June 13th - Day 3

Today was all about the Athenian Agora. Interestingly enough, I discovered that I have been mispernouncing this word for the last 4 years! Oops!  The Agora was the central part of a Greek city-state. The word means "gathering place" or "assembly" and was the center of the social, political, and economic life of the city-state.

Highlights of the Agora included the Hephaisteion, a temple to the god Hephaestus and Athena, and the Temple of Ares. We had a fasinating lecture on Greek architecture and spent most of the morning looking at different aspects and features of the architecture and how it evolved over time. What's interesting about Greek architecture is that it is very conservative and is considered more evolutionary than revolutionary. The Greeks stayed within certain themes and parameters when building and did not deviate, but rather refined their practices. Often times something that started out as functional element evolved into a purely decorative feature as the Greeks developed better methods. They rarely discarded a practice, but rather continued to use it as a decorative feature. For example, there were often two lines cut around visible joint lines to disguise which was the actual joint lines. Even on areas that do not have joint lines you will often see three lines cut into the stone as a decorative element.

After touring the Agora we went to the Agora archives and was taken on a tour of their facilities. We were able to visit the conservation center where we saw how artifacts from digs are cleaned, analyzed, and conserved. We visited other offices and got to look at real archaeological notebooks from past and present digs and learned briefly about how data is recorded in the field. We also learned that they are in the process of digitizing their archives. Many of the notebooks and artifact pictures/cards are now available online. They are in the process of developing an App to allow access to the archives through your smartphone, and they are also in the process of testing a program/App that will allow field archaeologists to record their data via iPads. It is amazing technology - it would allow archaeologists to sync their various instruments with their iPad and then that information can be tagged and analyzed. Some of the searches and queries you could run/access with this program are truly amazing. We also got to go down into the archives themselves and look at several artifacts that have been recovered from various digs in the Agora, including some human skeletons! It was very cool!

After lunch we continued our orientation of the ASCSA. We visited the ASCSA archives were they keep papers of many important Greek political and literary leaders. We visited the Gennadeius Library, which is home to mostly more modern Greek history. We finished the day in the Wiener Lab where we got to meet some of the school's scholars/scientists and see what projects they are currently working on. We ended the day with a garden party, which served as our official welcome as well as welcomed several of the school's trustees. I got to meet a lot of interesting people, many of which will be traveling with us to different sites and giving talks. Needless to say, I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow!