BSA Course Day 6 Lefkandi and Eretria

Weather: 32 degrees and sunny

Step count: 14326

An 8am start and our first trip beyond the city of Athens took us to beautiful Lefkandi, a quiet coastal town with fishing boats bobbing in picture-perfect blue seas.

Hidden on a hill behind the seaside tavernas and souvenir shops is a British School at Athens' excavation site, and we were welcomed by Irene Lemos who introduced her team and talked us through the fascinating history revealed by the investigations.

Excavations which began in the early 1980s uncovered the remains of a large building, with two shaft graves inside. One contained a male and a female, the other contained four horses, with iron bits still in their mouths. Post holes found around the perimeter of the building suggest the construction of a verandah, the earliest example in Greece. There is ongoing speculation as to whether the building was constructed before or after the burial, and whether it was destroyed deliberately or by natural means such as an earthquake, before being covered by the mound which concealed it.

It was so exciting to see archaeology in progress, provoking questions that don't yet have answers and involving scholars in debate. It will be interesting to see how the excavations progress, and what conclusions will be drawn as further evidence emerges.

Read more about it here.

A short trek over the sandy hills and scrub led by course alumna, and now archaeological team member, Caroline Thurston took us to Xeropolis, the ‘dry city’, another of the BSA sites which has been covered over to protect the remains until a new phase of excavations can begin.

Xeropolis is a 'tell site', which contains stratigraphy showing layers of occupation over time, and it has been continuously occupied since the Bronze Age. Part of the city wall has been located, with a ritual space nearby containing many votive offerings which appear to have been deposited over the wall. Ceramics with representations of deer, including a vessel with deer antlers attached, as well as remains of deer bones have been found, however the significance has yet to be explained.

Our afternoon was spent in Eretria, with Tamara Saggini from the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece giving us a tour of how the modern town interacts with the ancient, having been built over the top of space occupied since the Bronze Age.

We saw a tholos, the archaic foundations of the Temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, an epithet meaning 'Apollo of the laurels' (there is little left of the later classical temple as it was likely resused in building housing), and the House of the Mosaics, with its surviving pebble mosaics which are usually found in northern Greece.

But for me the most interesting was the elite housing at the periphery of the city walls, as it allowed a glimpse back in time to lives not so different to our own. There was a double entrance, one with a ramp for wheeled vehicles which had been worn down through use, and the other for those on foot. Both led to a small area where vehicles and horses could be left, before reaching a colonnaded courtyard. There were many rooms around, divided into an organised public space containing the andron, or men's room, where symposia would have been held, as well as several guest rooms. The western wall of the house ran parallel to a drainage ditch into which waste from the kitchen and the bathroom could be discharged, which can be seen to the left of the photograph below:

There is a small museum which contains the finds from Eretria as well as those from Lefkandi. We saw an example of a high-necked vase found at a ritual area near the temple, a unique shape found only at Eretria.

An interesting model showed how temples would have been constructed:

And we came face to face with the famous Centaur of Lefkandi, a Bronze Age statue found at the toomba cemetery site.

We ended the evening with a pot-luck dinner back at the BSA, a tradition where the course participants all bring a dish or two to share. We enjoyed nibbles, dips and pizza, lovingly-prepared hot dogs (well done the boys!) and delicious salads, and surprised two of the cohort who had celebrated birthdays the week before with an amazing cake made by some serious potential bake-off contenders. We were joined by the incoming Director of the BSA Prof. Rebecca Sweetman, and a lovely evening was had by all. If only the washing up did itself!!!