Olympia

            Of course Olympia is most well known for being the beginning and start of the Olympic games but other than that it is now an intriguing archeological site. The site at Olympia holds the first Olympic stadium but it is also home to a sanctuary with temples to the gods, stoa, bath house, gymnasion and quite a bit more.

Ernst Curtius

            Through time more and more has been added to this site the temple to Zeus was an addition in the 4^th or 5^th century BC. However during the third century there was a series of earthquakes that took a definite toll on the site. The site was eventually covered over by what is now thought to be seawater from a couple tsunamis hitting the landscape. The first large-scale excavation was around 1870 when a German archeologist by the mane of Ernst Curtius was sent to do the dig. There were many attempts to excavate before Ernst got the funding and for the most part it was due to the other archeologists funding falling through and not being able to pay to do it themselves.

            The purpose of the dig was one of the largest carried out even to this day. He was to excavate the Heraion, the temple of Zeus, the Metroon, the Philippeion, the echo Colonnade and the precinct of Pelops. The German and Greek governments drew up paperwork so that the Germans could preform the dig and are responsible for keeping everything protected but everything that is uncovered will remain in Greece. However there was a great deal of looting in antiquity mostly by the Greeks themselves. Later when Dorpfeld took over the dig he went as far as doing periodic investigations to make sure nothing was missing, he also began digging in a more systematic way especially when they got to the stadium itself. It was here that they unearthed Pheidias’ workshop, and the Leonidaion. Also the north and south side of the stadium itself.

Philippeion

            Due to the natural disasters and war these temples are for the most part in ruins but for being the biggest undertaking at once the dig had been completed so systematically that every thing is easier to account for than it would have been on another dig of the time. However due to looting back in antiquity we are forced to make educated guesses at what some of the temples would have looked like. Including the immense statue of Zeus in his temple at Olympia.

Recreation of the Temple of Zeus

http://archaeology.about.com/od/archaeologicalsite1/a/olympia.htm

http://www.dainst.org/en/project/olympia?ft=all

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110710204240.htm

http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/olympics/classical/

Ur

Ur

Reconstructed Ziggurat

What the Ziggurat would have looked like in antiquity.

Google Earth image of the Ziggurat

Ur was a costal city before it was lost in what is now current day Iraq. The main part of the site is a large ziggurat, or what is now the remains of the “Great ziggurat of Ur”.  The temple was built in the twenty first century BC and was rebuilt or reconstructed in the sixth century BC. It once was along the Persian Gulf near the Euphrates but now lays well inland from where it once was. Ur was absorbed into a few different empires along the way the most notable was that of Hammurabi, under this empire they were still quite prosperous until his death and the inevitable revolt and like most the stories in this class… a crazy son who has no idea what’s going on took over the throne.

            Ur began excavations in 1853 by Leonard Wooley who was there on behalf of the British Museum. The first thing that was seen were some bricks that were stamped with symbols that were not recognizable to him. There were also some slabs of black marble in the mix. During the excavation there was a considerable amount of damage and the bricks that were now sitting around seemingly unwanted and used them for construction purposes while they lay unwatched and unprotected. It was later figured out that the writing on the bricks was cuneiform sometimes it was about the current king or ruler.

Excavation of the Ziggurat

            Another large find was a series of tombs from one believed to be a queen to a few mass graves. The queen’s grave is thought to be that of Puabi from about 2600BC. Her grave had remained un looted and there for had a variety of artifacts that survived. Among them were many bodies of what are thought to be human sacrifices.  About 16 of the tombs unearthed were labeled as the royal tombs one being the queen. Out of the different graves the Wooley realized there was at least three classes of people living in Ur. The royals who were buried with extensive riches, then the people who were wealthy who had some of their riches, and then low class or slaves that had been caught during battle.

            Looking at the bodies found in the non-royal part of the tombs excavation at Ur they found interesting things happening with the bones. The bones showed wear that could only come from hard physical labor, however the skeletons were that of children showing that there was most likely hard child labor as part of the work force at the time, possibly even going as far as slavery. However out of all the graves that were found none of the bones could be dated back any farther than about 1700BC.

Excavating the graves

            At any given time there could be at least one hundred and fifty workers excavating parts of Ur. The tomb that is thought to be that of the queen Puabi was at its lowest point seven meters or about twenty-three feet below the surface.

Excavations at Ur

            Currently the Iraqis’ want to be able to turn it into a place for tourism but at the same time there is a preservation group trying to protect it from further wear. Many places in Ur are covered with modern graffiti weather with marker paint or carved into the stone. The addition of more people coming through is only going to add to the problems they are already currently having and it seems things have come to a stand still as to what is going to happen with the site. However before anything can happen it needs to be re enforced due to the excavation methods and the loss of so many of the bricks a lot of the site is too structurally unsound to let tourists in, and archeologists should probably even stay clear until it is stabilized.

http://www.odysseyadventures.ca/articles/ur%20of%20the%20chaldees/ur_article.htm

http://archaeology.about.com/od/mesopotamiaarchaeology/ss/woolley_at_ur_3.htm    (image)

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4200535

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-14/us-returns-ur-birthplace-of-abraham-to-iraq/1682312

http://globalheritagefund.org/index.php/what_we_do/overview/current_projects/ur_iraq/

Herculaneum

Herculaneum Old, New, and Vesuvius

Herculaneum much like Pompeii was a thriving Roman city populated due to the fertility of the land and the beauty of the location itself. Also like Pompeii it was covered over by the poisonous hot ashy destruction of Vesuvius on August twenty fourth 79 AD.  However Herculaneum was discovered much differently instead of the grave robber type thieves that stumbled upon Pompeii Herculaneum was found when a man came across some marble debris. After it was realized that something much larger might be down there and they immediately started exploring and unfortunately some pillaging did begin to occur. During the initial searches a great deal of the friezes and walls were destroyed by the
Twenty-nine years after it was accidentally uncovered Charles of Bourbon set up to dig in a proper way to see what it was that had been found. He set up a series of archeologists through the years of digging including Rocco Gioacchino D’Alcubierre, Carlo Weber, and Francesco La Vega. The digs were shut down for a number of years due to the people who lived around the site and resumed when

Recreation of the Eruption

Francesco I then later by Giuseppe Fiorelliand king Vittorio Emanuele II.
Among the first things uncovered were the theatre, which included the wall that was hit when digging the original well, and the Villa of Papiri that is thought to have belonged to the father and law of Caesar.

Some of the most interesting finds of the time have come from Herculaneum, when they began to unearth the boat houses along the beach they found the first Roman skeletons not just in the position they died at Pompeii with plaster injected but entire skeletons. Due to Herculaneum being closer to Vesuvius the city was also covered in lava as well as ash and pumice keeping things better preserved than the site at Pompeii. Some organic materials have been unearthed intact including some pieces of wood and clothing. Herculaneum was under about 30 meters of the ash pumice and lava making it over 3 times as deep as most parts of Pompeii. Also due to how close it was people were nearly instantly killed by the heat wave that hit after the eruption. A surge of heat hit at about nine hundred and thirty degrees fahrenheit that the skeletons they found had exploded skulls and some of the long bones in the body had even split from the heat.

Ring Lady

One great undertaking in the unearthing of Herculaneum is the fact that a settlement had sprung up on top of the remains of the lost city, so while they wanted to excavate they had to do it more strategically then other digs. They began digging tunnels into the town in 1738 and surveying what was down there. They tunneled for a long time until 1828 when open air digs were finally allowed at this site. The most interesting things that they have found in the Herculaneum digs are the skeletons by the shore at the boat house. Not only are they the first full Roman skeletons to be found, but they were preserved with some clothing or other precious objects. Like the one that is now known as the ring lady. The land was excavated in a very procedural way that would have been unheard of in the time of Schliemann but even so it is causing problems.

Herculaneum now

Boat House where the Ring Lady and other Skeletons were found

Excavations of Herculaneum have actually come to a stop to try to help preserve what they have unearthed. While the land was remarkably preserved it began deteriorating as soon as it was uncovered. The high concentration of visitors to the site and vandalism are also working against conservation efforts.

Troy

Schliemann's Dig at Troy

Layout of the Known Parts of Troy

The site at troy is what is called  a tell. A tell is when the civilization falls  or a catastrophe happens  that tears the town down a fire an earthquake  anything. Then a new town is built on top of it creating layers.  Troy is situated in what is now modern day Turkey  near the coast.

http://cerhas.uc.edu/troy/      (Click for a depiction of the layers of Troy)

The Nine Layers of Troy

The ruins of Troy have been found to be at least  nine layers  showing  either a new  civilization or  the ending of one due to a disaster  or war, however some believe this can be taken even further and it can be divided into forty six sub levels. It seems that the first five layers of troy are there due to a migration where  most people left and a new group took power. The sixth layer  is thought  to have been destroyed by an earth quake. The seventh  layer  was a result of war. The final few seem to have flourished in the time of Augustus and just declined  until they  eventually  disappeared.

http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/27.html

            Schliemann  the man widely  thought  to have  not only discovered Troy but also possibly Homeric Troy was urged to dig by Frank Calvert. Calvert  was a British diplomat  who helped  pioneer  archeology. He had also purchased some land from a farmer that included part of the mound of Hisarlik and dug trenches  to see if anything arose. He then urged Schliemann to help out with his efforts. When Schliemann finally  decided  to dig he began digging at the mound of Hisarlik with Calvert. When Schliemann  discovered  artifacts it was from what  is referred to as Troy II. When Schliemann  found Troy he thought  that he  had found Homeric Troy however this  is widely  debated.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/506941

            Schliemann was a good example  of a bad archeologist.  While he did find part of the second layer of Troy he  also went ahead and  not only let his wife wear the jewels  out of the dig site but there is many  stories of him actually taking  them back to his home  to keep. This would never be allowed to occur in a modern dig and is an apparent  problem in images  and in historic  accounts.

           

Sophia Schliemann

            Looking at this we can see a trajectory   of how  far archeology  has come. Starting at pillaging  and stealing to the modern open air digs that can be watched that  are mentioned in my blog on Pompeii. If nothing had changed with archeology since the time of Schliemann the history that we know of the fallen civilizations would  be much different. Due to the fact that historians would never get to see the artifacts,  because they would all be hidden away like treasure. Museums would be a great deal more empty and a great deal less historical as well. Due to his public treatment of the artifacts and the fact that he let his wife wear the jewels  in public his permit to dig was revoked until a number of years later.

Schliemann's Dig at Troy

            Not only did Schliemann handle the treasures he did find with dignity  but he also dug though many of the other layers destroying  valuable pieces  of history to get to them. He was of the mindset that what is labeled as Troy II on the image was once the Homeric Troy and therefore was the most important. He was known to go as far as to demolish straight through till he got to where he wanted which also caused his fall out with Calvert over his methods of excavating. Calvert  even later wrote of how due to Schliemann’s  excavating  parts of the Trojan war was lost forever.

Current Dig at Troy

Current Dig at Troy

Pompeii

Pompeii

Pompeii

The excavations at Pompeii began with a dig to look for art objects that could be placed in the private collection of the Bourbon King Charles III. Any thing that was deemed to fall into this category was moved and had remained in Naples to this day in the Museo Nazionale.

After this event archeologist after archeologist went in to uncover parts of Pompeii including: Karl Weber, Francesco La Vega, Bourbon King Ferdinand I, Giuseppe Fiorelli, and many more to this day.

Giuseppe Fiorelli

Previous to Fiorelli taking over the dig, places were excavated by a specific plan where the streets were excavated first and then the houses were cleared out from bottom to top, and any paintings or mosaics were torn down and moved to museums. However Fiorelli came up with a new plan to instead excavate from the roof down into the building and out to the streets. This kept the artifacts inside and even the houses themselves in better shape than they had remained from previous digs. He put this plan into motion and then added a second part, since the bodies had been preserved in the ash he came up with adding the plaster into the holes where bodies were found to create a replica of the person. Not only did this make an accurate cast of the victim and the place and manner they died but it also left the space they died mostly intact leaving both a positive and negative of the event. This also made it so more casts could be made the casts could be shipped all over to museums so people from all over could see the aftermath of such an event and get a look at life in Pompeii at the time.

After Fiorelli the archeologists that took over kept up his way of excavating and even went a step further to restore the roofs of the houses as they dug to keep anything that may be inside safe. The paintings, mosaics and other artifacts inside would remain safer than before and were even left on the walls instead of being torn down to add to museum collections as they were before.  The next few archeologists also started placing the art that was unearthed into different categories or styles, then they were able to start drawing up reconstructions of what these houses would have looked like in antiquity, and then reconstruct the front, roof and even porch of the houses not only to help keep them standing but it in the end even helped them excavate better knowing what they were looking for under all the ash and pumice.

It is impressive that these buildings are standing at all after all they have been through, being that when they were built they should have only lasted a few decades with what would have been some pretty decent upkeep. Yet here they are all this time later not only still standing but only about three fifths of the way uncovered and have over two billion visitors every year in the parts that are unearthed.  More recently excavations have been opened up and while you can’t just go digging till your hearts content you can watch as a team of archeologists work on what is known as the House of the Chaste Lovers and unearth its secrets. This building till know has been closed to the public until recently even though it began being unearthed in the late 1980’s.

House of the Chaste Lovers open dig.

Casts of some of the Victims

While this blog is meant to illustrate the problems that arose in early digs through their images this dig is a good example of changes in the way things were done for better preservation. Not only was the entire style of the dig changed by going from top to bottom instead of bottom to top of the rubble but they re enforced roofs to keep anything remaining inside safe until they could get in to work inside the houses. It was this dig that also had Fiorelli come up with injecting plaster into the graves of the victims to get a recreation of what happened. Not only did this help for preservation but also it was a giant leap forward into seeing what life in the Roman Empire would have looked like. This was the first time that such an accurate image of life would have looked like at that time, where it was not destroyed by war or overtaken by a new set of people. Instead a look at what people would have been doing in their final days. So while the techniques are not what they are today on the earlier digs many breakthroughs happened along the way, and now since it is still being dug out it shows a time line of how things were done not only now but all the way back to when they begun. The start of this site was for personal wealth by what people would now term as someone who is a gravedigger all the way up to current digs where you can now sit and watch as it is brought out of the ash and pumice right in front of your very eyes.

Early Digs

Current Digs

Works Cited:

http://news.discovery.com/history/pompeii-to-offer-live-excavation-experience.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/pompeii_rediscovery_01.shtml

Google Images