Heirloom Archaeology: The Yard Edition Pt. 2, St. Francis

When I grew up, I assumed everyone had a St. Francis in their yard. We had one. Others in my family had one. When I asked who he was and why he was there, I was told that he protected and encouraged happy wildlife, that he would bring bounty to our little garden. He brought good luck to the yard and the squirrels and the morning doves.

Garden statues of holy figures are a tradition especially loved by Catholics. The concept and general idea behind them will be familiar to those studying ancient shrines for nymphs and other locally sacred beings.

In our family, St. Francis is the dominant garden statue and his presence can be traced to one particular image. It's the most 'sacred' in the family because its the oldest and it reaches back to the elder generation's childhood. It's been through hurricanes and moves, has been broken and reassembled, but somehow its still standing. It's the talismanic Athena Polias of the clan.

The statue of St. Francis has lived in the garden of the ancestral home's courtyard. The courtyard itself has gone through numerous changes over the years. Back in the day ('50s) there was even a palm tree in the middle.

This is where the grown ups sipped their cocktails: Myrtle Rask (my grandmother) and Anna Mae Sirl (great-grandmother).

But St. Francis was there, his toes in a bird bath, surveying his domain. He spent the years encouraging all the tropical plants to go wild, watching over the tiny lizards zipping across the patio, and providing a perch for song birds come to raid the bird feeder.

Analysis of the photographic evidence shows that nowadays St. Francis is in almost the exact same location, with some of the exact same plants still thriving under his protection.

St. Francis in 1958.

Best of all, he's still protecting the little animals :)

Heirloom Archaeology: The Yard Edition

In keeping with my continuing study of my aunt and uncle's Florida house, I've decided to start documenting some of the artifacts residing here. Indeed, here at the ancestral homestead one is surrounded by artifacts and heirlooms of a wide variety. Almost 60 years of habitation by the same family have resulted in an interesting conglomeration of objects. For (me) an archaeologist and lover of stories, it’s an ideal and happy situation, especially since its my family. Many of these artifacts would not be considered ‘heirlooms’ in the usual sense of the word. The term more often refers to  proudly displayed items that are ‘worth’ something, if not because of cost, than because of an aura endowed by story or legend. But I'll be calling my little project heirloom archaeology regardless.

In archaeological terms, 'heirloom' can be used to imply simply those objects “maintaining and reifying ties with the past” (D. H. Thomas 1976, 128). Commonly, archaeologists discuss heirlooms in terms of ancient chieftons and prestige. For example, in 1999 Lillios posited that “in chiefdoms, heirlooms serve to objectify memories and histories, acting as mnemonics to remind the living of their link to a distant, ancestral past. And because not all the living have equal access to that ancestral past, as heirlooms are typically valued objects that are not available or equally accessible to all members of a community, the possession, display, and transmission of heirlooms also differentiate the living and help to reify inherited social differences” (Lillios 1999, 236). That is, heirlooms are interesting because of their significance in society. In their Archaeologies of Memory, Alcock and Van Dyke likewise stress social memory.

These aren’t the heirlooms I’m interested in. Rather, I’m interested in 'memorable' objects  in a familial and domestic setting that are significant to the immediate inhabitants due to their life history and their link to the past, only. Not because of the social significance that they acquire outside of the domestic sphere. For the purposes of this blog, heirloom archaeology is a mash-up of familial archaeology and domestic archaeology on the micro scale.

 

Let’s start with this strange object that serves as part of the garden sculpture here. To me, it’s a mystery. Mechanical people might recognize it, however, as an engine head. Not just any engine head, but the engine head of the 1973 Volkswagon Bus that carried the Kelly family (my aunt, uncle, and 3 cousins) all over the country on camping trips, from Florida to Yellowstone. At some point, the engine broke, was fixed, broke again, and limped its way through the 70s and into the 80s. That is, it carried the family until 1981, when it finally gave up the ghost. That’s when it got turned into a piece of garden sculpture, rewarded for its loyalty in a spot of honor by the porch (instead of being thrown out like the engine from the 1965 Pontiac).

 

 

Another example is this object holding up the boat. Tools tend to be objects passed down from parents to children, with the result that many people have old-timey gear sitting around their garage or house, looking vintage and hip but usually serving no other purpose. This piece, however, is actually still at work. We can trace it to the Depression and  the 1930s, when Charlie Lloyd Kelly lived in Center, Mississippi with his Irish family (early settlers of Miss., arriving in the 1830s). C.J. used this mechanical jack until he died and it was passed down to his son, my Uncle Jim (Kelly). Today you can observe the depression-era jack still in use, slightly jerry-rigged, here in southern Florida.

These are a special kind of heirloom, then. Of little monetary value, these two artifacts make up the domestic material culture of the household. Ask the family about them, and you'll start a flood of talking, story-telling, reminiscing, and oral history. They're ugly and unremarkable and don't draw the eye. Yet, they're certainly significant links to the past that are part of the present life of the family home.
 

Hands Off: Tools As Artifacts at the Archaeological Dig

From the beginning of its existence as a discipline, archaeology has been about objects. While its true that for many projects the dirt itself is starting to get the same respect as the items that are uncovered in it, archaeologists cannot help but remain object-oriented. All day you look for artifacts in the soil- tiles, pottery, worked stone, metals, weaving implements, tools. Your day is centered around 'things.' Your hands are constantly touching and feeling objects to help in their identification - is this ceramic or is it a rock? Your eyes and your body are constantly on tippy-toe, waiting, hanging on the potential appearance of 'things' with every passing clod of earth.

But of course, modern 'things' are just as important as the ancient ones in an archaeologist's daily life; they can receive the same sort of intense focus, adulation and worship as the ancient treasures themselves. I'm talking about tools.

Everyone knows what its like to have a work utensil that's used day after day. It's quite easy to develop a relationship with it, whether it's a crappy keyboard that you grow to loathe or a favorite pen that you jealously guard. It can be a major bummer if your favorite item gets lost, or breaks, or is stolen by a co-worker. It's the same way with an archaeologist's tools. At most excavations, there's often a morning rush as everyone tries to grab their favorite things before someone else does. There's a race for handpicks, for dustpans, for bristle brushes, for the lightest shovel and the sturdiest bucket. These tools can cause a lot of unacknowledged jostling, secret irritation, silent glowering and intense satisfaction.

I myself have become quite fond of the old rounded trowel I found in the tool shed this summer. I bet every person on the Poggio Colla excavation has their own secret attachment. Some of those human-tool relationships are a bit more obvious.


Take PC 42's student-digger Morgan, for example, who has a tool with a story. And a name - Tiger. Most of the students went off to Home Depot or Lowes to buy their trowels before they came to Italy, which means that most of the trowels look pretty much the same. But Morgan found one at her own house. It turns out that her parents once built a deli and her dad was tiling the interior. He shaped his trowel to make it more useful for laying tile, in contrast to the flat brick-laying trowel. And so Morgan decided to adopt her Dad's tool, which he had created and inadvertently imbued with sentiment.


Sure, you can only use it with one hand because if you flip the blade you'll destroy everything in its path. It's a vicious weapon and can bite the hand that wields it; it's a trowel that demands respect. But it's master is Morgan.

Some of the tools are a little more serious. There are even a few that only staff members are allowed to use, for obvious insurance reasons. Like the ax.

PC 42, the ax in use. As it turns out, trench supervisor Kyle used to be a competitive lumber jack. Be gone, tree stump!
And when these really serious tools break, waiting for their replacements can leave everyone on edge. The recent shattering of the ax-handle was just such an affair. At least now we've got it back, and rotten tree stumps are once more flying off the side of the hill.
But besides being mean, lean, archaeological-context-destruction machines, our tools can be an endless source of entertainment as well. They can make a person happy, when not giving blisters and callouses or accidentally stabbing you.

PC 42 student-digger Jack displays the proper way to double-fist the handpick.
While our focus on the ancient objects may be well-recognized, the archaeologist's daily obsession with modern tools is, I think, just as great. Um, unless it's just me.
Keep your paws off my trowel.

No Pose! Photographic Dialogues with Artifacts, People, and Places

Today we went to the National Museum, where Olga Palagia talked to us about 4th- 3rd century BCE sculpture. I got in trouble with a guard because I hadn’t checked my backpack; as we haven’t been visiting many museums these days, I had forgotten about the Dreaded Museum Guard.

Museum Gaurd in Crete, hard at work. He may look relaxed and comfy in that chair, but he's waiting to pounce on unsuspecting tourists.

There is a rule here in Greece: you are not allowed to pose with objects in museums, unlike in the States, where I guess in some cases it's encouraged. This rule is fairly new and, if I recall correctly, was not in place the first time I came to Greece in 2000; I have asked around and Jack Davis told me that the rule is only a few years old.

My bad, Mr. Museum Guard! Some person who I won’t name standing (not posing!) with a statue of Caesar that looks just like him.

Museums naturally need lots of rules, to keep morons from rubbing their hands all over David and breathing all over Mona Lisa. I’m okay with this, of course. Here in Greece, museum guards must always be present with you when antiquities are around, and if you're the only person in the museum, they will follow you from room to room in a very disconcerting manner. They have learned to say their most important phrases in multiple languages; they admonish ‘No Touch!’ and ‘No Flash!,’ glowering with angry faces that say quite plainly that you've wronged them as seriously as if you'd just run over their grandmothers.

You know what, Museum Guard? Sometimes my flash goes off on accident. I know that flashes harm antiquities, especially painted ones, but sometimes a button gets pushed unintentionally as I race from object to object, and whoops, there went the flash. But before I can even get out a sheepish apology, you’re up in my face. Gawd. Okay, I know most tourists are hellacious and annoying, and obviously museum guards are at their wits end, but I still don’t like being yelled at.

I tried to take a picture of Eric with the Nike of Paionias at Olympia. Not only did the Guard yell at me, but he rushed me as well. That's his hand blocking the photo.

But nothing baffles me more than the 'no posing' rule. Although I don't know if this is true, the going explanation is that this rule was instigated in order to ensure proper decorum in museums and, most importantly, proper respect for the antiquities. Theoretically, this should give people a greater sense of reverence for these objects, so much so that they might reach the symbolic heights of the Acropolis, which is called, in modern Greece, ‘the Sacred Rock.’

Of course, you’re allowed to pose with the Parthenon. I wonder: if they could, would they stop allowing people to pose with buildings? (For more on modern Greece and its relationship with antiquity, see this.)

Whoops. Kiersten 'accidentally' got in the way of my photo, I promise.

What I find interesting about this rule lies not in the act of posing with the object, whether its done proudly, derisively, or goofily, but rather the photograph that is left behind. People travel to places to see things, and once they’ve made it there, they want their picture taken. It's thought, perhaps, that there’s something more powerful and permanent about photographs. They are solid proof that, yes, you were there. Telling stories about visiting a place just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore; you’ve got to have that slide show when you get back, or pass around the photo album, or post them on Flickr.

In fact, given the ease of the internet and digital photography, many tourists engage in a photographic dialogue with other picture takers. We’ve become so used to seeing people in front of certain landmarks and monuments that when it’s our turn, we want to do it, too. Perhaps there’s even something (dare I say it) ritualistic about the whole process. For some, if they don’t get that photo op, the trip hasn't gone right, they’re disappointed, everything gets jostled and upset. I have seen people walk right up to a monument, get their picture taken, and leave. Immediately. Without having actually looked at the thing!

But for some, the tourist picture is much more self-conscious and is a way to link oneself to a photographic tradition, to share in a long-standing experiential continuum. It’s part pilgrimage, part play and part nostalgia.

My Uncle Jim got his picture taken at the Eiffel Tower in 1964. The picture hung on the wall in the hallway for years, so when my cousin Joel went in 1995, he made sure to get his own picture to put on the wall, too. (All other Eiffel Tower shots from Google search.)

But in Greece the museum policies have made this impossible. It may be that they’ve destroyed that sense of satisfaction a person gets from showing their friends and family pictures with the Mask of Agamemnon, or the Artemisian Zeus, or Athens 804. There will never be a photographic tradition built up around the objects in Greek museums, with pictures collecting and pooling on thousands of Flickr and Facebook accounts. Visually, the objects will never develop a relationship with people. The authorities have completely removed Greek antiquities from the dialogue. Sure, you can still post pics of famous statues and vases, as long as there are no people in them. In other words, this policy has ensured that the antiquities will remain works of ‘art,’ existing on their own, divorced from humanity and the pilgrims that come to see them.

The School's Secret Stash of Science Fiction and Fantasy

When people travel a lot, they tend to leave a trail of discarded books behind them. Once the books have been read, it’s rather pointless to let them weigh down your luggage; even better, most hostels and small hotels tend to have small collections through which you can rifle, leaving your book and taking a new one. The American School, like ex-pat places the world over, also has a collection. But I’d wager that ours is quite a bit bigger than most places, given the School's long history.

One of the more significant assortments to be found in Loring Hall was acquired from the Blegen/Hill estate. I’ve mentioned the Blegen’s and the Hill’s on repeated occasions, but it’s also good to know that not only did they leave an imprint on the political and social history of the School, but they also left behind quite a bit of material culture that has been absorbed into the School's physical landscape. Part of that material culture includes an enormous collection of mystery novels, dating from the 1930s to 1940s.

The Blegen’s and the Hill’s were best friends: Carl and his wife Elizabeth, Bert and his wife Ida. They shared a house in Athens at 9 Plutarch St. and when Blegen died in 1971, he left the house and everything in it to the School. The papers within it now form a large part of the School’s Archives, and bits of their furniture and other material culture spread out from there. The mystery books made it over to Loring Hall, where they are now in the TV Room.

It’s quite a collection. I asked Bob Bridges about it last night at Ouzo, and he told me that the books were mostly collected by Elizabeth and Ida, who actually had formed a little Crime club of sorts! The titles are in themselves amazing:

But it was not until two days ago that I actually discovered the School’s really secret stash of genre books. I was across the street in the Blegen Library and stopped in the lounge on the lowest floor. A small book shelf stood in the corner, and it was to here, I discovered, that the SF books of the School had been making their way. (NB: SF = Speculative Fiction = Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Comics/Etc.)

I’d been wondering about them, actually. With all the books that are collected here, why were there so few science-fiction and fantasy novels? People make jokes about nerdy sci-fi fans lurking at society’s margins, but in fact these marginal people are actually quite numerous (and in today’s comic book culture, nearly the majority of those under 30). So where were the books? Again, Bob Bridge’s held the key. Apparently, there were a fair number of not only speculative fiction titles floating around, but also harlequin romances. Bob was aware that there are certain types of books that certain people do NOT like to see; it was safer, then, to move those books elsewhere, to a place where they would not offend certain sensibilities. He was right to do so: it seems the harlequin romances were thrown out a few years back. But the speculative fiction books are still there, and are in fact quite impressive, very old school, with lots of Daw Books titles. Bob says he’s been grouping them together for as long as he’s been back at the School, since about 1982. Have a look:

The Secret Stash Discovery has been a highlight for me. Perhaps I’ll see how many 1930s mysteries and 1980s SF I can get through before Christmas. And let's hope the Secret Stash, no longer secret since I've revealed it on the Internet, survives and prospers. I'll make sure to add to it as much as I can.

Trip 3: Greatest Hits of Archaeology

Lot’s to post about but for now I’ll have to keep things short. We’ve been in Nea Anchialos for three nights with the Interwebs, but there’s also a beach out front with lots of walking paths. The potential strolls are inviting enough that I’ll have to apologize for not blogging much while on this trip. In fact, it’s always hard to write something worthwhile on the trips because each day is so exhausting, exhausting in all ways possible. The trips are intellectually grueling (you can only do so much learning), they are physically tiring (we climbed two acropoleis today), and socially strenuous (being crammed on a bus can do that to anyone).

Katie not blogging. Note how arduous thinking seems to be.

It’s become clear that my posts from the trips will have to be confined to a series of trip-greatest-hits. Today’s will be short.

Trip III covers central Greece. We’ve hit up a real variety of regions and sites; I’m thinking the northern parts of the School trips might be my favorite. Some cool things we’ve seen:

1) A really big cave, sacred to the Nymphs and Pan in antiquity. It was quite a climb to get there, but no Philippi.

2) A bat. It was living in a Hellenistic tomb that we climbed into. It almost hit Margie Miles in the head.

3) The Orphic Gold tablets! Yes! They are even smaller then I imagined, but totally cool nevertheless. They are basically road maps to the Underworld, assisting the dead as they attempt to traverse the dangers of the afterlife. I’ll be talking about them when I present on the Oracle of Trophonius.

4) One of my favorite places was a ruined town called Palaios Platanos. It was abandoned in the 1950s and has been left to decay alone in the hills. As Denver said, exploring the town was a way to illuminate the process of site formation. It was also a remarkable way to spend a quite hour in the morning. I’ll talk more about this site later.

5) The Volos Museum. One of my favorite museums so far, stocked full of painted stele from the Hellenistic period. Great displays, cool sanctuary finds, sweet-ass Neolithic figurines. Basically the total package.

6) Oh. And the dudes had to move a car again. Except that then the car’s owner came out and agreed to move it himself, but then drove it into the side of our bus.