According to Wikipedia, Yahoo, and numerous other (questionable) internet sources, July 26th in America is “All or Nothing Day,” a day in which extremes and going-for-broke are condoned as well as celebrated. Here in Greece, however, we celebrated the name day Parakseuis, which means “Friday” in Greek. Each day in the calendar is associated with a name, and certain important name days are treated as holidays.

Throughout the morning, sporadic church bells and an unusually large influx of visitors heralded the special nature of the date.  During our mid-day siesta, Desi, Becky, and I meandered down the beach to a little café where a festival was being held. Situated in a clearing in the trees, in the shadow of a cliff with an ancient tower perched atop, the space was both picturesque and ideal for social gatherings.

As the population of the entire island of Samothrace is under 3,000 people, a significant fraction of the community must have been gathered within the yard. Outdoor tables were crammed with people, and throngs of Grecians lounged under the shade of the trees. Multiple generations of families living on Samothrace came together to celebrate.

Smoke wafted from several cooking fires, carrying the scent of roasting meat. For five euros, we purchased an enormous plate of rice stewed in goat broth, two shanks of roasted goat, and a crusty roll to share between us. A delicious (second) lunch!

Serving freshly cooked goat to hungry Samothracians

As we ate, we chatted with several of the local Greek individuals and listened to traditional Samothracian music, played on string instruments.

It was an incredible opportunity to interact with members of the local community and experience Samothracian customs and traditional home cooking. Most of all, though my English undoubtedly advertised my foreign origin, I felt completely welcomed and accepted into the community!

-Kari Rayner, Graduate Student at New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, Conservation Center

Here are a few pictures of our walk along the ancient city wall.

Imagine that you are standing outside and someone hands you a broom and tells you to sweep. How do you know when you’re done?

During our first week on the island, Bonna, Jess, Abi, Alison, and Vikki spent a morning cleaning the Nike Precinct to prepare the area for a gigapan photograph. Gigapan is a technology that allows us to take one large photograph which covers the entire area in great detail, which is useful because it lets us study the building when we are back in the United States.

The first thing we did was to start clearing away the plants and weeds that had grown over the winter. We did this with trowels and pruning shears. There were some pretty serious spiderwebs to be dealt with too, and those were delicately handled with a large stick, Shrek-style. Alison was given a plan of the building and she inventoried the blocks and boulders that make up the visible remains.

Abi and Alison sweep the rocks

While she was climbing all over the larger blocks, counting and pointing and assessing their locations, the rest of the team was wrangling weeds. This involved lots of clipping, pulling, and sweeping to make sure all of the plants were removed. This is important because when we take the photo, we’ll want to be able to see all of the blocks of the building clearly.

Vikki and Jess cleaning

It’s hard to know when a dirt floor is “clean.” You can sweep and sweep for hours and still not be done! By the end of the morning, though, we had made some good progress on cleaning the building. We all came back to the Museum thinking that we had nice tans, but to our dismay, it was just dirt that all washed away! Oh well, we can always go to the beach to work on our tans during the weekend!

Kalimera (Good day) from Samothrace! I’m Desi Peters, one of the four conservators on staff along with Kari Rayner and Samantha Owens, under the supervision of Steve Koob. We’re halfway into the 2012 season with only three weeks left!

First, let me introduce myself. I am a graduate student at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center and I’ve just finished my first year. This season at Samothrace has offered me the opportunity to put some of last year’s  learning into practice.

What does a conservator a Samothrace do, you might ask?

This year, Kari, Sam and I have been focusing on two major projects: 1) re-treating previously restored objects and 2) photo-documentation for a Site Maintenance proposal due in December 2012. Largely the re-treatment of objects from storage involves removing old adhesives that have become brittle and replacing them with ones that are more sympathetic to the object.

Photo-documentation for the Site Maintenance has been one of my favorite projects because it means we can leave the lab and explore the beautiful Site all day. Over the last week we’ve been surveying the current condition of the Western Hill. Part of this process involves recreating old excavation photos from the 1950s-80s to clearly illustrate how the site has changed over time. This will help future excavations understand how best to maintain those areas in the future.

For example, below are two photos from the Stoa (a meeting place), one taken at its excavation in 1964 and the other taken by us a couple days ago. Can you see how it has changed?

The Stoa when first excavated in 1964.

The Stoa in July 2012.

Sometimes this process reminds me of the “Find What’s Different” puzzles in the Sunday paper where the reader is given two seemingly identical cartoons and asked to discern the differences. In a similar way, part of our job is to take a photograph that is as near the original snapshot in angle and composition as possible so that differences become easily apparent.

…However, the task is not quite as relaxing as a perusal of the Sunday paper because of, ahem, certain creepy observers hovering about your ankles. I am so glad I brought a pair of high boots!

Bugs aside, the ocean’s cool waters offer a refreshing cleanse after a day’s work. One of my first purchases was a pair of goggles so I could see the world beneath the Aegean’s surface.  At dusk, schools of dark black fish swarm the rocks about 50 meters off shore and, on a lucky day, dolphins leap on the horizon. It truly is a wonderland- mysterious, magical, and exhilarating!

The pebble beach outside our living quarters with a view of the ancient city walls.

Ultimately, attempting to capture this island of Mysteries in a blog post is a difficult task because so much of its charm feels indescribable- the only way to truly understand its enchantment is to visit in person. In the meantime, while you pack your bags, stay tuned for more updates from the team at Samothrace!

This is the middle of the second week of the excavation. Right now we are at the peak prevalence of people associated with the excavation team: the former site director, Mr. McCredie, and his wife, the current site director, Bonna Wescoat, and her daughter, the glass conservator (Steve Koob), 2 Harvard-associated architects, 2 NYU and 1 Emory students working in the conservation lab, 1 Princeton, 1 NYU, and 1 Emory students working on archaeology, and me. So we posed for a group picture this morning:

Wait, was that a goat herd running by?

A short time after this photo, Steve left to return to his home in Corning, NY, and I will leave tomorrow morning. On the other hand, Steve’s and my places will be taken this weekend by Michael Page, a geographer from Emory, and his wife. And Steve will return in 2 weeks to finish the seasonAfter that people start to trickle out around July 20, although 2 more Emory students also arrive then. The excavation officially closes on August 6.

Alas, I have other responsibilities in Atlanta that require my attention and attendance, so I must be off.

More later!

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!