The Fred Winter Collection

Delphi, Athenian Treasury from NW and from temple of Apollo (Professor Fred Winter, 1982)

Join us for the official launch of "From Maple to Olive"!

Over two, very warm days in early June, 2017 the Canadian Institute in Greece celebrated its 40^th anniversary with a Colloquium entitled, From Maple to Olive.  Twenty-two of the papers as well as an anecdotal history of the Institute were submitted that fall for inclusion in the proceedings. After a long and meticulous editing process, with Jonathan in the lead, the printer delivered the final product, 514 volumes, to the Institute in December, just before we closed for our holiday recess. In only 18 months after the Colloquium we achieved our publication goal. The generous support by Eldorado Gold of both the Colloquium and of the publication of the Proceedings made all of this possible.

On Wednesday, January 31^st at 7:30 pm in the Library of the Institute we will launch officially the publication of the 10^th iteration of the Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece monograph series, From Maple to Olive. Proceedings a Colloquium to Celebrate the 40^th Anniversary of the Canadian Institute in Greece (Athens, 2017).

On this auspicious occasion Dr.  John Bennet (Director, British School at Athens) and Dr. Giorgos Varvouranakis (Professor, University of Athens) will offer their assessments of the merits of the contributions and on the significance of the research on which they are based for Greek archaeology.  Dr. Bennett’s comments will be from the perspective of the foreign archaeological schools and institutes in Greece. For the perspective of our Greek colleagues Dr. Varvouranakis will contribute his insights.

The book launch will be livestreamed for those not able to join us on this joyous occasion.

After the book presentation copies of From Maple to Olive will be on sale at a very special price of 25€, which is 50% of the list price of 50€.

If this is not enough for one evening, before the reception we will cut the Institute’s Vasilopita for 2018. Who will find the flouri in her piece and receive the coveted 2018 gouri (which will give good health and prosperity for the entire year!)??? 

Kali Xronia!
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Lakonia: Vapheio tomb (Professor Fred Winter, 1982)

Welcome Katy and Matt! How the Monuments of the Akropolis at Lindos came to look as they do today.

This winter we have the luxury of having two undergraduate interns from Canada at the Institute. Katy and Matt have many interesting tasks ahead of them over the next three months: a complete inventory of the holdings of the Library in preparation for our move to the new premises at Orminiou 3 later in the year, improve and expand our presence on the various social media platforms, especially for Canada, as well as continuing the ongoing organization, scanning and storage of the Institute’s archives.

Katy Lamb is a recent graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University, who majored in Ancient Mediterranean studies with a minor in archaeology and history. Katy has always been fascinated with ancient Greek religion and more recently, in her university studies, her interest includes archaeology of natural disasters the human reactions to them.

During the summers of 2015 and 2016 she participated in survey work of the Western Argolid Regional Project. During this time and involvement Katy firmly established her commitment and continued love for archaeology and ancient history.

This year abroad, Katy hopes to continue her education and to gain knowledge and more experience in the field of work she has the most passion for.

Matthew (Matt) Coleman is in his fourth year of undergraduate study in the Department of Classics at the University of Waterloo. He has a wide variety of research interests including Hellenistic Royal Women, Greek Poetry, as well as Classical Reception and currently has plans to attend graduate school studying the reception of Hellenistic Art in the Collections of the Italian Renaissance.

Matt has always had a keen interest in the Greece of antiquity and for all its culture, its people, its art, music, food, language, and its hospitality the Greece of today will serve as a wonderful lens through which he will focus his research, travelling and visiting as many museums and sites as possible, as he prepares for graduate studies during this winter abroad.

You will have a chance to meet our new interns on Wednesday, January 31^st at the launch of the Institute’s new publication and the cutting of our Vasilopita for 2018. See next week’s blog for more details.

The creation of the monuments on the Akropolis at Lindos on Rhodes

After the Italo-Turkish War of 1912 the Dodecanese Islands were occupied by the Italians until the end of World War II in 1945. The Italian regime conducted many excavations and restoration projects during the 1930s, especially on the acropolis of Lindos on Rhodes.

On Monday, January 22^nd Dr. Vasiliki Eleftheriou (architectural engineer and Director of the Conservation Service of the Monuments of the Akropolis) will give a lecture entitled «Οι προπολεμικές επεμβάσεις στα μνημεία της ακρόπολης της Λίνδου μέσα από το αρχειακό υλικό».

Between 1985 and 2015 restoration works were conducted in the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Lindos, Rhodes. Part of this project was the documentation of the archives of the Ephoreia of the Dodecanese, the Directorate of the Ministry of Culture, the National Museum of Denmark, the Italian Archaeological School in Athens and the German Archaeological Institute in Athens. This archival material dates from 1902 to 1940 and refers first to the excavations and, then, to the restoration of the Temple of Athena and of the Hellenistic Stoa by the Italian authorities. Dr. Eleftheriou’s lecture will present the findings of this research on the monuments at Lindos.

The lecture is part of the 2017/2018 Lecture Program of the Syllogos Filon tou Istorikou Archeiou tis Archaiologikis Yperesias. The lecture will take place in the Library of the Canadian Institute in Greece starting at 7 PM. After the lecture the Syllogos Filon will cut its Vasilopita for 2018. The public is welcome.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Assos, views from acropolis to the harbour and to the SW (Professor Fred Winter, 1982)

The Fred Winter Collection

Assos, view from acropolis to Main Gate and crosswall to acropolis (Professor Fred Winter, 1982)

A Canadian Abroad: What it's like to research in Greece

It’s difficult to describe Athens to those who have never been there. The beauty and grime of the city are a paradox. The ruins of the ancient agora are a tranquil, green space at the bottom of the Acropolis. This almost sacred space is juxtaposed against the backdrop of the green line of the metro that runs alongside it. The clacking of graffiti covered trains along the edge of the agora is a reminder that the ancient world is near, but still far. At the entrance, peddlers sell cell-phone cases and charm bracelets to tourists.

Athens is a city you easily fall in love with, although perhaps not for the reasons one might think. Antiquity is here. It’s all around us, as each metro station has an embedded shrine to some ancient site. Yet the real Athens is a wonderful mixture of ancient and modern, the best parts of it remain a secret to the millions of tourists who flock to and from the acropolis on a cruise-ship bus.

They don’t see my Athens.

The Acropolis is always there, but I have a tendency to forget this. As I go about life in the city I am often surprised to look up and see it.

Every corner of this city has its own story and feel.

Every Sunday morning, the little taverna at the foot of my street sets up an enormous charcoal grill with a double spit on it. On one side, hunks of fat pork roast over the coals while, on the other, fresh lamb drips away. The smell is intoxicating. It fills the neighbourhood. In my best Greek, I communicate to the owner, who speaks no English, that I have no idea what it is or what I want from it, but I know that I want to eat it. Then there are the gyros, always cheap and readily available. The husband and wife team who run the gyros place near the Canadian Institute know who I am now. They grin when I come in and ask ti kaneis (how’s it going?). They ask me something in Greek and, though I don’t understand it all, I catch the words tria koritsia (three daughters). They are asking how my girls are.

In fact, I have three young daughters who, of course, are also in Greece with my wife and me. Being a grad student with a family has its difficulties, but in Greece it’s easy. It’s a world built for families, where little old folks stop our kids on the street to kiss their heads and pinch their cheeks, almost always fumbling around in their bag for a candy. Market day in our neighbourhood means that the one side of the boulevard shuts down, and stalls and tents go up. The markets offer the freshest, seasonal produce you’ve ever tasted as well as honey, olives, wine, olive oil, and even some clothing. It seems that childhood is a lingua franca, as vendors wave at my kids, offering them things to taste and colourful fresh flowers. They get so much free candy and chocolate that I’m concerned we may need to find a Greek dentist before our time here is done.

The highlight of the kids’ time here has undoubtedly been the water. The girls love the beach, and since September and October are still warm, we were able to do two quick trips to Syros and to Crete, both of which involved lots of beach time.

As a historian, the biggest shock for me has been the numerous layers of history in Greece that I’ve never considered. Of course, in my research I think a lot about Hellenistic and Roman Greece. Yet at every turn lies an ancient Mycenaean or Minoan site, reminding me that the history of this majestic land stretches far beyond the limits of my own discipline.

The more recent history also looms large in the Greek imagination. On a trip to Crete, my family rented a house next to the village priest. He quickly invited us over for some of his homemade raki, while our kids played together in the driveway. He spoke almost no English, but was jolly and kind, and he doubled over laughing as he tried to correct my Athenian pronunciation to match the rough Cretan dialect. His church was turning 1000 years old that weekend, he told us, and invited us to come to visit it. When we did, he showed us the bullet holes in the building, left over from the Cretan resistance against the Ottomans and with his empty hands simulated a knife carving the eyes out of the damaged image of Jesus. Later, we visited the Arkadi monastery and saw the place where Cretan rebels and their families made their last stand against the Ottomans.

My own research has come alive in Greece. No longer limited to a database on my computer screen, the inscriptions with which I work are mostly held in museums in Athens and Delos. Being an epigrapher, I tend to gravitate towards texts at the bottom of statues and risk overlooking the rest (if it’s there). The ability to work with material culture as well as exposure to archaeologists has quickly changed this as I’ve found myself focusing more holistically on the evidence.

One rather striking piece from my thesis is a sculpture from the elegant house of the Syro-Phoenician sailors, guarantors, and merchants on Delos. They came from Beirut, and named their group after Poseidon, the “Poseidoniasts.” This immigrant group becomes visible in our sources in the second century BCE on the island, their success no doubt arising from their ability to navigate trade with the Romans. One of the group’s statues is in the National Archaeological Museum, a striking piece carved from Parian marble that portrays a nude Aphrodite. The horned Pan stands beside her, one arm on her wrist and another behind her back. Perhaps she is being accosted in the bath, as one of her hands holds a sandal to fend off the wild Pan as Eros comes to her aid. The statue is currently in a temporary exhibition on Odysseus, where it was even more striking, set against a dark background as the sounds of waves splashing and the creaking of ships’ rigging played.

The reality of research in Greece is that sources are readily available and, for the most part, easily accessible. Also, the community of academics here is first rate; every night there is a new lecture offered at one of the foreign schools. My own offerings to the academic community have been a paper about Syrian immigrants on Hellenistic Delos, given at the German Archaeological Institute, and I will give a lecture at the Canadian Institute in the spring. Otherwise, I’m hoping to finish my thesis this year, and I have a journal article and a book chapter to prepare for publication this month. There’s a lot to be done, but surrounded by my family and a community of like-minded scholars I’m encouraged to press on, my research fueled by fresh food and a Mediterranean sun that, even in winter, creates a daytime climate that can rival that of late summer in my home of Northern Ontario.

Chris Cornthwaite
Neda and Franz Leipen Fellow, CIG

The Fred Winter Collection

Lakonia, Yeraki: Yeraki, Ay. Athanasios, detail of re-used material and general view (Professor Fred Winter, 1982)