Malahini in Greece and Turkey

Well, you asked for it and you got it. This is what I learned. Many archaeologists think…well, not many archaeologists…actually, it was one tour guide. So, one tour guide claims that this figurine proves that the ancient Corinthians did indeed have peeps. He can’t figure out whether this is an actual peep or a terracotta replica because the texture would be about the same by now. Also, we do not have any textual evidence, so we don’t know what flavor it would have been. The archaeological site has drawers full of these!
My friends at John Muir School in San Diego asked about the house we are living in. That was a very interesting question to research. It turns out that the house was built in 1925 by a Mr. Shear who was the head of the excavation for several years. They call it the Shear house. It has a very long and colorful history and so I will tell you one story now and if you are interested you can ask for more. Mr. Shear lived in the house until 1940 because of WWII. Nazis occupied the house! Mr. Shear had been storing lots of the artifacts that he found in the house in wooden crates. It was cold in the winter so that Nazis dumped out the crates and burned the wood in the fireplace! After the war the artifacts were collected again, but lots of information about them (their context) was totally lost because they were no longer in the crates with other things found in the same place and time. After that the house was used for storage until sometime in the 1960’s when the conservator of the museum (like Nicole, see June 9th) decided to restore the house and live in it. She lived in it until fairly recently when she retired. Now it is used to house visitors like us.
While I was looking for a picture of the house to see how old it is I came across this picture of workers at the excavation in 1896. What a cool picture! At Corinth they have found things from about 6000 BC to the present.

Yesterday I told you that I was going to visit the Elementary School (Demotico Echoleio) here so that I could ask some of the questions that you have been asking. I tried to do that, but no one was at the school. I went again today and they were all there! Yesterday was a teacher workday and so there was no school. Their last day of school is next Wednesday, June 14th and they are having a game day and I am invited. I asked them some of the questions you sent me. It turns out that they do learn English in school. They didn’t talk to me in English (or understand me), but they showed me the workbooks that they use. The class I visit is only Third Grade and so they are just starting to learn. Their teacher speaks English and translates for me. Next week when I go again they are going to tell me about some of the games they play and I will take more pictures. Today they did give me the answer “Play Station”. They are all going on a field trip on Friday and Monday is a school holiday.

Word of the day Oinochoe Here is a picture of one. Aha! This must mean pitcher. The most exciting part about this is that a miniature one from the classical period or earlier (before 400 BC) was found in Steve’s trench yesterday!

Timelines really help me, so I am including the one that I am starting to build with information that we are learning. It is pretty empty, so maybe you can help me to fill it out. On the side bar I have linked to the Excel document that I used to make this timeline. Feel free to download it and use it if it is helpful to you.

I love it that you ask such good questions that cause me to think. I am staying here with all of these doctoral students and professors who know so much about Greece, so I have people to ask who are experts. I learned about a historical novel that I am going to read to learn more about Alexander the Great!

What I am learning about Greek history is that we think of Greece as one country, but it really wasn’t that way most of the time. There were lots of small countries like Athens, Sparta and Macedonia that each had their own government and fought against each other for power. We call them City-States because they were really more the size of a city, but were governed like a state. The people did not think of themselves as one country like we do now of Greece. There were Athenians, Spartans, and Macedonians and they called outsiders barbarians.

So far I have not found out the origin of the word Greece. If you ask people today what they call themselves it is not Greeks, it is Eleni. The Greek word for the country is Elenica. This is a VERY old word used by Heroditus, one of the first historians, but I still have not found out what it means. So, there is more to learn. Seth, one of the doctoral students here did some research and told me that the word Greek actually does come from the Greek language, but he was unable to find out what it means. Both words Eleni and Greci were used as long ago as we can trace.

Alexander the Great, from what I am hearing so far REALLY was GREAT. He was actually from Macedonia (north of Athens and the Peloppenese. His father, Phillip (who was king of Macedonia) hired Aristotle (from Athens) to be his tutor and so he learned to appreciate Greek art and thinking. Alexander was very intelligent and learned quickly. He was also someone who people followed and so when he grew up he led armies to conquer the land all around Macedonia. He actually conquered all the way to India and down to Egypt. This is something that no one had done so far. He spread the influence of Greek thought all throughout the areas that he conquered. He died tragically at the young age of 33. People always wonder what he would have done if he had lived longer. What do you think? For the most part people here consider Alexander to have been their king and are proud of him. That is especially true of northern Greece where Macedonia is. I guess there are some southern Greeks who still think that Alexander was a barbarian attacking their land and taking over, but not too many. The great thing about a blog is that if I have got it wrong or if you have something to add you can comment. Please do!

Because of Alexander’s influence the Greek language became the language that people throughout the entire ancient world used. Even the Old Testament (or more correctly Hebrew Bible) was translated into Greek in the second century AD. Over the centuries until now Alexander the Great has become a legend and there are really fascinating stories told about him in many countries over hundreds of years. You might really enjoy reading some of the stories about him that are more like tall tales than real history.

The word for the day is skyphos. It means a shallow bowl. Here is a picture. The ancient people used them for drinking like we use cups.

Tomorrow look forward to some interesting stories about Nazis, the house we are staying in and Peeps! Oh yes, and a new archeological term.

I need to tell you a bit about where I am staying. The arcaeological dig that we are at is in a town called Old Corinth (Archaos Korintos). There is a more modern town called New Corinth (or just Korintos) about a half hour away.

Corinth was an important city in history for several reasons. It is on the coast of the Pelopponesian Island (the big bottom chunk of Greece). Because of that it had a port where lots of commerce passed through. Also, there is a huge rock outcropping called Acrocorinth that could be used as a place to protect the area if there was a war. Most of the time the people lived down in the farm land all around, but if they were under attack they could all climb up to the top of Acrocorinth. It was very difficult to attack because it was high and they built walls all around it. Anyone coming to attack could be seen from a long way off. An attacker would have a very difficult time getting into the walls.

The whole Pelopponese was only connected to the mainland by a small piece of land. The Mediterranian Sea surrounds Greece. Ships would come to the side called the Sea of Crete and rather than sail the whole way around to get to the Ionian Sea they could unload all of their goods, carry the boat from one side of the land to the other and put the ship back into the ocean, put all of the goods back into the boat and take off again. It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it was a lot safer than trying to ship around the land in bad weather. Later I will tell you about the digging of the Corinth Canal.

The archaeological dig is sort of like a fancy summer camp. There are archaeology students from the United States and Greece and also professors who come and work here for three weeks at a time. There are dorm-like rooms where most of the people stay, but Steve and I are staying in a little house right on the archaeological site itself! It is a very old house and not a good place to stay in the winter because it is too cold. I am putting some pictures here.

I have added a map showing where our plane traveled to yesterday’s post. Are you curious about anything? Please write comments so that I will know what to write about!