The Blog has Moved!

Significant progress was made in the past year to improve and to extend the Institute’s electronic footprint. The next step is to consolidate all of our communications on one platform. Thus, as of this blog all future blogs will be found at the CIG website (www.cig-icg.gr) under the heading “Blog”, no less!

We will retain the address cig-icg.blogspot.gr as the Archive of the CIG Blog which started in January, 2011 through today’s “final” blog. The link on this blog will take you to the CIG website.

In the new location I look forward to continue sharing with our readers and supporters news relating to the Institute, announcements of lectures/events at CIG and in Athens, comments on archaeological topics relating to Greece, guest blogs from our fieldwork projects and images from the Frederick Winter B/W Negative Collection.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Welcome back Lana!

It is with great pleasure that we announce the arrival of the 2014/2015 Homer and Dorothy Thompson Fellow, Lana Radloff. As many of this blog’s readers will know Lana has long relationships both with the Institute and with the Kastro Kallithea Archaeological Project. In 2010 Lana was at CIG for three months as the Graduate Intern from Brock University. Lana did her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta and her MA at Brock University.

This coming year Lana will be continuing her research on her dissertation topic relating to the relationship between harbors and urban planning in the Greek world during the 4th century B.C.E. She is a Ph.D. candidate at in the Department of Classics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The venerable Prof. Steve Dyson is her adviser.

While at the Institute this academic year Lana will help me to update and to expand the CIG Portal to the Past. In addition, she will work on cataloguing the research materials of the late Prof. Frederick E. Winter in our Archive.

We can look forward in the early winter to an Institute Lecture on her dissertation research. As she is also an underwater archaeologist and GIS specialist the Friends’ of CIG will be treated this fall to a lecture on the Burgaz Harbor Project which Lana works on in Turkey, run by my colleague at Brock University, Prof. Liz Greene, and a Turkish co-researcher.

In the meantime, at CIG events and at lectures elsewhere in Athens welcome warmly Lana back to the fold!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Good News: We’re Back! Significant Developments on Naxos

Kalo Mina!

As of today the Institute is open again for business with its normal hours of Monday through Friday from 09:00 to 13:00. Extended library hours will begin in October. We look forward to seeing you at CIG, using our Library and other resources. We add to the holdings on a regular basis throughout the year.

Prof. Carter introduced to the audience

The Director in Motion
With summer winding down, last week was an opportune time to visit the SNAP team on Naxos. My arrival was timed by chance to enable us to attend a public lecture in Chora given by Prof. Tristan (Stringy) Carter (McMaster University) last Monday night. Besides the Stelida-Naxos Archaeological Project’s crew and my wife and daughter, the local representative of the KA’ Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, Ms. Eirine Legaki, was in attendance. There were over forty locals and foreigners in the audience. They were treated to an excellent overview of the project and its research aims, its methods of research, the results from the 2013 and 2014 field seasons and the possible implications for our understanding of the exploitation of the natural and physical resources of the island and the Aegean basin from most likely 250,000 BP to 9000 BC. The artifacts collected this year suggest strongly that the area around Stelida was utilized for chert quarrying (as the high has two major outcroppings of very high quality chert), artifact production and other activities in the Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods and on a larger scale in the earlier Mesolithic period. Besides Homo sapiens sapiens, the chert knappers would have been Homo neanderthalensis or Homo heidelbergensis and probably some form of Homo erectus. Recent studies of ancient sea levels in the Aegean basin over the past 300,000+ years indicate that that this area was often dry land with some scattered large lakes. Such a landscape would make the basin a corridor between Anatolia and the Balkan Peninsula and not a watery barrier. The mountain peak at Stelida and the much more imposing one of Zas on Naxos would have been in the center of this natural passageway. Important finds, bold interpretation, eh!

Homo erectus at Stelida?

The simulating lecture sparked many questions and opinions. This public outreach is an important feature of CIG projects throughout Greece. Without the full support of the ministry and its archaeologists as well as the local residents this research could not be conducted.

View of the western side of Stelida toward a rock shelter

On Wednesday Stringy showed my daughter Liza and me the western side of Stelida where they had surveyed this year. A path and the lack of a steep slope allowed the CIG Director to make it up to one of the two rock shelters that they have identified. Last year we climbed up the steep eastern side of the hill without the aid of a path! Everywhere we looked on the slope there were thick screes of worked chert and debitage from the Middle Paleolithic period mostly. The fact that they found artifacts made from emery obtained from elsewhere on the island indicates that the chert knappers were well versed in the resources that were available.

Chert artifacts and debitage on the surface

We finished out our visit by joining the team for a tasty dinner at their regular taverna on the port at Chora. While the crew and the co-researchers were exhausted from a demanding month of fieldwork and the processing and study of the chipped stone tools, they also were very proud of the fact that they were changing our understanding of the peopling of the Aegean basin. This field season was about to end but the next phase of the research which they hope to start next year promises to be even more thought provoking.

Tristan Carter in front of the rock shelter

I am very pleased to announce that Prof. Carter will give the Invited Lecture at the 2015 Annual Open Meeting of the Institute in May. In the meantime you can visit the SNAP website at: https://stelida.mcmaster.ca to learn more about their work. Stringy will provide the final guest blog of the “summer of 2014” later this month.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

WARP: Up and Running; A “New” Site in Athens

WARP study area

On Tuesday, Jonathan and I, accompanied by Gerry Schaus and Metaxia Tsipopoulou, ventured into the heart of the Argolid to visit the Institute’s newest fieldwork project, the Western Argolid Regional Project (or WARP). This joint effort of Dimitri Nakassis (University of Toronto), Scott Gallimore (Wilfrid Laurier University) and Sarah James (University of Colorado at Boulder) has just started its first of three field seasons. After a slow start last week they are systematically walking the fields in the third of the research zone that they will cover this season. The research zone is in the upper portion of the Inachos river valley to the northwest of Argos.

View of the main apartment complex

Numbering almost 30 individuals, with students from each of the three universities as well as other researchers, they are staying on the Gulf of Argos in Myloi, to the south of Argos. The senior researchers have ample experience surveying in the eastern Peloponnesos and in Cyprus. Thus, they are using the latest technologies for pedestrian survey such as satellite imagery, digital cameras and GPS to record their findings in the field and then to import these data sets in the afternoon into a GIS platform for storage, organization, analysis and display. In the “old days” to get results of the high quality that we saw would have taken many days, if not weeks, of focused effort by many individuals to achieve a preliminary version of this.

Students working on the databases in the afternoon

Although we were not able to see what they had collected so far, their descriptions indicate that the artifact scatters, while not continuous, are nevertheless frequent and interesting. With four weeks to go they expect to achieve both their coverage goals for this initial field season and to identify important new archaeological remains. We’ll find out more in August when they send us their “guest blog”. Kala evremata paidia!!!

View of the Lykeion area towards Mt Hymettos

A “new” site is now open in Athens
When it comes to archaeological sites in Athens, we often assume that all of them have been discovered by now and that we can go and visit them (within normal opening hours, of course) when we want. Those who specialize in Athenian topography and monuments know, however, that this is not true. The location of many important places in the history of settlement in Athens are either not known for certain and/or have been destroyed at some point in the past. Much ink has been spilled on where such buildings and places were, such as the “Old Agora”.

View of the Lykeion towards Rigillis Street

One elusive major monument of later Athens was the Lykeion. This was the Sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios outside the defensive walls of the city along the Ilissos river where, in 335 BC, Aristotle set up his peripatetic school of philosophy. It was called the Lykeion after the sanctuary there, just as the Academy of Plato was referred to from its shrine to the hero Akademos. Although long thought to be in the District now called the Anaktora (after the “New Palace,” now the Presidential Megaron), the remains of a portion of it did not come to light until work was started on a location proposed for the Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art in the triangle formed by the Army Officer’s Club/Sarogleio, the Conservatory/Odeion of Athens on Rigillis Street, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. What was uncovered by 1996 was a large portion of a palestra of a gymnasion with rooms associated with athletic training and probably on the north side the Ephebeion with a library. Two small baths were added later in the 1st century AD. In the years since the excavation was completed a study was undertaken to cover and to protect the remains as well as to create a small landscaped park around them.

Last Thursday, one of the individuals responsible for this work, the architect Dimitris Koutsoyiannis, showed me and my wife around the site, which had just opened without fanfare the previous day. Not far from Vas. Sophias Avenue, the broad entrance is on Rigillis Street at the rear corner of the Army Officers’ Club. At present there is no sign to indicate that the site is open to the public without charge. The archaeological remains are set in a flat area surrounded by the lower bedrock slopes of Mt Lykavettos. When the adjacent Conservatory of Athens was built in the early 1970s archaeological remains were found but were thought unimportant at the time. The Ilissos river bed here is where Vas. Constantinou Avenue is now.

View of a plaque

Each section of the site has bilingual plaques (Greek-English) with plans, drawings and reconstructions to aid in understanding what is in a particular area. The remains date to the later 4th century BC, and they are part of what must have been an expansive complex along the road that ran out of the Diochares Gate that led to the Mesogeia of Attika. It was used until the mid-3rd century AD. Somewhere under the modern buildings and streets was the sanctuary itself, the Mouseion, stoas, the open and covered running tracks associated with gymnasia, and the garden and grove where the philosophers and their students walked. This is where Aristotle and his successors created the first library as we know it. Scattered walls at a higher level are from a 19th-century military barracks and exercise ground that stood until the 1960s.

View of plantings

The site has been planted with a large variety of Mediterranean plants as well as grassy areas around the architectural remains. There are places to sit as well. One can go from here through either of two gates to the new gardens behind the Byzantine and Christian Museum. The outdoor café of the Museum is a perfect place to think about what the Lykeion once was in the ancient world, what it means to us today and the nature of knowledge. You may need two frappes to realize all of this!

We hope that Dimitris Koutsoyiannis will give a lecture this fall at the Institute on the process and issues for creating a suitable protective cover for archaeological remains.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Belated News! Three Strong Earthquakes Struck Crete in the Interwar Period; What Are the Archaeologically-Oriented Events in Athens?

Old Archaeological Museum of Herakleio, Crete

Unknown today to most archaeologists and historians were the three severe earthquakes that struck Herakleio in Crete in 1926, 1930 and 1935. The very strong one in 1926 was noted by Sir Arthur Evans in his monumental work The Palace of Minos. It stimulated him to think about the role of earthquakes in the destruction of the Minoan palaces.

In this interwar period the Ephors of the antiquities of Crete and Directors of the Museum in Herakleio, Stephanos Xanthoudidis, until his death in 1928, and afterwards Spyrdon Marinatos, had to deal with the damage done to the Museum and its collections.

Stephanos Xanthoudidis

Giorgos Tzorakis, an archaeologist at the Archaeological Museum of Herakleio, will describe the challenges that these two men faced in their positions in his lecture in Greek on Monday, May 26th at 18:30 at the Historical Archive of the Hellenic Archaeological Service at Psaromylingou 22 on the cusp between the Kerameikos and Psyrri districts of our diverse city. The lecture entitled, "’Τα αρχαία μας ευρίσκονται εν κινδύνω...’ Οι μεγάλοι σεισμοί του Μεσοπολέμου που έπληξαν το Ηράκλειο και το Μουσείο του, κατά τα έτη 1926, 1930 και 1935”, is the last lecture of the 2013/2014 Lecture Program of the Syllogos Filon tou Istorikou Archeiou tis Archaiologikis Yperesias.

Spyrdon Marinatos

Tzorakis’ research in the Historical Archive of the Hellenic Archaeological Service and in the papers of the two protagonists has revealed their titanic struggle to repair the damage and prevent further damage. All this happened in a consistently unfavorable environment created by the economic difficulties of the Ministry and the country as a whole caused by the influx of refugees from Asia Minor and the world-wide Great Depression. Xanthoudidis’ and Marinatos’ strong personalities played a role in how each coped with the situations that they faced.

CIG Calendar of Events
Speaking of upcoming lectures in Athens, why don’t you let our “Calendar of Events” (dropdown from “Events” on upper Menu Bar) on the newly-revamped CIG website (www.cig-icg.gr) be your one stop place to learn what are the scheduled archaeologically-oriented lectures, open meetings, colloquia, conferences, seminars, etc. that are going to happen in Athens each month besides the what CIG offers??? As you can see, even in May the calendar is has many events to tempt a wide variety of archaeological and historical interests. Jonathan combs the announcements that we receive each week and religiously enters the new events on the calendar along with the links to specific programs. Over time this Calendar of Events will become an archive of what has happened in the past. As many of the listed events are now live-streamed, and some are available afterwards on the websites of the organizations and/or on their YouTube Channel (such that of the CIG), you don’t even have to be in Athens to watch them!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Yeia Sou Maria! Revamped CIG Website Live

With visions of Eurovision’s past dancing in our heads, we say “Yeia sou Maria!” to our new undergraduate intern from York University. Maria Tsiopelas arrived two weeks ago and she already has catalogued a large stack of new monographs and books as well as helped out with two events and receptions (the Friends Association art exhibit opening and the Annual Open Meeting). With two and a half months to go in her internship she will turn her attention now to scanning the documents in Greek from our Archives relating to past CIG archaeological projects.

Maria is a third-year undergraduate student currently pursuing a specialized honours degree in English. Her studies have influenced her interest in literary works, specifically the Classics. Her language skills in English, Greek and French give her a range of study materials. Maria’s study of classical literary works include drama, Epic, and Lyric poetry of Ancient Greece. This has led to her research on Ancient Greek Mythology, early Helladic Eras, and literature of the Heroic Age. Maria’s Greek heritage has placed a special interest in Minoan and Spartan history amongst her literary studies. This interest not only lies in the literary form and its representation of Greek culture and history, but also how it is portrayed through visual arts, and dance. Maria is very excited about this internship opportunity with the Canadian Institute in Greece. Upon the completion of her honours degree, Maria intends to continue her university studies to obtain her M.A. in Education.

When you come to the opening of Chris Stewart’s art exhibition on Wednesday, June 4th you will have another chance to meet her. Of course, you can always stop by the Institute before then and say hello to her.

The CIG website has been revamped!
The addition of the CIG Portal to the Past to the Institute’s electronic presence has permitted us to re-design and re-focus the Institute’s website. With the diligent work of our Neda and Franz Leipen Fellow, Myles Chykerda, and the sage advice of our ICT volunteer Chris Stewart, the revamped CIG website (www.cig-icg.gr) is now available for your use. By the end of September all of the slated improvements will have been made.

We believe that it will be easier to navigate the website, which will contain more useful information concerning the Institute and its activities. You can keep track of our upcoming Institute events and see those that you missed. The Events Calendar will also list those related to CIG in Canada and to archaeological/historical-themed events organized by the other foreign archaeological schools and institutes as well as by the Ministry of Culture and by the University of Athens. The updated catalogue of our Library can be searched from the website as well. Please take advantage of our extended Library hours through the end of July to use the books and monographs that you’ve found in the Catalogue.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Institute’s Annual Open Meeting and Invited Lecture; The Greek Ambassador to Canada Retires with Honors

Map of Greece showing the locations of CIG fieldwork in 2013

It is May and the sweet weather of full spring is here. That means it is the time for the Institute’s Annual Open Meeting and Invited Lecture. On Wednesday, May 14th at 7 PM at the Auditorium of the Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene (Parthenonos 14, Makriyianni) we will hold our Annual Open Meeting. I will report on the activities of the Institute since last May. The main focus of my remarks will be the presentation of the principal results of our four archaeological fieldwork projects in the summer of 2013. These are the Greek-Canadian excavations at ancient Argilos in Macedonia, at Kastro Kallithea in Thessaly, and at ancient Eleon in Boeotia, and the Canadian intensive survey at Stelida on Naxos. The finds are particularly significant this year, I am pleased to report.

Gold ring from the “Tiryns Treasure”

We are honored to have Professor Dimitri Nakassis (Department of Classics, University of Toronto) give the Invited Lecture this year. Dimitri’s lecture, “Cities and Thrones and Powers: Rethinking the End of Mycenaean Civilization”, will continue the provocative narrative in a broader fashion of his recently published book, Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos (Brill: Lieden/Boston, 2013).

Model of the Citadel of Tiryns in the LH IIIC period

Nakassis points out that it is commonly accepted that the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces around 1200 B.C. engendered a deep-rooted change in the social order and a substantial decrease in social and economic inequality. It is thought that the palatial elite disappeared along with the palaces, leaving local communities to their own devices, and resulting in the promotion of local leaders. This paper argues that this interpretation relies on a monolithic and bureaucratic model of the state that does not stand up to close scrutiny. He has recently argued (see above) that palatial affairs were managed by a broad array of independent high-status individuals, and that the palace is thus not so much a free-standing and closed system as a framework for interactions between heterogeneous agents. The collapse of the palatial system did have significant effects, of course, but recent work on the archaeology of the 12th century B.C. suggests that these palatially-active elites did not simply vanish. They rather continued to assert their elevated status in the Greek mainland in ways that were, to a large extent, unchanged. These strategies were ultimately unsuccessful, however, perhaps because they failed to account for their new socioeconomic environment.

Ambassador Anghelopoulos at the University of Ottawa

Farewell to the Greek Ambassador to Canada
When I was in Ottawa at the end of September to give a lecture about the Institute and its work I had the pleasure of meeting the Ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to Canada, the Honorable Eleftherios Anghelopoulos. We talked about the opportunities for cooperation between the Institute and Greek Embassy relating to the upcoming exhibition of Greek artifacts in Montreal and Ottawa in late 2014 and 2015. Alas, we were not able to follow up on this topic before Ambassador Anghelopoulos retired at the end of April. The Board of Directors of the Institute (Prof. Gerry Schaus), the Ottawa Chapter of the Friends Association of the Institute (Ms. Helen Tryphonas) and the Museum of Classical Antiquities of the University of Ottawa (Dr. Antonia Holden) honored Ambassador Anghelopoulos with a plaque for his four years of service in Canada and, especially, for his generous and unflagging support of the public programs and exhibitions of the Museum. During his tenure as Ambassador to Canada, these organizations had benefitted from two collaborative projects commemorating respectively 75 years of Greek-Canadian diplomatic relations and the 150th anniversary of Constantine P. Cavafy. The mega-exhibit entitled “The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” would not have been possible without the Ambassador’s perseverance and leadership as well as the relentless work of his staff at the Embassy.

Presenting the plaque to Ambassador Anghelopoulos

We look forward to Ambassador Anghelopoulos’ continued support and participation in the activities of the Institute here in Greece. Enjoy your well-earned retirement, sir!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Γειά σας, Αθήνα καλή

Tanner and his Waterloo roommate, Matt, in front of the Propylaia

I would not call myself an archaeologist by any stretch of the imagination. I can’t even say that I’ve taken a class dedicated to archaeology back home – my interest in the ancient world has always been rooted in stories rather than objects, which has translated to a focus on language and literature rather than art and archaeology. I am admittedly a library historian, more engrossed by books and words than by landscapes and digs. Before my arrival in Athens, my concept of archaeology was primitive to say the least. You just dig things out of the ground and catalogue and analyze them, right?

Hardly. It didn’t take very long for me to realize the depth and breadth of the field of archaeology. While scanning and producing PDF versions of some articles written by the Canadian Institute’s Director, Dr. David Rupp, I was exposed to the gritty details of archaeological analysis as described by a career archaeologist. I quickly learned that there was so much more to it than systematic digging. Like many areas of Classical study, archaeology is a hugely interdisciplinary field which not only draws on knowledge of ancient history, but also relies heavily on modern scientific advances to produce some truly remarkable results. I have been hugely impressed by the critical, multi-faceted approach to the remains of the ancient world which I have seen here in Athens, and I have discovered that my idea of archaeology was still weighed down by thoughts of figures like Schliemann.

These rules were not enforced... welcome to Greece!

My time here has also given me a sense of how much the library historians of the world owe to those who pursue archaeology. This is certainly exemplified by the lecture given by the Canadian Institute’s Fellow, Myles Chykerda, in which he presented his attempts at reconstructing the structure of the Thessalian political landscape on the basis of the physical landscape’s archaeological record. My personal interest in Greek (and Latin) inscriptions brought me to the Epigraphic Museum, where I was blown away by the incredible volume of preserved inscriptions and by the massive size of some like the 5th-century Athenian tribute lists. Epigraphists may be responsible for studying and deciphering the characters which are sometimes nearly illegible (and other times entirely so), but they would have nothing to study at all if it were not for the dedicated efforts of archaeologists who are even today still discovering artifacts from antiquity.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus in all its colossal glory

Besides the value of such artifacts for historians, the remains of ancient Athens which survive in the modern city obviously have an immense cultural impact as well. There is no experience which quite compares to standing at the Temple of Olympian Zeus and craning your neck to see the full height of the columns, imagining the building in its colossal ancient glory; or to standing atop the Acropolis and looking down at the Agora where millions of people have walked over thousands of years. For a North American, that kind of feeling simply can’t be found at home. For a historian, reading about ancient events is one thing – but going to the places where those events occurred and being able to physically contextualize the space which is described allows you to connect with the history in a way which can’t be duplicated. I know that the next time I’m reading about the history of the ancient city of Athens, it will be that much more vivid, even if it is about something as mundane as the length of the long wall between Athens and Piraeus during the Peloponnesian War. I had read about that space in Thucydides, and thanks to the sweeping (albeit windy) view from our Assistant Director’s rooftop balcony, I was able to actually see where that wall would have been and how far it would have stretched. Polybius was adamant that any true historian must be able to physically engage with the environments being described, and although the task of the modern historian is not really the same as the task which Polybius undertook, his words still hold true.

The cramped hustle and bustle of Athens

Of course, my time here in Athens was not entirely about connecting with its history. Having been raised in the suburbs with swimming pools and well-maintained lawns, cities have always seemed special to me. I enjoy the lived-in feeling of a large city, where dirt and noise are simply facts of life, and Athens certainly has its fair share of those. It is truly a fascinating city, where your environment can completely change with a short walk in any direction. Monastiraki and the area around the Acropolis provide a vacation-y, tourist feeling; Syntagma is all class with the beautiful Parliament building, polished stone and night fountain (and of course McDonald’s, a by-word for class around the world); yet leaving the city centre and experiencing the more Greek neighbourhoods like Ilissia (home of the Canadian Institute) provides a unique, if sometimes overwhelming, experience as well. Happily I only found myself lost twice in my three months here, although I owe thanks to my arsenal of city maps for that good fortune. Even when lost, however, I drank in the cultural gap between Greece and North America: whereas North America is the land of chain restaurants and super-stores, so many shops and businesses have a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ feel to them which somehow makes the experience more personal, despite a language barrier. And thankfully, that language barrier began to fall as I spent more time here – I still find that most Greeks speak impossibly fast and I struggle to even discern one word from another, but after a little study I have at least been able to go to a store or taverna and communicate in Greek, however crudely… and I like to think that I’ve given lots of Greeks an opportunity to practice their English, as well.

It’s hard to believe how quickly these three months went by. I’ve met a lot of extremely warm and welcoming people from the international community here; I’ve thrown a lot of darts at the Red Lion, though I can’t say that I was any more accurate in my final week than I was in my first; and I’ve been able to cross a few things off my bucket list. Despite the fact that I start my MA program in September and am committed to many long hours in the library and in front of a computer, I would love to be able to return to Athens sometime in the not-too-distant future. I have to thank everyone at the Canadian Institute – Jonathan, David, Myles, and Chris – for making my stay here so enjoyable, and I hope to see you all again soon!

Tanner Rudnick,
University of Waterloo