This week has been another busy one at Ayia Sotira. We are still
working in the Museum on pottery, mapping, and data entry. New
projects began this week, too. Phil came to help us with our drawings
of the tombs. He is an archaeologist and an architect. Also, Mary
and I have been driving and hiking around the area looking for other
Bronze Age sites. These sites were discovered during the Nemea Valley
Archaeological Project (NVAP), which Jim and Mary worked on in the
1970s and 1980s. We are using the maps that they created then to try
and find some of these sites again.
Also, 2 students from Bryn Mawr came from Athens. They had been
working at another museum there for a month, and then came to join us
for 2 weeks. They have been working part of the time in the Museum,
and part of the time up at the site with the field school students.
The field school students are continuing with their work at the site.
One group has dug to the bottom of its trench, and so is taking
photographs and drawing. The other group continues to dig deeper.
We have been doing many fun things in the afternoons, as well. On
Wednesday, we drove over to Mycenae and visited Petsas House, an
excavation run by the University of California, Berkeley. On
Thursday, some of the students from the Petsas House excavation joined
us at the Sophos Hotel for dinner. Yesterday, we went to another
local winery in Nemea. There an oenologist (“oy-NOL-o-gist”), someone
who studies wine-making, showed us how the use of different kinds of
oak barrels affects the taste of the wine. Today, the field school is
visiting Lerna and the city center of Argos. Tomorrow, we have
arranged a soccer game in the evening. As you can see, we are all
very busy!