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

It’s Closing Time! Kiln Thoughts; and this Blog will be Moving

Kalo Mina! The dog days of summer are upon us. That means it’s closing time at CIG. As of today, August 1st through the end of the month we will be taking our annual summer recess. Jonathan will be heading to the United States for his first visit across the pond. My family and I will be in Crete, Athens and Naxos. The Institute will resume formal business on Monday, September 1st at 9:00 am.

Halasmenos: Nektarios cutting the plants with the Kha Gorge in the background

Kiln Thoughts
For the past week I’ve been studying the stoking pit and fire mouth of an updraft pottery kiln that was discovered in 2012 in the center of the Late Minoan IIIC settlement at Halasmenos in the Isthmus of Ierapetra in eastern Crete. This is an excavation of my wife, Dr. Metaxia Tsipopoulou. My contribution to the Winter Memorial volume dealt with the planning and the innovative elements of this short lived settlement that was inhabited ca. 1160/1140 BC. This year I supervised a workman cleaning the site of the wild sage and thyme plants.

Halasmenos: everything’s waiting for the researcher to resume work

While I was sitting in the stoking pit staring at the fire mouth in the hot July sun looking for details of its manner of construction and its methods of use, fond memories came back of another kiln that I had excavated decades ago. As an energetic, youngish professor in the Department of Classics at Brock University I had the idea to dig a historic site in the Niagara Peninsula so that my undergraduate archaeology students who were unable to go on our Archaeological Practicum in Cyprus in the summers could learn field techniques and procedures. The site that I chose was a red earthenware pottery kiln and workshop (and later the foundations of an adjacent house) located in bush near the edge of the Niagara Escarpment above Jordan, Ontario. The pottery was operated by an individual named Benjamin J. Lent in the mid- to late-1830s. As I liked to say too, too many times, this pottery had fallen between the floorboards of history since there were no records preserved to document it or its potter. We learned the potter’s name from the limited number of vessels he stamped with his name on. My co-researchers and I were able to trace him to his family’s roots to a family of stoneware potters in southern New York state, his potting work in New Jersey (he married the daughter of a potter) and then in upstate New York as a stoneware potter. He had a very pre-post-modern life in that he moved around practicing his craft, he left his first wife and children for a new life in Ontario, then married a local girl from the Niagara Peninsula and finally they all disappeared from all administrative records in both countries.

Halasmenos: view from the site towards Pachias Ammos and the Mirabello Gulf

The pottery excavation produced over 60,000 sherds in the course of a decade of on and off digging with my students and volunteers on weekends and holidays. The kiln Lent constructed was a sophisticated one. He even made vessels decorated in the manner of stoneware vessels as well as novelty items such as coin banks. On my Academia.edu webpage there is a general article about the excavation on its more important discoveries. A number of my students participated in the research and the writing of sections of the report that I submitted to the Province of Ontario. You can read it in the Special Collections of the Brock University Library!

Screen Shot of the Blog on the CIG Website

The CIG Blog will be moving in September!
Since January, 2011 the CIG blog has resided at this www.cig-icg.blogspot.gr address. With the updating and upgrading of the CIG website (www.cig-icg.gr) in late May we have had the capability of having the blog as an integral part of the website. So, starting in early September the CIG Blogs will reside at our website. For August the guest blogs will be accessible here. We will retain this blogspot.gr address as an archive of the past blogs. So there will be yet another reason for you to check our CIG website each week!

Kales Diakopes and see you in September……………………………
David Rupp
Director

Out and About, Archaeologically Speaking

Last weekend was the international conference entitled “Communities in Transition. The Circum-Aegean Later Neolithic Stages” held at the New Akropolis Museum’s overly air-conditioned auditorium. This well-organized and well-attended gathering was ambitious in its scope and inclusive in the papers given. Zarko Tankosic (Norwegian Institute) discussed the peculiar exploitation pattern of the Karystian Kampos in the Neolithic period as revealed by the Southern Euboea Exploration Project survey there. The Institute was represented by Tristan Carter (Department of Anthropology, McMaster University) who explored the potential off-island sources for various prominent cultural features of the later Neolithic in Crete. In the same session was a paper on the Neolithic pottery from the site of Kiapha Thiti (also known as Kontra Gliate) in southern Attika that a team led by Dietmar Hagel (Queen's University) excavated in the 1980s. A Ph.D. candidate at University College London, Margarita Nazou, gave this interesting paper.

On a final note, not only were there the usual show and tell presentations, which have value in enlightening one on material little or unknown to the audience, but also a number of synthetic, thought-provoking papers. Krzysztof Nowicki (Warsaw) proposed that the settlement system seen in eastern Crete during the Bronze Age was established with the arrival of immigrants during the Final Neolithic II period. Miljana Radivojevic (University College London) gave one of the best powerpoint presentations and deliveries that I have heard in a very long time. She made a strong case for one of the core regions for the origins and development of copper, bronze, gold and silver metallurgy being western Bulgaria in the 5th millennium BC.

Visiting the Institute's excavations at Eleon

Yesterday, braving the unusually stormy weather for mid-June in southern Greece, I visited the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project excavations at the acropolis of Eleon. Gerry Schaus, Loeta Tyree and my dear wife Metaxia Tsipopoulou joined me for this muddy expedition. It has been a year since my last visit and the impression of the architectural remains has changed dramatically under the expert direction in the field by Brendan Burke (University of Victoria) and Bryan Burns (Wellesley College)! The original two 5 x 5 m trenches located on the inside of the line of the polygonal wall now are at least 10 x 10 m in extent. The LH IIIC early remains are substantial in both of them. The earlier LH IIIB remains show great promise to produce evidence for large structures. There is also more evidence for later activity including cultic material as well as refuse pits. What really catches one’s eye is the zig-zagging entrance ramp to what now appears to be a gate at the northern end of the visible wall. The elements used, large tower, polygonal masonry and the remnants of the Late Bronze Age wall, create an enclosed theatral-like area before the gate. Here too various types of terracotta female figurines, miniature vessels and lamps were found. Some type of shrine must have been in the area. The excavation holds much promise for significant discoveries this year and in the future.

View of the excavation area at the sanctuary of Apollo at Abai

Our next destination was the famous oracular sanctuary of Apollo Abaeus associated with ancient Abai near modern Kalopodi (Phthiotides). The site was first investigated from 1972-1983 by the German Archaeological Institute in Athens. Since 2004 there have been renewed excavations under the direction of Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier. Alas, the heavy rain on Wednesday and again on Thursday cancelled the work at the site so we could only view the covered remains from afar in the gentle mist. Undeterred we set off to find ancient Hyampolis to the south. The circular hill that is the akropolis has evidence of polygonal walls and a gate. Since it was raining harder we returned to the town of Atalanti to visit the excellent archaeological museum there that features the finds from a number of important Neolithic and LH IIIB and C sites. This is worth a detour from the nearby Athens/Thessaloniki National Road to see.

I will be spending the summer in Crete digging at Petras and at Halasmenos as well as working on the Winter Colloquium publication. From time to time I will blog concerning my experiences and observations. In addition, we will have a series of guest bloggers to provide more interesting fare. See you in September……………………………..….!

Kalo Kalokairi,
David Rupp
Director

Digging Crete, Again

Kha Gorge and Khalasmenos

Besides being the Director of the Institute I am an active researcher on various topics relating to the past. The summer gives me an opportunity to pursue these projects outside of Athens. At the same time it allows me to see colleagues and to meet archaeologists, especially students working on related topics.

Conservation of LM IIIC Pottery Kiln

At the recent colloquium in memory of Prof. Winter I gave a paper on the architecture of a mid-12th-century BC settlement in eastern Crete. The site on the Isthmus near Ierapetras is called Khalasmenos. Located on a rocky projection near the mouth of the Kha Gorge, it is under excavation by my wife, Dr. Metaxia Tsipopoulou (Director Emerita, Ministry of Culture) since 1992. For the past two weeks at Khalasmenos we've been conducting a cleaning, conservation and study season at the site. The primary object of this summer's work at the site is the in situ conservation and the lifting of part of the floor of a circular kiln used for firing ceramic vessels which was found in a previous field season. The kiln is located in the center of the settlement. The conservators at the INSTAP Study Center for East Crete led by Dr. Stefania Chlouveraki in nearby Pachia Ammos undertook this slow, meticulous and often arduous work. After the removal of the floor, the task of cleaning the sub-floor flues, the fire box and the entrance to the stoke hole was undertaken. I worked hard to find the stoke hole. After twenty years of excavation a site can still produce surprises.

Emily Stevens and Maggie Beeker drawing walls

One of my goals this year has been to clarify the sequence of construction of the structures in the four quarters of the settlement and to investigate details of its layout. To achieve these ends we've cleaned around a number of the walls in the southeast part of Sector C. My initial impressions have had to be modified in a number of areas and new information has come to light in others. Emily Stevens and Maggie Beeker, graduate students at Bryn Mawr College, who are digging at nearby Gournia this summer under the direction of Vance Watrous (SUNY Buffalo) helped me for two days by starting the drawing of the exposed walls despite the wind and the heat. This constant search for additional information forces us to revise and to refine our interpretations of the archaeological record. I hope that John MacEnroe, now doing research at nearby Gournia, who gave a paper at our colloquium and has written a book on Minoan architecture, will have the time to visit the site with me to critique my interpretations in situ before I have to submit my paper for the colloquium publication.

With this out of the way I can turn my attention to a book review and the updating of my guide to Athens in the form of a smartphone app. Maybe some vacation time is deserved as well!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Colloquium in Memory of Frederick Elliot Winter was a Resounding Success!

At the colloquium

Just a week ago the two-day CIG Colloquium entitled, “Meditations on the Diversity of the Built Environment in the Aegean Basin and Beyond” took place at the Italian Archaeological School in Athens. A large and diverse crowd attended from the foreign schools and institutes as well as many Greek colleagues from the Ministry of Culture and from Greek universities. As we learned from various speakers Professor Frederick Elliot Winter had a broad range of interests in Greek architecture spanning from the Geometric through the Hellenistic periods. Rune Frederiksen, the Director of the Danish Institute at Athens, carefully analyzed in his Keynote Address how Winter's pioneering approach fifty years ago to the careful, in person study of Greek fortification systems and association of this evidence with developments in military strategy has set the agenda for present research. Both established scholars and graduate students gave papers. The level of the research, analysis and interpretation was exceptionally high.

David Rupp, Peter Burch, Mary Winter, Gerald Schaus

Frederick Winter the person and, especially, the father and husband was brought alive to the audience by his daughter Mary. Her warm, and often humorous reminiscences, supported by ample family photographs, heightened our awareness of what he accomplished under much different circumstances than today. A number of the speakers who knew him in various capacities shared their insights into his big personality, wide ranging interests and loyal collegiality. The family's interest in the past has not lapsed, as his grandson Peter Burch is starting a doctorate in Anglo-Saxon archaeology and history at the University of Manchester. Peter was at the Colloquium and thought that many of the approaches used to study Greek architecture could be applied to his period as well.

At the reception

The scholars who gave papers had ample opportunities at the breaks, over lunch, at the reception at the Swedish Institute, and at the concluding dinner to confer with their colleagues working on similar material. The interventions by the other attendees added richness to the discussions. Visits to each other's sites were arranged and references were exchanged. The papers will be published in the Institute's monograph series within the next two years. Ideas for our next Colloquium in 2014 or 2015 have already started to be discussed!

Without the hard work over the past year of Jonathan Tomlinson, and the assistance of our York University summer intern Laura Beaton, this productive Colloquium would not have taken place. The generosity of the Canadian Embassy and its Ambassador, Robert Peck, of Matti and Nicholas Egon and of Matthew Maher is gratefully acknowledged and much appreciated.

Those who did not attend missed a good one!!!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Mac Wallace Colloquium Volume in Print

Just over two years ago the Colloquium organized by the Institute to honor Mac Wallace concluded. With dedication, hard-work and cooperation the Proceedings of that Colloquium are now in print and available from the Institute. Euboea and Athens. Proceedings of a Colloquium in Memory of Malcolm B. Wallace. Athens 26-27 June 2009 is published as No. 6 (2011) in the Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece series. Jonathan and I are the General Editors. The colloquium and the publication were made possible through the generosity of many colleagues and friends of Mac.

The volume starts with a succinct biography of Mac followed by his Bibliography. Fifteen of the contributions (written by 18 authors) cover Euboean material culture and history from the Prehistoric Period to the Early Modern Era. The sixteenth, a collaboration between Mac and Tom Figueira, reexamines Athenian/Euboean evolving relationships in the crucial 5th century BC and proposes a new synthesis in which to view them. There is something for every scholarly interest in the volume, from Linear B, to Geometric pottery, to historical discussions, to pebble mosaics to early travellers’ accounts. In this tangible way Mac’s memory lives on and he continues to influence us.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

Publication in Honour of Mac Wallace and Memory Work

Malcolm B. "Mac" Wallace

In late June, 2009 the Institute organized a two day colloquium in memory of Malcolm B. “Mac” Wallace, a long-time, staunch supporter of the Institute and a well-known scholar in Greece. The focus of the colloquium was on his interests in Athenian history and in Euboea. Mac was one of the founders of the Southern Euboea Exploration Project conducted under the auspices of the Institute. Eighteen scholars gave papers, sixteen of which will appear in May in, Euboea and Athens: Proceedings of a Colloquium in Memory of Malcolm B. Wallace. Athens, 26-27 June 2009, edited by D. W. Rupp and J. E. Tomlinson. (Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece, No. 6). Jonathan has just finished the page proofs for the authors’ scrutiny. This wide-ranging volume is a most fitting tribute to this intelligent and generous man, given in great respect by his peers, colleagues and students.

Book of the Blog
Often artefacts recovered from various archaeological contexts are viewed simply as isolated objects or as mundane examples of a particular class/category of tools, vessels, etc. While comprehending them as components of a particular assemblage, such as a burial, ritual deposit, workshop or dwelling is better, more and broader associations are possible and desirable. Specifically, when they are seen as part of the material culture of a specific group of people at a given point in space and time. The investigation of material culture as a whole “…focus[es] on the interaction of humans and materials, within different social contexts or interrelationships” or “the materiality of social life” (p. 3).

A growing number of archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians have turned their attention to the ways that material culture engages in the transmission of memory and how we can use such knowledge to interpret actions and processes of past societies. Barbara J. Mills and William H. Walker have assembled in Memory Work. Archaeologies of Material Practices (School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series, Santa Fe, 2008) nine contributions (ranging from Britain to Africa, and the North, Central and South Americas) along with their insightful Introduction and Lynn Meskell’s perceptive closing overview on “memory work”. These case studies building on earlier research “…seek to understand how memory work is related to objects, features, and deposits that are the basis for archaeological interpretations” (p. 4). The diachronic nature of “…archaeological studies of materiality contribute to understanding how memory becomes historicized through linked activities that engage materials” (p. 22).

This interdisciplinary approach can be employed with benefit in classical studies too. For example, Julia L. Shear (American School of Classical Studies at Athens) is investigating the long history of the famous Tyrannicides sculptural group in the Agora of Athens from the perspective of social memory. Other researchers would gain important insights from a careful scrutiny of this important volume.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director