd or SW wing of the lower stoa (Professor Fred Winter, 1971)

The Fred Winter Collection

Kamiros, three peristyle courts in main city area (Professor Fred Winter, 1971)

Sir James Fraser and Culture in Greece

The Scottish anthropologist, classical scholar and folklorist Sir James G. Fraser (1854-1941) is famous for his The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion published in 1890. It was renamed The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in its second, expanded edition in 1900). This influential study is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology, religion and magic. Professor Nanno Marinatou (University of Illinois at Chicago) points out in her recently published, fascinating biography/history of Sir Arthur J. Evans (1851-1941; Sir Arthur Evans and Minoan Crete: Creating the Vision of Knossos) the important intellectual relationship of Fraser’s writings had on Evans’ interpretation of the Minoan remains that he uncovered at Knossos in the earlier 20^th century.

On Monday May 23^rd Professor Nanno Marinatou will give a lecture entitled «James Frazer στην Αθήνα: Το έργο του και η Φιλοσοφική του Τοποθέτηση για τον Πολιτισμό». Fraser was a quintessential late 19^th-century English intellectual and academic who shared Evans’ philhellenism as well as keen interest in the contemporary affairs of Greece, especially relating to culture. Fraser visited Greece in the later 1890s and again in Athens in 1937.

Prof. Marinatou will argue that while Fraser’s anthropological views are no longer accepted, his philosophical and theoretical positions on the value of rationalism in the context of discussions of culture are worth reexamining seriously in our contemporary world.

This lecture is the final offering of the 2015/16 Lecture Program of the Syllogos Filon tou Istorikou Archeiou tis Archaiologiskis Yperesias. The lecture will take place at 18:30 at the Historical Archive at Psaromylingou 22 on the cusp between theTheseio, the Kerameikos and the Psyrri Districts. The Theseio Train Station is the nearest Metro stop.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Epidauros, outside face of Museum doorwall, sima of the temple of Asklepios (Professor Fred Winter, 1971)

Annual CIG Open Meeting; Welcome Theo!

It is mid-May already and our annual Open Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 18^th at 7 PM at the Danish Institute in Athens on Aikaterini Square in Plaka. I will regale the audience with the many activities and accomplishments of the Institute since last May before reviewing the discoveries of our four archaeological fieldwork projects from last summer. My remarks will cover the excavations at ancient Argilos in Macedonia (Archaic and Classical periods), at ancient Eleon in Boiotia (Late Bronze and Archaic/Classical periods) and at Stelida on the island of Naxos (Palaeolithic period). Our pedestrian survey in the western Argolid (all periods) will complete the overview. Once again our fieldwork projects with permits from the Ministry under the auspices of the Institute had very successful seasons.

Professor Margriet Haagsma (Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta) will give the annual Invited Lecture at the Open Meeting. Her topic, “Dwelling in Contested Lands: the Classical / Hellenistic Settlement at Kastro Kallithea “ relates to her long standing fieldwork at the site of Kastro Kallithea in southern Thessaly as part of the synergasia with Sofia Karapanou of the Ephorate of Larissa.

2016 York University Summer undergraduate intern

The Institute is honored every summer to have an undergraduate intern from York University’s International Internship Program come to Athens to work with us for three months. This year the student is Theodore Tsilfidis. He is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Law and Society program at York, and a current pilot who plans to pursue a law degree and specialize in the field of aviation law. He is of Hellenic decent and apart from his long interest in aviation, his interests lie in Modern Greek language, literature, and culture, as well as Greek history. With his Greek language skills he will work with us on the organization and the digitization of documents in Greek in the Archive.

Theo was recently the recipient of the Chris Tarnaris Memorial Scholarship, provided by the Hellenic Heritage Foundation (HHF), which recognizes the student with the highest GPA in the Hellenic Studies program at York. He is looking forward to joining the Institute as the summer intern to learn and gaining a deeper understanding of Classical studies and archeology as well as expanding his knowledge of Greek history, and he plans to use this summer experience as an opportunity to explore the ancient sites and museums in Athens and in other places in Greece.

You will have an opportunity to meet Theo at our Open Meeting and welcome him to our Athenian community .

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Epidauros, foundations of Tholos (Professor Fred Winter, 1971)

A Romanist in Athens... Pt. II

Another semester at the Canadian Institute in Greece is coming to an end, and – quite sadly for me – my time as the Neda and Franz Leipen Fellow along with it. I first arrived in Athens in September 2015, not at all sure what to expect. My experience in Athens has been nothing short of incredible, and even seven months later, I continue to be awed and inspired by Athens and its academic community, with its numerous lectures and social events. As a sort of update, I would like to share a little bit about my time in Athens since returning in the New Year.

Being the Neda and Franz Leipen Fellow allows me to access specialized institutes for classical studies, such as the British School at Athens Library and the Blegen Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. By using these resources, in the past few months I have been able to broaden the scope of my dissertation in an interesting and – I hope – original way. My research on the portraiture of Romans as Hercules and Omphale had been gradually evolving into a case study for a much broader thesis topic, namely, what transvestitism evokes in the Roman ‘language of image’ as a whole, and how private women depicted in masculine terms came to have positive connotations in particular. Omphale, wielding the ultramasculine attributes of Hercules, is indeed not the only cross-dressed model for self-representation in the later Roman imperial era, for we also see portraiture of private women as amazons, athletes and hunters. I suspect that such portraiture was – to some degree at least –a symbolic expression of virtus in women, which was not merely tolerable but even desirable in an era witnessing a positive reevaluation of the ‘masculine’ woman. This was not, however, an undistorted praise. In the gender-inflected Roman ‘language of images’, the female transvestite came to symbolize a woman removed from all ‘feminine’ vices, and so seen as an improvement on her base nature. Moreover, we see that the ‘masculine’ woman was still bound up with traditional notions of femininity, and so she walked a fine line between being an aberration or worthy of approbation. I am excited about the new direction my thesis is taking, and I hope that I will reach some interesting conclusions.

This semester I continued taking Greek lessons at the Athens Centre, which was one of the highlights of my day. My teachers and classmates were all friendly and enthusiastic, and made learning Modern Greek – as challenging a language as it is – all the more enjoyable and rewarding for me. I decided to take a break after level three, but I hope to continue learning Modern Greek in the future. As Fellow, I also continued to assist in the office of the CIG. For the most part this has involved updating the ‘Portal to the Past’, which is a digital archive of our archaeological projects and research. I have especially enjoyed assisting at the various events we’ve hosted this semester, such as our lecture series covering a number of topics: the Bronze Age economy, myths of wealth in the ancient world, ceramic petrology, the cemetery at Petras on Crete, and even the Haida culture in Canada. I myself gave lecture at the CIG about the preliminary results of my thesis research. Although I felt nervous, I was grateful for the opportunity to share my ideas with a well-informed audience which I already knew well, and to receive valuable criticism and feedback. The three resident Canadians (that is, Esther, Alistair and I) also hosted the first ever ‘Canadian Breakfast’ at the CIG, so that we could share with members of other foreign institutes a little taste of our culture. Thankfully we were able to find some maple syrup! Overall, I have enjoyed residing at the CIG and gaining insight into the day-to-day operations of a foreign archaeological research institution in Greece.

I have also had the privilege to continue exploring Greece this semester, by travelling to a different archaeological site or museum nearly every weekend. I feel that I am gradually acquiring a better understanding of the monuments and topography of Greece, and I have been fortunate to have wonderful and knowledgeable travel companions, most of whom I met at ‘Darts Night’ at the Red Lion. We have visited several sites in Attica, such as Marathon to see the tumulus with the Athenian war dead, Lavrion to visit the archaeological museum and eat some fresh seafood, and Sounion to watch the sunset from the Temple of Poseidon. We also returned to Aegina in January for a quick swim. Some new islands for me included Andros and Crete, but I most enjoyed revisiting Rhodes and especially the sanctuary of Athena at Lindos, with a better understanding of Hellenistic architecture and its characteristic theatricality. One of my favourite features of this site is the several ‘nautical trophies’, such as the stern carved into the face of the acropolis, which served as a base for a bronze portrait statue of a naval victor. I also particularly enjoyed visiting the sanctuary of Hera at Perachora, where we climbed to the very peak and then descended almost 200 steps down a pitch-black cistern. In addition to travelling through Greece, I found some time to spend in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is always nice to wander in the Alps and drink a few pints at a Hütte with some old friends.

I don’t know how to express how fortunate I feel to have received the Neda and Franz Leipen Fellowship and to experience so much in Athens. I feel that I have grown so much as an academic and as a person in these few short months, and I know that I will miss Athens very much. As grateful as I am just to live in this chaotic but fascinating city, I feel that it is the friends I have made here who have defined my experience, and I want to thank them all – and Vicki, Lauren, Esther and Lana in particular – for their constant love and encouragement. I also want to thank Jonathan and David for all their support while being a fellow at the CIG. Athens has truly come to feel like a second home to me, and I have no doubt that I will return at some point in the future.

Sarah Nash
Leipen Fellow, CIG

The Fred Winter Collection

Athens, Arch of Hadrian, capital of pedimented central portion of upper order (Professor Fred Winter, 1971)