A composition of childhood

This is the cookie-cutter landscape in which I grew up. I was lucky - my neighborhood, south of that main road you see running E-W in yellow, was covered in trees, a large lake, and [slightly] curving streets, unlike my neighbors to the North. But the houses were the same split floor plans, one- to two-car garages, some with pools, repeated ad nauseum with the occasional deviation in plan, color, and style.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how landscape works, and how it is crafted and manipulated. Is it merely a matter of convenience that we concoct these suburban landscapes of the same, over and over again? A purely economical motive? Or is it a deep-set desire for sameness, and the familiarity that comes with it?

And ultimately, how does this contrast with what we know about antiquity? How much more often did the Greeks and Romans work with the landscape instead of against it when building not only their homes but their sacred places?

Autumn in Greece

As Spring heads toward the mid-Atlantic, I keep thinking about Autumn for some reason. It's always been my favorite season, but sometimes I feel like it falls off my radar each year as it's also always the season for midterms, fellowship applications, and student conferences. This year was no exception, although seeing as it was my first year back in Baltimore after a year in Greece, I made sure to traverse my neighborhood for signs of Autumn. As Spring approaches, I'll do the same - I'm already seeing crocuses starting to bloom on my regular jogs.

On the other hand, I feel I was incredibly lucky to experience Autumn in Greece last year, too. Before my Regular Year at the ASCSA, I had only seen the summer side of Greece. Autumn of 2010 was my first exposure to a whole new world of temperatures, colors, and light within the Greek landscape. This was particularly evident during Trip III, Central Greece. Here are a few of my favorite images:

A perennial yellow crocus (κρόκος)

Fog over Hosios Loukos

A tree at a rest stop near Trikala

Reds at Meteora

At a tholos tomb near Pharsalos

Sunset over Lebedaia

 The Valley of the Muses

Legs, legs, everywhere

I didn't watch the Oscars last night, but I'm quite bemused about all the hoopla over Angelina Jolie's Right Leg. Apparently it's set off a rash of badly-photoshopped images of her leg invading various situations, my favorite being this one:

I guess it's a bit scandalous, though I hardly see how a high-slit dress could qualify as "scandalous" here in the second decade of the 21st century. But it reminded me of something else once deemed rather scandalous, I'm sure: in the transition between Archaic and Classical sculpture, draped females started to exhibit drapery that was rather...clingy. And over time, more and more of the underlying surface was revealed. Take, for example, one of the Caryatids from the Erechtheion:

This here is a copy from Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, but you get the idea. The left leg is more traditionally Archaic, shrouded entirely by the drapery. The maidens from the porch were, after all, rather Archaistic in form - look at their solid poses (since they functioned like columns) and their hairstyles. But right there, oh-so-inconspicuously, the kore's right leg is readily visible under the diaphanous drapery. The drapery is so thin, it's as if it isn't even there. Scandalous in the 5th century BCE? I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Image of the Caryatid from Tivoli is scanned from A. Scholl. 1995. “Χοηφοροι: Zur Deutung der Korenhalle des Erechtheion.” JdI 110: 179-212.

Aromatic Rosemary

One of my favorite occasional blogs, The Cloisters' The Medieval Garden Enclosed, has a new blog post up about rosemary. I learned that rosemary is a member of the mint family, and that it is native to the Mediterranean.

Reading about rosemary reminded me of how we'd find it in abundance in Greece, as you can see in detail above at the Temple of Ammon Zeus at Potidaea in the Chalkidike, and I also remember it quite clearly from Lavrion, where the plant was covered in a magnificent spider web.

Read more here about rosemary, from the Met: The Virtues of Rosemary.

AJA Archaeological Resources for Students

The American Journal of Archaeology has compiled this handy list of links students of archaeology (or for those interested in learning more about archaeology.

Here you can find links for resources in archaeology, including everything from excavation possibilities, to career advice for aspiring archaeologists/academics, to some incredibly technologically-advanced digital resources in archaeology.

dissertation beginnings

Even though I'm not quite ABD, I'm beginning the dissertation writing process this semester by taking a Dissertation Writing Workshop class. In addition, my current fellowship proposal (due in less than 2 weeks, eek!) marks the beginning of a sort of informal prospectus.

Things gathered from tonight's class:
- The process is like an oxygen mask - you have to put your own mask on; no one is going to do it for you.
- "No" is your friend
- Index cards. In the same way that I write out daily to-do lists on index cards, it will be helpful for me to take notes on index cards, one for each book/article. And maybe file them in a box? A sort of addenda to my ongoing bibliography
- It will be beneficial for me to learn to work in small blocks of time. One, because in all likelihood I won't have the advantage of being able to treat the diss. like a 9-5 job. Two, because my ADD-mind works better in small blocks of time anyway. Really, things that occur in small blocks of time is the way for me to get things done.
- Always remember: - BETTER DONE THAN GOOD

I have a daily goal to write every day. Something more than just emails. After a 10-hour day like today, a blog post might just have to suffice. But it's a start.

squirting cucumbers

On Trip IV, we'd often encounter these plants which we called "squirting cucumbers," as they'd squirt when you stepped (or jumped) on them. Fun times.

(squirting cucumbers at Tiryns)

I've just learned that they're actually called Ecballium elaterium, and I ran across a reference to them in Vivian Nutton's Ancient Medicine:

"Even the squirting cucumber, whose purgative properties are well established, may have been used as an emmenagogue or an oxytocic as much for symbolic as for practically evaluated reasons: its capacity to eject its seeds forcefully made it an appropriate plant to use when wishing to expel an unwanted conception, an afterbirth or a suppressed menstrual period."

So there you have it. I wonder what a "suppressed menstrual period" is? And according to Wikipedia, the squirting cucumber is today used in Turkey to treat sinus problems. But I think they're best for jumping on - the archaeologist's version of a water balloon fight, perhaps?

Aigai, Turkey

I'm sometimes captivated not by the sites we visit, but by the landscapes that they overlook. How would these worlds looked to the ancient peoples living there? I don't think it's coincidental that the ancient built high up on hills - not to make us grad students gasp for breath, hiking up them thousands of years later, but so that they'd be well-protected and also have phenomenal views.

I'm working my way through Turkey photos from Day 4, and found this gem from Aigai - an amazing site, to be sure, but also with some breathtaking views.

Rainy Pergamon

I'm far, far behind on my posting, but one of my goals for April - now that Winter Term is over - is to start posting more often (no April Fool's joke).

We've just returned from 15 days in Western Turkey, which was largely centered around Ionia and Caria, with a little bit of Anatolia thrown into the mix. It was probably the best trip of the year - exhilarating, exhausting, and enlightening, all in one.

For now, a picture of me at Pergamon, as I sort through the nearly 4,000 photos I took in two weeks:

America in Color

Today I came across this photo essay about America in Color from 1939 to 1943. It's a collection of color photographs from an era that was largely shot in black & white.

As a photographer, I love these images, of course. But I'm even more intrigued by the things I think about while looking at them, including:
- the style of dress & shoes
- the architecture
- the cars, the furniture, etc.
- the interactions of people
- the signage & symbols
- the landscape and its cultivation
- the acknowledgment of time (i.e, some photos are of uncertain date)

And I think to myself, I never would have thought this way had I not studied Classics. Classics teaches you to think about history in new ways: as a living process, as something that is recorded and the ways in which we document it: through photographs, through material culture, through language. Through words and images.

I find it hard to believe anyone can find little value in Classics when it teaches one to learn to think like this - and to think like this about a subject that isn't even related to what I study.