Irmah 
Site conservation scientist, Dr Stefania Chlouveraki (known as Stefie), has been contracted by the Zagora Archaeological Project to develop a conservation and maintenance plan to manage this work.
Her aim is not to reconstruct buildings but to protect the structures from deteriorating further and to preserve what remains so that present and future generations are able to gain an insight and connect with this remarkable site.
Malcolm (Mac) and Carol Ostermeyer have spent their summer holidays on Andros almost every year since discovering the island in the mid 1990s. The couple, who live in Lancaster, UK, first came on an organised walking tour of the island and heard about Zagora from a local tour guide. They continue to stay in Batsi every summer, attracted by the lovely beach and the fact that it’s a little off the beaten tourist track. The Kantouni, home base for the Zagora dig team, is their favourite local haunt, and although the Ostermeyers have never been in Batsi during the dig season, they heard about the excavations and were immediately interested in knowing more. Encountering archaeologist Dr Paul Donnelly on a family holiday at Kantouni recently has further piqued their interest.
by Irma Havlicek
with generous assistance from Beatrice McLoughlin
(This is part 2 of a profile of Beatrice McLoughlin. Part 1 focuses on Beatrice’s expertise with coarseware.)
Beatrice is the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (AAIA) Research Officer, looking after the archives relating to the AAIA’s archaeological excavations: Zagora and Torone in Greece.
She has been researching the Zagora legacy data – that is, the information out of the initial Australian excavations at Zagora in the 1960s and 70s for some 20 years.
Beatrice is in charge of the ‘Zagora pot shed’ (in fact, the work is done at the Archaeological Museum in Chora, Andros), and the Torone pot shed, as Olwen Tudor Jones had been (more about Olwen in Part 1).
by Irma Havlicek
with generous assistance from Beatrice McLoughlin and Stavros Paspalas
Beatrice McLoughlin is passionate about Zagora. So much so that when I first got to know her, I couldn’t imagine there was room for other passions in her life. However what I found was that she is a Zagoraphile, foodophile, oenophile, ceramicophile and general experienceophile. (Note: ‘-phile’ – denoting fondness for a specified thing; from Greek philos: ‘loving’.)
Beatrice’s mother was a ceramicist when Beatrice was growing up. She is now a weaver. (Note: ‘ceramic’ is from the Greek ‘keramikos’, from ‘keramos’, meaning ‘pottery’.)
Beatrice grew up with clay, kilns, pottery, old-fashioned kick-wheels, settling tanks, potting tools and firing experiments featuring large in her life.
Archaeologist and aerial photographer
The Zagora Archaeological Project embraces new technology. Not only is our data being recorded into the database system HEURIST using digital tablets but in 2014 a new technology was utilised at the site: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs.
The first aerial photograph of an archaeological site was taken by Friedrich Stoltze of Persepolis in 1879. The decision to aim a camera at an archaeological site from the air had a lasting impact on archaeological recording. Aerial photography is visually attractive but it is also an important recording technique. It provides archaeologists with another view of a feature that can be useful to help understand large archaeological remains as a whole. Not only can aerial photographs assist in recording a site, it can also help illustrate the wider environment that the site is situated in. For example, photos of Zagora help illustrate its position on the coastline and its relationship with the nearby mountains.
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An enthusiastic audience of some eighty people attended the Zagora Study Day on Saturday 18 April 2015.
Professor Alexander Cambitoglou, director of the excavation campaigns at Zagora in the late 1960s and early 70s, and also Director of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (AAIA), spoke briefly about the project and introduced the first presenter, Professor Meg Miller.
As one of the three co-directors (with Associate Professor Lesley Beaumont and Dr Stavros Paspalas) of the Zagora Archaeological Project (ZAP), Meg gave an overview of the aims and aspirations and also the exciting findings of the 2012-2014 excavation and study seasons.
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The Zagora Archaeological Project (ZAP) attracts eminent professionals from archaeology and associated disciplines. Bob Miller, an internationally renowned photographer, is the Zagora Project’s archaeophotographer.
An exhibition of Bob’s photography opens to the public in Canberra on Saturday 18 April – highlighting almost 25 years of his work on archaeological excavations around the world. The exhibition, ‘Beyond the expected’, is on at the University of Canberra, in the foyer of Building 24, on University Drive South. The exhibition closes on Friday 1 May 2015. Sadly, many ZAPpers won’t be able to attend the exhibition opening, and Bob won’t be able to make our Zagora Study Day on Saturday 18 April due to an inadvertent scheduling clash. Further details about the exhibition and more of Bob’s work can be seen at bobmiller.com.
From 9.30am to 1.30pm on Saturday 18 April 2015, the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (AAIA) and the University of Sydney Department of Archaeology are offering a half-day briefing on their work at the early Iron Age site of Zagora on the island of Andros.
For archaeologists and the general public – feel free to come along and hear reports about this fascinating site.
PROGRAMME
9.30am – Registration and refreshments
10.00am – Professor Margaret Miller – project overview:
The Zagora Archaeological Project 2012-2014
10.45am – Ms Beatrice McLoughlin:
Greek provincial cookery: domestic life at Zagora
11.30am – Morning tea and refreshments
Noon – Dr Stavros Paspalas: Zagora and the wider Aegean
12.45pm – Associate Professor Lesley Beaumont:
Protecting Zagora’s cultural heritage
The briefing will take place at the AAIA, first floor, Madsen Building (F09), University of Sydney.
Event price is $25 ($10 for students)
Bookings can be made by emailing arts.aaia@sydney.edu.au.
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In the final week of excavations in the last week of October 2014, I spoke to the three directors of the Zagora Archaeological Project (ZAP), Professor Meg Miller, Associate Professor Lesley Beaumont and Dr Stavros Paspalas, to gain an overview of their plans and aspirations for the outcomes of the project.
I talked to them in the dig hut on site at Zagora, with the usual comings and goings of daily archaeological work: archaeologists coming to get equipment from the hut, and to ask for directorial guidance when a tactical decision was required about how to proceed with excavation.
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Dr Melanie Fillios is an archaeologist who specialises in researching faunal remains (animal bones) found during archaeological excavations.
She is not a palaeontologist whose job it is to study animal bones in order to develop an understanding about the development and history of that species of animal. Melanie is a zooarchaeologist whose job is to study the animal remains in order to better understand how those animals impacted upon the lives of the humans among whom they lived – and died.
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