Category: Fieldwork Updates

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Core Strength

as its final act for the 2024 season, I joined BEARS super-veteran Maeve McHugh and two new collaborators, Henry Chapman (also from Birmingham) and Michelle Farrell of Coventry University for a week of geological coring in the few scraps of undeveloped wetland-ish land the beach resorters have left untouched around Porto Rafti. The purpose of the coring was to see whether any of the sediment sequences in these waterlogged soils might contain pollen, which could provide some insight into the environmental history of the area. 

We targeted three areas with potential to produce good sequences: the black mud swamp on the bay-ward side of the Koroni beach parking lot, some empty/reedy fields behind the long gravelly Avlaki beach, and  a small field near the limani by the Maras marine boat parking lot. 

Michelle, Henry, and Maeve examine a core from the Maras boat parking lot

I was a bit worried that the cores would just be plastic bags, rocks, and cigarette butts all the way down, given the typical modern contents of the topsoil around the bay. But my pessimism was, for once, totally misplaced. All three of the targeted sites produced very nice sequences, including all the way down to the terra rossa paleosol in one spot. We will have to see what comes back from the lab, but we’re hopeful that at least one of the cores provides at least some new enviro data about the survey region. 

Michelle examines material from deep under the surface

In the meantime, something exciting emerged from our “macro” examination of what came out of the ground during the coring process: a gigantic and totally pure beautiful clay bed about 20 cm below the surface. Located just by the shore of the bay, this seems like a good candidate for the clay source used for the ceramic manufacturing operation that we found evidence for on Praso islet during the 2021 survey. In addition to the soil samples, we took a chunk of this clay for analysis alongside our ceramic wasters. If it’s a match, we’ll be one step closer to solving one of the big mysteries that emerged from the survey data.

Beautiful clay deposits coming out of the augur

Maeve, Henry, and Michelle make an amazing team and the work went surprisingly smoothly, thanks in part to the extremely helpful and efficient facilitation by the folks at EAGME who provided the necessary permit and oversaw the export of the samples. It was very edifying to learn so much about the coring process and soil types / sequences from Michelle and Henry, who have a huge amount of experience working in a wide variety of conditions throughout the UK and Europe. 

Now, just in time for spooky season, we’ve reached the most frightening and dangerous stage of the process – working with the U of T administrative staff to figure out how to move grant money from the granting account to Michelle’s lab in Coventry. 

Maeve and Henry prepare to sink the augur on a bright sunny September morning
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Raftis Rocks

Christos and Eleni approach a group of groundstone artifacts (photo by Eleni Tsirigoti)

On Tuesday and Wednesday the BEARS project had a great visit with a geologist and expert on the sources of volcanic stones, Christos Stergiou. With Christos we are collaborating to conduct chemical and geological analysis of some of our stone finds, especially the volcanic and metamorphic materials used to manufacture the large assemblage of groundstone artifacts that we documented on Raftis Island. We reunited with our old friend captain Vasilis Miliotis and his son Odysseas for a trip out to Raftis to collect a few artifacts for sampling, and to show Christos the local geology of the island. It was a beautiful day at the office…and we learned a lot!

Eleni, Christos, and Sarah discuss a group of groundstone artifacts (photo by Eleni Tsirigoti)
The team investigates a group of groundstone artifacts (photo by Eleni Tsirigoti)
Christos and Eleni at work on Raftis (photo by Eleni Tsirigoti)
Iron oxides folded into the marble layers in Raftis' geology (photo by Christos Stergiou)

We also spent a day in the Brauron museum examining the finds that we collected in previous seasons, and learned a lot of exciting insights from Christos about the kaleidoscope of different stone types used by the Late Bronze Age community on Raftis. A fun fact: there is an iron oxide called Goethite  that is named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, because he had a huge collection of it. I am sure you can see the resemblance.

Goethite and Goethe
Eleni and Christos examine finds in the museum.

Another fun fact, discussed as we learned that one of our finds, a cube-shaped hematite handtool used for rubbing or polishing, perhaps reused after a former life as a weight, is made of very magnetic magnetite: the word magnet comes from the Greek, “magnitis lithos”, rocks from Magnesia, because the earliest known sources of the mineral were apparently identified in either the Thessalian or Lydian region of Magnesia. That there is some good cocktail party knowledge for ya blog readers.

A magnetic lithos that might indeed come from Magnesia.

Now that we’ve done the preliminary macroscopic analysis, the next step is to apply for permission to conduct geochemical sampling and thin section analysis of a list of artifacts that we put together in the museum. If all goes according to plan, by this time next year we will have a much better understanding of the distribution of source materials that the people on Raftis were exploiting for their grinding and pounding needs.

A beautiful sunset in Porto Rafti (photo by Eleni Tsirigoti)
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Slowly but surely closing out BEARS 2024

Lonely times in the Brauron museum for BEARS 2024.

the final season of the BEARS project continues to work its way in slow, jerky motion to a conclusion, as we’re also starting to gather manuscripts in preparation to publish the projects results in full. Following on the long, busy, and crowded 2023 study season, during which pretty much every single BEARS team member made an appearance for at least a few days, the 2024 season has been remarkable for its tiny list of personnel. To wit, the season ended with a single solitary project director tidying up things in Brauron for four out of the five days set aside for museum work this June. Phil Sapirstein visited for one day to do a final round of tile study and make a handsome 3D model of our largest tripod mortar find, but otherwise ’twas the most skeleton of skeleton crews at Brauron in 2024. It was of course very good to wrap things up without an insane sprint to the end (pretty much a BEARS tradition at this point) but rather with an eerily calm final day of rebagging and retagging a handful of artifacts merely to regularize / color code bag types and tag categories – a stackenblocken type of task not even close to mission critical.

Orthographic rendering of BEARS groundstone object number 199 (P. Sapirstein).

Afternoons afforded some time for wandering around to unexplored parts of the wider Porto Rafti area, including a few hikes near Merenda. We explored the so-called Kastro above the big limestone quarries chewed into Merenda mountain, where James McCredie recorded a large enclosure wall many years ago. McCredie did not find any associated artifacts, but with our sharp surveyor eyes we noted a few diagnostic Roman sherds. The architecture does not seem particularly Roman, and the site is rather mysterious overall, but fortunately that’s not our problem, since it’s not in the survey area!

Phil offers a sherd to the project director using the appropriately humble pose for such things.
Roman pottery from the Merenda 'kastro'.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other archaeological questions to answer as we wade into the publication phase of the project. Chapters have been trickling into the editors over the last few months…if a bit slowly… so we’re hopeful that progress will continue on schedule. More updates to follow as we conclude 2024 with a bit of additional groundstone fun, some sampling, and maybe a bit of coring to round things out at the end of the summer.

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Koroni Champions!

Well, folks, it’s official: after five long meandering seasons, the rump of the BEARS team has finally completed one of the project’s most arduous, spiky-plant infested tasks – mapping and documenting the massive, sprawling tangle of architectural remains on the Koroni peninsula. 

At approximately 9:30am today, June 4, 2024, Rob, Miriam, and I snapped the final photo of the final feature in the saddle area and hung a big “closed” sign on the site, at least as far as our little survey project is concerned. For those keeping score at home, our work on Koroni involved collection in two grids (on the acropolis and in the valley) during the 2019 season, walking 80 gnarly intensive survey units on the peninsula’s wooded slopes in the 2021 season, and painstakingly documenting over 1,000 walls and other architectural features all over the site during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons. It is the only site in Porto Rafti that has been with us throughout every single season; very few days of the project passed by without a team hard at work over on Koroni.

Big thanks to the loyal Dr. Rob Stephan, with whom I was reminiscing about laying out the first Koroni grid squares in the valley way back in May 2019, the intrepid Maeve McHugh, who led the intensive survey on Koroni, and the heroic Miriam Clinton, who faced down the huge obstacle of Koroni architecture starting in 2022 and has created a really stellar documentation of this complex and challenging site with her teams in the last few years. 

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BEARS 2024 Mini Study Season in Progress

Following a very productive “big” study campaign in the summer of 2023, just a one task remains to be completed in the field during the final season of the BEARS project in 2024: completing the documentation of the architectural remains on Koroni. Over the last two weeks, Miriam Clinton, Rob Stephan, Kat Apokatanidis and I have been tackling the thorns and walls up on the venerable citadel, with a brief cameo appearance by Grace Erny earlier this week. It feels a bit lonely to be here without our other stalwart project veterans, but nice to end the project on a reasonably mellow note. After another week of mapping, we’ll do one final round of checks in Brauron, and (aside from a few scientific endeavors, on which more in the coming months) then it will be time to put BEARS to bed!

Miriam and Rob examine a structure on Koroni.
Grace governs the dGPS wand on an impressive wall in the Koroni saddle.
Murray ponders a stretch of wall in the Koroni saddle amidst a rousing day of feature mapping.
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A Visit to MODI!

On a glowery overcast October day last week, two BEARS team members (Bartek Lis, LH IIIC pottery guru, and your faithful blog correspondent, co-director Sarah Murray) had the great and glorious privilege of visiting Christos Agouridis and his team of underwater archaeologists during their campaign of excavations at the shipwreck of the northern shore of the islet of Modi in the Saronic gulf.

Bartek and a military training vessel on the way to Modi.
Craggy crags of Modi.

As faithful blog readers will know, Modi is a small, craggy island off the coast of Poros. Like our own Raftis islet, Modi is covered in a dense scatter of LH IIIC and Late Roman (7th century CE) pottery. Excavations by the Greek Archaeological Service produced some really interesting LH IIIC finds on Modi, including evidence for engagement with long-distance exchange networks, and these finds are matched by the amazing finds from Agouridis’ excavations of the shipwreck mentioned above.

The Modi team's support vessel anchored off the islet's northern shore.
Modi's rocky shores as seen past wetsuits and gear on the team's support vessel.

Visiting Modi was a real dream come true – all made even better by the incredible friendly hospitality offered by Christos and his team. We were given wonderful explanations of and insights into the daily work routines involved in excavating underwater remains on a steep, rocky slope, and had many great discussions about potential connections between the finds from Modi, the wreck, and what we’ve found in Porto Rafti. Perhaps most importantly – we were never short of coffee and delicious Greek snacks! We could have stayed forever; though neither Bartek nor myself are qualified divers, perhaps we could contribute to the sieve?

Spyros the photographer surfaces after a dive to the Modi shipwreck
The sieve on the Modi team's support vessel
Christos Agouridis oversees the day's setup.

Overall, we left (reluctantly) having learned a huge amount about this “cousin” site to Raftis and with a strong impression that this must be one of the best and most well-run projects in Greece these days. The Modi team is doing really amazing work in challenging circumstances. What’s more, they have been partnering with various innovative EU organizations and initiatives to develop new technologies for underwater archaeology and heritage. Modi folks are working with a program called BCT Hubs to help connect underwater and maritime heritage sites throughout European seas. And one day, with input from awesome projects like the Modi excavation, remotely operated submersibles will apparently be on hand to help underwater diggers! Let’s just hope they don’t go squish like some other famous submersibles in the news lately.

Bartek reads about the BCThubs initiative
Milo, first mate of the Modi team's support vessel, keeps vigilant watch in the cabin on a blustery October day
Robot friends!

Might there be a shipwreck under the waters of Porto Rafti bay, perhaps near the islets of Raftis or Praso? This is an intriguing question….perhaps something to ponder along with our new friends from the Modi team someday in the future….an exciting prospect indeed, especially if we can get some robots involved! For now, there’s plenty to do as we work towards publication of the BEARS survey finds.

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Blog Post on the BEARS 2023 Study Season

Captain Vasilis steers the mighty Afrodite in June 2023 while modelling the BEARS 2022 Raftis-themed project shirt (Photo by Phil Sapirstein)

BEARS blog readers may be lamenting the dearth of updates through the summer – rest assured we were busy working on BEARS business in May and June, and have been industriously getting reports ready and preparing for our final push toward publication since then! Amidst the madness of many moving parts and trying not to let all of our brains sweat out through our ears, the blog seems to have fallen by the wayside. There is a nice wrap up of the season now available on the CIG’s blog, and we’ll try to get some posts going this fall as we are writing up material and looking forward to the final study season in 2024.

https://cig-icg.gr/the-bays-of-east-attica-regional-survey-bears-2023-season-putting-pieces-together/

Meanwhile, fans of BEARS t-shirt designs can check out this trifle of a news story on a certain co-director’s unquenchable amateur graphic design habit here:

https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/infusing-life-laughter-and-colour-courses-lectures-even-clothing

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BEARS Sighting in Thorikos!

A Ghent – Toronto Collaboration

by Kat Apokatanidis
Porto Rafti and Thorikos: practically neighbours (Google Earth)

During the sweltering weekend of August 19-20, 2022, I had the unique opportunity to travel to Thorikos, an ancient settlement only a five-minute drive from modern day Lavrio, in Attica, Greece. The site of Thorikos is on the coast northeast of the Lavriotiki, the Lavrion area. This is a metalliferous region of Attica. The ancient town or deme comprised three areas: a double-bay harbour by the Aghios Nikolaos peninsula, the Adami plain with the lower reaches of the Potami valley, and the double-peaked Velatouri hill, c. 144 m asl. 

The imposing Velatouri hilltop. (Kat Apokatanidis)

The area has seen human activity since the Final Neolithic period (c. 4100-3100 BCE). Archaeological excavations have produced direct evidence, such as litharge and tools, which indicate that, at least since the end of the 4th millennium BCE, silver was extracted locally from the Lavrion argentiferous ores. The site of Thorikos has primarily been the focus of research by the Thorikos Archaeological Research Project (TARP) standing in a long tradition of Belgian fieldwork in the area. Such fieldwork started in 1960 with the excavations by Herman Mussche in the maritime fortification on the Aghios Nikolaos Peninsula. Since then, the site has been explored extensively by various Belgian teams. For more information on the history of this site and the research that has been done and is still ongoing, you can visit the project’s website.

Prof. Sarah Murray (left), and Prof. Roald Docter (right), teaching in tombs! (Kat Apokatanidis)

The meeting in Lavrio between TARP and BEARS (the Bays of East Attica Regional Survey) was the result of regular scientific contact between Prof. Roald Docter (Ghent University) and Prof. Sarah Murray (University of Toronto). The two scholars and other Mediterranean Archaeologists working at their respective institutions share common research interests in the regional domains of Attica and Crete, two areas that hitherto only rarely have been discussed in connection with each other. The purpose of this first meeting between the representatives of the two projects was to bring eleven young researchers from the two universities together for discussion in an intensive two-day seminar. 

From left to right, Sydney, Quentin, and Killian trying to make sense of what I’m saying. In the background our remote participants! (Sarah Murray)

This seminar this August was entitled “Connecting Land- and Seascapes in the Greek world: Ghent-Toronto Young Researchers Meeting, Summer 2022”. It offered an opportunity for us younglings to showcase our work, get to know some of our colleagues, and hear about the interesting work that is being done in Attica and Crete by students at both institutions. The seminar offered the possibility of remote and in-person participation. Thanks to the tireless efforts of my Ghentian counterparts, Sydney Patterson, Killian Regnier, and especially the hero-figure and overall tech master Quentin Drillat’s tenacity, the presentations and the discussion went smoothly throughout the packed two-day schedule. 

Touring Thorikos! (Kat Apokatanidis)

Discussion flowed effortlessly both in-person and remote. I personally got the chance to talk about my research and thus gain as diverse feedback as possible. I am sure my colleagues, Elliott Fuller and Taylor Stark presenting from Canada, felt the same. We came away from these talks with a sense of wanting to look beyond the boundaries of our respective research topics and were inspired to actively seek converging elements, new avenues to think with, and a much broader horizon than normally is afforded. 

Touring Thorikos, with Prof. Roald Docter, Kat Apokatanidis, and Killian Regnier (Sarah Murray)

The dinner on Saturday night was a fun opportunity to discuss all things archaeology in a more informal way. It was such a nice outing as we were also able to hear from the team of Ghentian Undergraduate students talk about their experience in Thorikos. I was also especially grateful for the guided tour Prof. Docter, Sydney, Killian, and Quentin had arranged for us, despite having just wrapped up their fieldwork season the previous day. Thankfully the famed μελτέμια (meltemia), the north winds which descend upon Greece in August, kept the heat at bay.

The collaborative Toronto-Ghent crew atop the Velatouri (Sarah Murray)

In organising this first joint Young Researchers Meeting in Thorikos, the aim was that this may result in (bi-)annual follow-ups given the continuing engagement of the participants both in Attica and on Crete. And indeed, interest was expressed by both groups to collaborate and exchange resources. All of us left the seminar that Sunday afternoon with a better understanding of the kind of work that is currently being done by both teams and an eagerness to move forward together in the future. All in all, it was a successful business weekend trip for all parties involved. On behalf of the Toronto team, I would like to kindly thank Prof. Docter and his team for being such gracious hosts; the Sunday-morning coffee run by Prof. Docter was especially appreciated by yours truly! I look forward to working with everyone in the future and am excited to see the kind of archaeology we can do together.

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BEARS 2022 on the CIG Blog

Check it out: the BEARS project is featured on the blog of the Canadian Institute in Greece this week! World domination cannot be too far behind…

https://www.cig-icg.gr/content/bays-east-attica-regional-survey-bears-2022-season-snouts-grindstone