The first few days of our third week in Greece were spent mostly going to class. Monday and Wednesday I only had Greek 102 in the evening. Tuesday was a busy class day, I started the day with Digital Archeology. We learned photography basics to prepare for a photogrammetry assignment. Then in the next class of the day, Landscape and Material Culture, Micheal Boyd told us about excavations and findings in the Cyclades. We learned about a possible ancient sanctuary on the island Keros, the center of the Cyclades and the Aegean. Excavators were looking for a settlement but instead, they found a special deposit site full of figurines and marble. Interesting findings at the site were that the material was not from Keros, meaning it had been imported and almost everything they found was fragmented with the fragments not lining up with other pieces. Tuesday was also the first day of Weekly Latin; we are reading the play Mostellaria by Plautus.
On Thursday, we went to the Museum of Cycladic Art. We started on the first floor, where we saw and learned about figurines, tools, clay boxes, and frying plan vessels from the Neolithic period. We saw figures that were sitting, holding a cup, or playing music. We learned that the Cycladic culture seems to be a human-centric society; by observing their figurines we saw how they seemed to place humans in the center of humanism. After hearing about the Cycladic Neolithic period we saw a presentation about projects implemented in the Cyclades to protect culture and natural heritage on specific islands. We learned about the process of how they can do projects like fundraising, proposals, assessments, and implementation. Traditional music, storytelling, island history, traditions, and art were some things the projects highlighted. Podcasts, QR codes, videos, and websites are ways the projects were shared. After the presentation, I enjoyed the floor that displayed information and artifacts about Ancient Athens.
Friday, my apartment group started our day with a visit to the market. It was only a two-minute walk from our apartment and had all kinds of produce, flowers, clothes, and random stuff. Then after a delicious lunch at CYA, we walked over to the Benaki Museum. We saw a lot of similar artifacts to artifacts we saw at the Museum of Cycladic Art. There were also the same style figurines, tools, and frying pan vessels. It was fun to make connections to the things and art styles we had learned about two days previous. After looking at the Neolithic floor I wandered up to the next floor and spent most of the time at the museum looking at amazing art, furniture, clothes, carvings, tools, and jewelry from the 17th and 18th centuries.
