Paths and Empty Roads by Archaeological Sites in the Greek Countryside

The Regular Year program involves a lot of walking. In order to get accepted into the program, the School requires a doctor's verification that you are in reasonable health. This isn't to say that we were all fit as a fiddle, as if our first hike up Lykabitos Hill wasn't like hiking through the valley of the shadow of death. Brutal, is how I recall it. But during the fall trips we got into much better form, so that I was on my way to being as healthy as I was when I drove a pedal-cab at OSU football games.

But then the trips ended, and Christmas happened, and nowadays we do far fewer walk-abouts. This was clear to me yesterday, when we went to the ancient sites of Thorikos, Sounion and Zoster. I'd forgotten what physical activity was like, and how, on foot, the empty road appears ahead of you.

Scott Gallimore navigates a dried creek bed, directly next to the classical-era stoa at Thorikos. Up ahead of him you can just make out the collapsed blocks of the building, which at some unknown point slid into the river.

Lindy Dewey-Gallimore treads the abandoned railway line that runs through Thorikos. Over-grown and unused, several of the railroad ties were ripped out within the last day or two. They'll no doubt be more useful where ever they are now. Site formation at work!

Regular and Associate members travel the winding mountain road at Vari. Our bus couldn't make the trip because the road had been blocked by a funeral. Our destination was the shrine of Pan and the Nymphs in the Vari Cave. We made the hike back in total darkness.

The countryside is green and wet in all directions, a far cry from the dry and yellowed landscape of Greece's summer. Usually this a good thing, but some plants are apparently a nuisance.

Margie Miles, Mellon Professor, on her way to the Thorikos Stoa.

One such example is a verdant and clover-looking plant that spreads like a carpet in olive groves. It turns rocky Greece into a British countryside.

We learned about this dark and evil plant on Wednesday from Harriet Blitzer, who spoke to us during the Weiner Lab seminar. Harriet works on, among other things, olive cultivation and the domestication of plants. She is particularly forceful when it comes to this cloveresque greenery, which was imported to Greece and has thrived to everyone's dismay. It apparently acts like a sponge, holding water in, but kills all the local wild flowers; instead of olive groves starred by spring blooms, only this dread plant remains (yes, I've forgotten its name already). Think kudzu in the South, although it hasn't quite reached the point of swallowing whole trees. It sure is pretty to look at, but I imagine in the spring I'll think differently, when all the wild flowers are gone.

Nap time in the Erechtheion

Long day today. Twelve hours visiting sites in Attica, climbing two mountains. Now stuffed full of one of my favorite dinners that they serve at Loring Hall. Will sleep it off and post tomorrow. Until then, here's a scene from the Erectheion yesterday that should let you know how sound asleep I wish to be.

Good ol' Mnesikles: Climbing on the Propylaia

We did the Propylaia today. That's the monumental gateway on the Athenian acropolis, constructed in the 5th century BCE. We were given a tour by the architect in charge of the Propylaia's reconstruction, Mr. Tanoulas.

It was a chance to climb all over the building, check out its various rooms, and see what it looks like from behind.

The northeast room of the Propylaia, looking towards the Parthenon.

I think we were most looking foward to climbing on top of the Propylaia, since last year's Regular Members were going on about how awesome it was. (Of course, they didn't get to climb up the Frankish tower in the Parthenon - Booyah!) At the end of our tour, we were given the chance to visit the Propylaia's roof.

Climbing up the scaffolding.

We got lucky. It was another absolutely gorgeous day.

Regular Member Tom Garvey looks down into the northwest rooms of the Propylaia.

Eric was walking around with a goofy grin on his face the whole time; it was hard not to enjoy the view, the sunlight and the novelty of being on-top of the famous ancient structure. Meanwhile, we got to see all the architectural tidbits up-close and personal, in a way that usually only happens in an art history classroom, when pictures are blown up to gargantuan sizes.

Hanging out with architectural elements. Hello, triglyph.

Cool day.

Acropolis Dogs and the Parthenon's Phases

On Thursday, we visited the interior of the Parthenon to hear about the reconstruction project which has been going on there (I'll be posting about reconstruction projects in the near future).

Photo: Melinda Dewey-Gallimore, 2009.

We climbed up the 13th century tower located at the southwest corner of the Parthenon, which is one of the only post-antique structures still preserved on the Acropolis, the rest having been dismantled to make way for the 'important' bits. The tower was constructed not long after 1204 when the Parthenon was converted into a Catholic church by the Franks. It was made of spolia and contained a spiral staircase, which was incidentally a lot of fun to climb up. The view was phenomenal. Eventually the tower was turned into a minaret when Athens came under Ottoman rule in the 1400s.

A drawing from the 1700s showing the minaret as it stood in the SW corner. The picture depicts the bombing of the Parthenon by Francesco Morosini in 1687.

Despite the tower being an astoundingly important piece of historical evidence preserved on the Acropolis, it is surprisingly little discussed. Sitting on the porch here in Lorring with other graduates, I was a bit appalled to see how little we collectively know about it. It reinforces how much we need projects like The Other Acropolis or Anthony Kaldellis' forthcoming book The Christian Parthenon: Classicism and Pilgrimage in Byzantine Athens. (If you can't wait for its release, check out his online lecture A Heretical (Orthodox) History of the Parthenon.)

While up on top of the tower, we were shown this:

Photo: Melinda Dewey-Gallimore, 2009.

It's a dog print preserved in a terracotta tile. None of us can figure out when it dates to, since it doesn't appear to be ancient Greek or Roman. Any ideas?

A Report on Christmas Break, And So Begins the Winter Quarter

The Christmas holidays have finally come to a close, and I really am back in the blogosphere (did I just actually say ‘blogosphere?’). Our Fall Quarter here at the School ended with a six-day trip to Crete, amidst a whirlwind of seminars, paper run-throughs and efforts to avoid nervous break downs. We got into the holiday spirit by having two tree trimming parties here in Athens, one at the Director’s House and one in Lorring Hall. There was even carol singing, believe it or not, accompanied on the piano by the Assistant Director of the British School, Robert Pitt.

Lorring Hall’s tree trimming party.

Regular Members Tom Garvey and Sean Jensen.

I went back to the States for a much needed month-long vacation, although it turned out to be extremely busy and involved a lot of driving all over the East Coast.

My driving route.

I went to Atlanta for 10 days or so and was able to eat lots of banana pudding and watch tons of Battlestar Galactica with my mom. I also visited Beast Cat and was taught to crochet by my grandmother.

Note the fancy new hat and scarf my grandma made me.

I spent Christmas on a mountaintop in Tennessee and played lots of Wii. Then back to Atlanta.

Yes, I got a cowboy hat for Christmas. I’m thinking it might make a good excavation hat.

I spent a few days around New Years in DC, before heading to Columbus, then on to Philadelphia for the AIA Meetings. Made the 12 hour trip back to Atlanta before taking a 24 hour flight back to Athens on Wednesday. We had a truly lovely morning yesterday, visiting the inside of the Parthenon. The day was gorgeous and warm, and our tour of the Parthenon was interesting while being sufficiently laid back.

‘Chillaxing’ on the steps of the Parthenon.

Today I gave my first site report of the quarter at Eleusis. I presented the Telesterion, the main cult building in the sanctuary and supposedly the site of the mysterious Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone.

Note so mysterious in the daylight, missing the spooky torches and secret rites. Imagine us sitting on the steps, wet and bedraggled from the early rain storm, with wet handouts plastered to our clothing.

And now, as soon as I finish this Fellowship application, the weekend awaits! I plan on enjoying it via a good vegetation session on the couch.

Umpf

Jet lag.

Emic and Etic: Anthropology and Aliens in SF

One of the hardest things about writing science fiction, I think, is the creation of alien cultures. Don’t get me wrong: it’s unlikely that I can toss out some hard science or mathematical theory and have it successfully shape an entire world, like the best science fiction writers do on a regular basis. But beyond the science, it’s the alien peoples who seem to be the most difficult to concoct, particularly because they are the aspects of a story that can fail the most spectacularly.

I recently read Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky, the prequel to his enormously successful A Fire Upon the Deep. Both were Hugo Award winning books, popular not just for their really stunning theoretical science but for the interesting alien cultures that inhabit them. I enjoyed them immensely, but like any theoretically sophisticated work should do, they invite you to critique them in order that we might move beyond them.

I do agree that Vinge’s alien races were quite compelling and that he really has a knack for some surprising and fascinating turns. There are Fire’s alien Tines, dog-like creatures that share a consciousness between 3-6 bodies. In Deepness, the aliens are arachnid-esque, hibernating below the earth every 60 years when their sun cyclically dies. The richness of their cultures and the charm of the alien characters is very attractive for readers who are looking for something truly different.

But are they that different? I was struck by how Vinge’s aliens were…well, so human, their histories and concerns following distinctly human lines. The cultural evolution of both the Tines and the Spiders mimic the rise of our own civilizations as the academics used to see it, moving from primitive to the most advanced. This reflects Vinge’s interest in technological singularity, the idea that as we become more and more intelligent, our machines will become more intelligent; our machines will then evolve faster than we, and that explosion of evolution will totally destroy all our paradigms and create something beyond any possibilities we could imagine. And so will begin the post-Human Era.

But for all his notions that AI’s crossing of the intelligence threshold will result in a future we can’t conceive, Vinge never applies the same theoretical gymnastics to culture and to the societies of his aliens. Their desires and fears, their relationships and motives, all fall within the human paradigm.

The Post-Human Era.

SF writers have been trying for years to create something utterly inhuman. The most popular alien life-form that is used in this context is the insect. Bugs are, after all, about as alien as you can get on the Planet Earth. There is something about them that not only frightens us entirely, but that is unknowable and strange. And thus Robert Heinlein, in his spectacular Starship Troopers, created mankind’s greatest enemy in the form of an insect. The Bugs have no personality, no history, no culture. They are the perfect enemy, completely de-humanized, bent on human destruction. They can be killed without guilt because, after all, there is nothing human about them.

Insect aliens have ever after been a favorite. Orson Scott Card’s Ender Wiggen battled Bugger’s who possessed the hive mind of bees, as did Wurts/Feist’s cho-ja in their fantasy Empire Trilogy. Perhaps, due to the difficulty of creating aliens as far beyond our understanding as aliens must be, insects are the best way to go.

On the first day of any anthropology-like class, the words emic and etic are defined on the board. They refer to the perspectives we can take as we try to understand cultures. Emic means that an explanation comes from someone within that society, since they have intimate knowledge of why certain things are done. An etic perspective is that of an outsider, the observer, the analytical researcher.

It seems that with respect to alien cultures, we have generally not moved beyond an emic approach; sitting within the shape of the human world, we can’t look outside, we’re insiders who can’t get to an etic perspective. Usually it's the outsider trying to look in, and unable to get the right ideas about things, but with respect to ET, we can't seem to get out. Aliens have myths, legends, fears, desires, and interpersonal conflicts just like any human. If not, then they are insect-like or they compete like mindless animals in the survival of the fittest.

Granted, I haven’t read every SF book ever written. But I’m hoping that somewhere out there are books that take the theoretical innovativeness applied to physics in SF, and instead apply that to alien culture (or lack-of-culture, or beyond-culture. You know what I mean). An insider emic approach is cool in many instances, but I can’t wait for some SF that tries to shake up the humanistic paradigm that dominates our favorite extraterrestrial.