A Day as an Archeologist

Today’s adventure brought to you by Tina, Simren, and Saumi!

Tina

We woke up to a fabulous sunny day, ready for a dig. Still energized from the ice cream we ate last night, we hopped on the bus to Assini, an ancient Archeology site, to learn about the job of an archeologist and the history of the site. Together, we defined the word archeology, which means the study of ancient artifacts and ruins to learn information about the distant past. 

Ilias, historian and interpreter, who will be accompanying us today and tomorrow, gave us a brief history about Greece, from the Mycenaean civilization to the Byzantine empire. Rich with Greek history in our brains, we enjoyed a video about the story of the site. The site was situated on the acropolis, which means the high point of the city. 

From the video, we learned that this acropolis was destroyed in 1941 mostly by the Italians but also the Germans at the start of WWII. The Italians marched in, crushing the rock slates to build fortifications and pillboxes, slept in the rooms, and they occupied the natural barriers while destroying many historical sites.

While checking out the scenery outside, Ann read to everyone a famous poem by Giorgios Seferis about the King of Assini. The poem is referring to the lost civilization.

Afterwards, we took a promenade around the acropolis, learning about all the artifacts and remaining ruins One of the ruins we saw was the remains of a Roman bath. We learned that there are five different rooms, including the outside area where they exercised, the changing room, cold room, lukewarm room, and the hot room. Another interesting place we visited was a manmade cave for storage which was hollowed out using dynamite by the Italians. 

Then, we took a break and the guides explained the hands-on archaeology activity we would participate in.

Simren

Then we each were assigned a job for the archaeology dig. The jobs were workers (who would dig up the artifacts), designers (who would measure where the artifact was found and draw it to scale on a notepad), preservers (who would first clean the artifact once the photographers and designers had documented where it was found and then piece all the pieces found together which would create something), and archaeologists (who would date and try to understand the piece). There was also the photographer (who would take a picture of the artifact where it was found with the help of an arrow facing north to show direction). We learned that we could use the church to find which way is north, as the church faces west, and the sacred place faces east, so one can find where north is from there which was helpful, so we could know where we should point the arrow to take the photo of the artifact. The archeologists are the leaders of the team. We went through the process, working with replicas of the real artifact and some actual artifacts, and pieced together two vases.

We then thanked the leaders at the archeology site for the wonderful experience and went on the bus on our way to a delicious lunch.

Saumi

During the afternoon, we discussed the archeologist workshop in Assini. After our discussion, we had a photo competition in central Nafplio. Students had to find and take the best photos that matched these 5 words: Greek, American, Tourist, Traveler, and Ancient. Winners are to be announced tomorrow in the morning. Once we finished the discussion and instructions of the game, the whole group walked to the town square of Nafplio. Here, we got a chance to walk around to take pictures and shop. After that, we walked to the marina and wrote a postcard to ourselves (which will most likely reach home after we get home). Finally, dinner was at Trendy Grill where we all got a chance to try gyros and pizza. Everyone had an enjoyable at time with no technology.