Irmah by Irma Havlicek
Powerhouse Museum Online Producer
Most team members decided to stay on Andros and explore the island further. A few of us decided to take advantage of the two full days off and journeyed to nearby islands. Three went to Tinos, and three of us went to Delos and Mykonos.
by Irma Havlicek
Powerhouse Museum Online Producer
We will be excavating two test trenches. Following are photos of what the test trench sites looked like during clearing in preparation for excavation.
In coming days I will be able to show you some of the work of the excavation. However excavated artefacts may only be shown if we receive approval from the authorities to show them (or if they have been previously published).
by Irma Havlicek
Powerhouse Museum Online Producer
The Zagora Archaeologcal Project team leaders, Professor Meg Miller, Dr Lesley Beaumont and Dr Stavros Paspalas, are doing their utmost to develop the most comprehensive possible picture of the site and also the area around it to find evidence of human use during the settlement period. This is necessary so they can plan the excavations for this season and potential future seasons.
He has spent time at Zagora on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 12-14 November 2012.
He is looking broadly at anything of a geological nature that may have affected life at Zagora during the time of the settlement, around 900 – 700 BCE, and also for possible clues as to why the settlement was abandoned.
In particular, he is looking for evidence of Early Iron Age production (the Early Iron Age covers from about 1050 to 500 BCE).
I’ve added another entry to our Q&A with archaeologists page – the answers of Camilla Norman, who conveys the same enthusiasm, thirst for knowledge and sense of adventure as the other archaeologists who have kindly contributed to this section of our website. Camilla has combined her visual skills in her archaeology work with both artefact drawing in the field, her work having run the University of Sydney Archaeology Department’s slide library and also production managing Mediterranean Archaeology.
by Irma Havlicek
Powerhouse Museum Online Producer
He had as his able assistant in high wind, Rudy Alagich, who did a fine job wrangling fly-away pieces of paper – in particular the A4 sized arrow on paper in a plastic sleeve, which was to be placed in many of the photographs so that the direction of north was known.
Ioannis spoke to me after his work in the field on Monday and on Tuesday to explain the process.
Most people have heard of radiocarbon dating – a method for finding out how long since something organic (human, animal or plant, such as bones or wood) stopped living. This is done by finding out how much radioactivity of Carbon 14 remains in the organic material, which indicates how long since the material stopped exchanging carbon dioxide with the atmosphere, or how long since it died.
We are using a different a different method of dating at Zagora for a different purpose. Luminescence dating is a method to determine how long since something was exposed to sunlight. In the case of our enquiry at Zagora, we want to know when a wall was built.
by Irma Havlicek
Powerhouse Museum Online Producer
In order to do this, the site grid is being used to record all visible signs of ancient activity.
To get the most out of this post, you may want to read the posts about the grids, and also how the information gained is being digitally recorded onto tablets.
Batsi is a small seaside village, on the west coast of Andros, where we are staying in the lovely Kantouni Pensione while we are working on the Zagora Archaeological Project. There is a map which shows the location of Batsi on Andros in my Intro to Andros post.
Andros is generally less ‘touristy’ than other Greek islands. Those tourists who come tend to be Greek rather than international tourists. And now (November) that the weather is getting cooler, there seem to be few tourists of any kind around. The winter population of Batsi is 600-700 people – but this swells to some 3000 during summer. So our experience here feels authentically Greek.
Here are some views of Batsi Beach shot along the waterfront.
After lunch, we explored for an hour or so, which gave me the opportunity to take a few more photos, so I can show you further glimpses of this charming town.
It is planned for me to spend a day soon at the Andros Museum in Chora, where our finds from the Zagora field survey are washed and then sorted and researched by our fineware expert, Dr Stavros Paspalas, and our coarseware expert, Beatrice McLoughlin. I look forward to that, as another stage of this archaeological experience, and also for another opportunity to spend some time in Chora.