You all know that when someone is praised as a “colossus” in their field, it means that he or she towers over others in stature, ability, reputation, and achievement.  It is a good thing.  It comes from one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a gigantic bronze statue of Helios erected at the harbor of Rhodes, in celebration of a victory over Antigonos the One-Eyed.  The statue stood over 107 feet tall and was made of bronze plates.  It was splendid, but it had a short life.  Fifty-six years after it was set up, in 226 BC, an earthquake hit Rhodes and the statue toppled over; it may have been shaken apart by the force of the earthquake.  The shattered remains lay on the ground for centuries, and even in their ruinous state, they were a wonder to behold. According to Pliny the Elder, “Few men can clasp the thumb in their arms, and its fingers are larger than most statues.” (Natural History, 34.18).  Some 800 years later, when the Arabs had captured Rhodes, they sold the Colossus for scrap metal, and it was carted off to Syria by 900 camels.

So what does this have to do with the denizens of Hall E on Samothrace??

Well, each year I try to see a new place in Greece.  And even though I have been coming for over 30 years, there are still a lot of places I haven’t seen.  This year, I wanted to go to Rhodes. I didn’t have much time—I planned to fly over the day after I arrived in Greece and fly back the next evening, with friend and colleague Margie Miles of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.  Because of the strikes the plagued Greece this summer, our plans were threatened. But we were determined to get at least to Lindos, to the splendid Sanctuary of Athena.  So off we flew, grabbed a car, drove to Lindos, and shot up the acropolis.  So far, so good.  But after four hours on the acropolis, hungry, thirsty, and jetlagged, we headed down the steep steps.  I turned to take one last photo, paying no attention to my feet, and BAM!, like the Colossus I was on the ground.  My leg broken just where the Colossus was vulnerable, too!

I wasn’t carted off in pieces by 900 camels, but by the time they were through with me, I had a cast and crutches.  I was lucky to have good friends who helped me at the hospital.

I can tell you, a rocky Greek island like Samothrace is no place to be stuck in a cast.  No swimming; no hiking; just hobbling around.  Fortunately, I have the cast off now and have graduated to a cane.  The students encouraged me to get a hiking staff, so I don’t look quite so pathetic.

In short, while one should strive for greatness, there is definitely some times when you do not want to be a “colossus” in the field!

When I was a child, one of my favorite vacation activities was visiting Roman ruins.  When touring an archaeological site, I wondered about the people who, in ancient times, had lived in the homes and prayed in the temples.  I also wondered about the people who uncovered and interpreted the ruins millennia later: the archaeologists.

There are many different types of archaeologists, from art historical archaeologists who uncover and study sculpture to anthropological archaeologists who dig up skeletal remains in order to understand ancient food consumption.  At Samothrace, our team includes several types of archaeologists, each of whom took different paths to get where they are today.  Three of them sat down with me to discuss how to become an archaeologist.  Read on for their excellent advice.

Name: James R. McCredie

Title: Director Emeritus of Excavations, Sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace

Professor Emeritus, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

What type of archaeologist are you?

I am a classicist by training and a historian and I got into archaeology that way.  I have tried to fill out the story of Greek antiquity by finding things that might help.  In other words, I have tried to understand history through material culture.

What is your educational background/training?

I did a classical diploma at Exeter and then I went to Harvard and did Greek history and literature.  I got into that because the Greek historian had no one doing Greek and said “You will do Greek” and so I did.  He said, “Do something useful,” so he sent me out to Gordion in Turkey to dig, and I thought that was fun and spent three summers there.  Then a friend of mine had a little dig on the coast of Attica, called Koroni, which set Hellenistic history on its ear, so I put that together.  Then I had a telegram at Cambridge, where I was a second year graduate student, saying, “Come to New York and talk about Samothrace,” so I was railroaded into it!  And I’ve been working here ever since.

What advice would you give to a young person who hopes to become an archeologist?

See if you can participate in an excavation and see if that’s fun or interesting.  I wasn’t entirely sure when I got out of college whether I wanted to be a classicist or an archaeologist.  I spent a year at the American School and I thought that was fun.  I liked being at Harvard, so I stayed there for graduate school.  Harvard had just one faculty member doing archaeology, but if I had gone to Bryn Mawr or Penn, there would have been more people for me to work with.  But it worked out alright!

Bonna D. Wescoat

Name: Bonna D. Wescoat

Title: Director of Excavations, Sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace

Associate Professor, Emory University

What type of archeologist are you?

I am an architectural historian and I’m particularly interested in sacred architecture.  I am particularly interested in the spaces where things happened and how they were shaped to heighten religious experience.  Therefore my first task is to understand how buildings go together and how they fit in the landscape.

What is your educational background/training?

I went to Smith College, where I studied art history and then the Institute of Archeology in London and then Oxford.  I studied Roman archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology and then I switched over to Greek archaeology.  I was lucky to work with really fine professors.  I always loved archaeology.  I came to Samothrace my first year of graduate school and fell in love with the island and the Sanctuary.

What advice would you give to a young person who hopes to become an archaeologist?

Don’t be afraid to follow your passion. Travel to see ancient places and sites.  Study world languages and ancient languages because, while archaeology relies on discovering things, knowing the ancient languages and the languages of modern scholars will make you part of the world community.  This is one of the best parts of archaeology, the wonderful people you meet who also love the field.

Voula Tritsaroli

Name: Voula Tritsaroli

Title: Archaeologist, Sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace

What type of archaeologist are you?

I’m an anthropologist.  I don’t specialize in a particular period.  I study burial customs in order to understand the social structures and societies’ behaviors towards the dead.  I began studying the Byzantine period,  but I have also studied the prehistoric and classical periods.  When I look at burials, I try to combine both archaeological and biological data.

What is your educational background/training?

I went to my first excavation here [on Samothrace] in 1997.  I was an undergrad and was interested in prehistory.  I went to graduate school in Paris at the National Museum of Natural History and I studied paleoanthropology and geology.  I wrote my dissertation on Byzantine burial customs from central Greece.

What advice would you give to a young person who hopes to become an archaeologist?

I would advice him or her to that if he likes or has passion for this field, just do it!

As Arielle mentioned previously, we have been tasked to help with the Eastern Hill display for the renovation of the museum.  One category of objects that will be on display is the locally produced Samothracian bowl, otherwise referred to as the conical bowl. Over tens of thousands of bowls have been discovered in various locations on-site; the “mother-load,” as Professor McCredie describes it, was discovered in the Eastern Hill behind the Stepped Retaining Wall.

Conical Bowl with Ring-Foot Base

There are two types: ring-foot and string-cut. The former, placed chronologically before the string-cut bowl, has a projecting base, while the latter has a smooth bottom.  Ring-foot bowls are more labor intensive since the potter would have needed to roll and shape the clay, whereas string cut bowls were made by a single swift motion of a string that would cut the clay off the wheel and shape the bottom of the bowl.  Sometimes it is even possible to see the marks of the string on the bowl!

Conical Bowl with String-Cut Base

The small size and wide rim of the bowl is neither conducive to eating nor drinking.  Scholars suggest that the bowls were used for ritual libation and/or ritual dining.  We hope to discover their intended use through scientific research, chiefly organic residue analysis. However, it is possible that the precipitous climate of Samothrace washed away the residue in the bowls, especially if the bowls were used as wine vessels.

These bowls are presumably linked to the ritual of the Sanctuary.  As I have mentioned earlier, the sheer quantity and primary deposit of the bowls in the Eastern Hill is behind the Stepped Retaining Wall, which wraps around the southern part of the Theatral Circle.  It is suggested that initiates would dispose of their bowls after any ceremonial rite that took place within the building.

Their disposable nature undoubtedly fueled the local Samothracian economy, and they were perhaps precursors to, or perhaps the ancient equivalent of, plastic bowls.

Since arriving on Samothrace, I’ve spent quite a bit of my free time wandering along the shore looking for special finds to add to my collection, so the pile of beach stones in my little room at the Xenia has been steadily growing. I hate to admit that I may need to abandon some clothing in order to zip up my suitcase at the end of the month.

The beach next to the site is a rocky one, and is remarkable in its variety of color and texture. This has led me to do a little bit of reading on the geological features of the island to understand how some of the different types of stone formed, starting way back in the Late Jurassic period. The oldest rocks, dating from around 150 million years old, are metaphorphic rocks like slate and metamorphosed gabbro. Gabbro is a dark, coarse grained igneous rock and is the most common rock making up the ocean’s crust. Some limestone and marble deposits can be found on the island dating from the Jurassic period as well. Just imagine that this is when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Some of the major types of rock used in art and architecture. Click to enlarge.

Even though local marble does exist in small deposits on the island, most of the marble that the ancients used in the architecture of the Sanctuary was imported from other parts of Greece. The archeologists here commissioned scientific studies using fragments of the marble monuments to determine which distant marble quarries were used by the ancient Samothracians. This type of provenance testing is called stable isotope analysis. Using readings from a mass spectrometer, the scientist is able to determine the ratio of carbon to oxygen isotopes in the marble sample, which can then be compared to information in an existing database. The study helped to determine that the various marbles used in the Sanctuary were imported from relatively near and far, including quarries on Thasos, Paros, ancient Prokonnesos, as well as examples of the beautiful fine-grained Pentelic marble from Penteli Greece.

Thasian marble on the left, note the large grain size.
Pentelic marble on the right, exhibiting a much finer surface.

Considering the huge amount of effort and expense that must have gone into importing heavy stone blocks across the Aegean Sea, the ancient Greeks also used local stone for building material. The floor of the Theatral Circle is made from flat slabs of rhyodacite porphyry, which is a grey stone that may look reddish or greenish depending on the exact components of a specific section. It contains large crystals of pink orthoclase, biotite and hornblende, among other minerals. This type of volcanic rock underlies most of the Sanctuary and the Ancient City and similar outcroppings can be found all over the island. The stone is still used for building material today, and it can even be found making up the walls of the Archeological Museum of Samothrace.

At left, the floor of the Theatral Circle. At right, the outer wall of the Archeological Museum.

For more information on the geological make-up of Samothrace see “A Geological Companion to Greece and the Aegean” by Michael Denis Higgins and Reynold Higgins, published by Cornell University Press.

Geology.com is another great resource for basic information on rocks and minerals.

Anastelosis of the Hieron

Archaeologists don’t usually dig up standing buildings.  Instead, we unearth individual blocks and attempt to fit them together, first on paper and, when possible, in a physical reconstruction.  Parts of the sanctuary’s Hieron (above) were lovingly restored in the 1950s.  This summer, our team is investigating whether it will be possible to

reconstruct sections of other Samothratian buildings.  Architectural conservation is no small effort, and there are several steps in the process. Here is a look at the (possible) reconstruction of the Hall of Choral Dancers, Gloria’s and my favorite building in the sanctuary.  The Greek word for this type of reconstruction is anastelosis (a combination of ana = again, and stelóo = to erect).

1) The Hall of Choral Dancers was first investigated in the 1870s. Today, its pieces are scattered throughout the site, museum and various storerooms.  Some pieces were reused on Samothrace during the Byzantine period and, in the19th century, some blocks even found their way to Vienna.  Our first step for the reconstruction was to determine which section of the structure was best preserved.  For the Hall of Choral Dancers, we chose the southeast corner of the building.  We decided to focus on the entablature, the portion of the building above the columns.

2) We next poured over architectural drawings.  Over the years, our team has included amazing architects, especially the late John Kurtich, who used the unearthed blocks to determine what the building must have looked like. In the beautifully-rendered drawings, we could see exactly which block must have topped which, and which pieces were missing upon excavation.

Gloria and I inspect architectural drawings

3) We made a list of every block we would need (each block is numbered) and located their places in the storerooms.

4) We went up to the site and examined some ancient blocks whose precise original locations had not yet been determined. GATech grad student Myrsini identified a corner piece of the epistyle, one of the very pieces we were missing for our anastelosis.

4) We provided a packet of architectural drawings, photographs, block numbers and locations to our colleagues in the Greek Archaeological Service.  They picked these up today!  In the coming weeks, they will determine whether reconstruction of the southeast corner entablature of the Hall of Choral Dancers is feasible, and if so, exactly where it should be stand.

Hopefully, the reconstruction will work out, and we will get to see at least small part of

the Hall of Choral Dancers standing again!

Hello everyone!

Today is the one-month anniversary of our arrival at the dig site, and judging from our battle scars of various bug bites, scrapes, bumps, bruises, cuts and sunburns, we’ve become exemplars of the hazards from not only working at an excavation site, but living on an island more hospitable to wolf spiders, centipedes and snakes than to mere mortals.  Needless to say, excavation digs do not foster our inner-goddess glamour.  For most of us, me in particular, our wardrobes cater to comfort.  Sneakers to hike up to the site, long pants to avoid mosquitoes and other pesky insects, and faded or stretched shirts from the ever-powerful Greek laundry machine have become my uniform these past few weeks.  Advised of the sheer impracticality of packing anything we would normally wear in public, most of us came prepared with our least favorite clothes – just ripe to throw out, and, as of now, way past its expiration date.  Arielle Winnik, my fellow archaeologist and former fashion assistant at Elle, answers my questions on how to remain fashionable during an excavation dig.

Q.  Let’s start with the basics.  What would you recommend to pack for an archaeological dig?

A.  Lots of sunscreen.  A great pair of sunglasses.  A hat that covers your shoulders as well as your face.  Shirts that cover your shoulders, so you won’t burn them, but also are of a light breathable material so that you don’t get too hot.  Bathing suits for beach time.  Comfy sneakers.

Q. How could one blend fashion with comfort during an excavation dig?

A. The worst thing would be to try really hard to look cute.  You just have to stick with whatever your style is on a regular basis and try to make that work.  So if you’re preppy just wear simple preppy clothes. And if you’re… What else are people? Haha  if you like to dress.. What does a hipster wear?  Is anyone punky anymore?  What are [other] styles? Just keep it simple.

You just have to accept that your clothes are going to get wrinkled so you have to bring an iron.  But that’s just me because I really don’t like to have my clothes wrinkled. But other people might not care and that’s okay.

Q. Anything that has inspired you at the excavation dig that you might incorporate into your style?

A. I’m inspired to wear lots of sunscreen all the time.  I think there are things that I would never think are cute, but for practical reasons I started doing. For example, I asked Gloria to French braid my hair one day because I was so hot and miserable, and I wanted it off my face.  I’ve also gotten quite tan, which I always avoid doing because I don’t like to be tan but it looks quite cute.

Q.  Any other words of advice?

A.  If you must wear makeup, lipstick is better than mascara and foundation. And you’re not going to get a lot of sleep so just accept that you’re going to have bags under your eyes. Don’t wear rings because you work with your hands.

Arielle Winnik in the museum storage room

During ancient times, visitors to the sanctuary would sail to the ancient harbor, then enter the ancient city before passing through the city walls in order to gain access to the sanctuary itself. We are always eager for new challenges here at Samothrace, so when the opportunity came to hike up the ancient city wall in order to map it using GPS, naturally we jumped at the chance. Such a project goes beyond the normal duties of conservators and archaeologists during a dig, but a visiting researcher from Emory, Vicki Hertzberg, asked us if we would be willing to take on the challenge. Vicki is working at Emory with Michael Page in order to develop a geographic information system for the site.

The Wall.

This part of the project aimed to map the ancient city wall using a portable GPS device with which we could enter points every twenty feet or so to map our progress. We could also insert comments with the points in order to mark notable features of the wall, such as gaps.

Amy taking a point reading.

Arielle, Amy and I felt up for the ascent so we headed out about mid afternoon, armed with sunscreen, water, hats, and the GPS device. It was a nice hike up with incredible views, although we did suffer a few scrapes and bruises along the way from various falls and slips! There were a lot of unstable rocks and slippery gravel along the way, not to mention the lack of a path of any sorts, which made coming down a lot of fun. Nevertheless we made it back down in one piece and with (hopefully!) a good amount of collected useable data.

Success!

The worst part about getting to the top is realizing you have to climb back down...

The museum in its current state. Nice, but it hasn't been updated since the early 1960s!

Work on the Sanctuary of the Great Gods is always buzzing, even when excavations are not taking place. This season, the archaeologists at Samothrace are focusing on the publication of previous findings from the site, the reinstallation of the island’s archaeological museum and new research on previously excavated items.

I’m a graduate student in art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Gloria is a recent graduate of the same program. Our first task at Samothrace was to learn as much as possible about the Eastern Hill, the complex of buildings through which pilgrims entered and most likely exited the Sanctuary. We closely read Bonna’s soon-to-be-published volume on the area and helped with last minute details before sending it off to the publisher. (The book is over a decade in the making, so this was a great accomplishment!) We spent time up at the Sanctuary, getting familiar with the landscape and topography of the Eastern Hill.

When we thought ourselves to be “experts” on the place, we set about creating a proposal for Eastern Hill-related displays in the museum. We had to come up with a concept of how to group the items. Would we group them by type: i.e. lamps? By date: i.e. 3rd century material? One of the special things about our museum is that it lies just 500 meters from the archaeological site. Visitors get to see objects tantalizingly close to the places the objects came from. Gloria and I thus chose to group objects by the structures in which they were found. For example, we have proposed presenting mold-made lamps, wheel-made lamps and conical bowls together because hundreds of each were found in the Theatral Circle (a structure on the Eastern Hill), which suggests that they were part of the ritual that took place there. We hope that this organizational concept will give museum-goers an opportunity to view the objects in a way closer to the experience of viewers in antiquity.

We’d be interested in learning what you think about our concept! What are your favorite museum displays? How do you like objects to be organized? Do you prefer museums to be more educational or aesthetically-driven?

Greetings from Samothrace! We’re already a few weeks into the 2011 study season here at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. This year, conservation efforts are focused on preparing objects for museum exhibition and retreating objects to stabilize them for long term storage.

Emily and I are graduate students at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center where we have just completed our first year of study. We’re excited to have this opportunity to put everything we learned last year into practice. Working closely with Stephen Koob, the chief conservator at Corning Museum of Glass, we will treat a wide variety of archeological materials: glass, ceramics and stone.

Tight quarters for three conservators... not your typical museum conservation lab.

Our lab is equipped with a large workbench, a microscope, a column for producing deionized water, a basic selection of solvents and chemicals and a variety of conservation tools– from old toothbrushes to graduated cylinders. Considering that this is a remote island that can only be reached by ferry, the lab is surprisingly well stocked. However, a little ingenuity and creative use of common household items doesn’t hurt when working in the field.

Objects in the conservation queue.

Stay tuned for further reports from the conservation team.

Here on Samothrace we live the some of the largest and strangest creatures out there. It is always and adventure to go out onto the site and find new things that we never knew existed before (granted most of the time I am happy not knowing some bugs existed).

These bugs look like long skinny lady bugs, however they are much more bothersome that lady bugs

One of the many spider dens that are all around the site

strung between two trees this spider braves the Samothracian winds

After braveing the bugs of the day we all like to cool off in the Agean. Hunted by the bugs like the endangered Aegean Monk seal. We Swim.