John Camp’s rendering of the doorway of the Temple of Dionysos, Pergamon
The spring Ionia-Caria trip, led by Agora Excavations director John Camp, is going stronger than ever. This year’s trip, from March 14-28, was an exhilarating cross between boot camp and the Society of the Dilettanti that brought out the best in the School’s students.
Following in the wake of the sons of King Kodros, who colonized the western coast of Asia Minor, we Athenaioi safely traveled over 4,000 km from Istanbul to Bodrum and back, thanks to the skill of veteran bus driver Ahmet and his partner Mehmet. Our Pausanias was kind and patient Yıldırım (“Lightning”), who taught us Turkish phrases, selected inexpensive but excellent kebab-houses for lunch, and shepherded us through boulder-strewn, sometimes water-logged sites. Our inexorable march was occasionally delayed-- by the scarf-selling ladies of Herakleia, or by the Turkish election banners strung across village streets that sometimes snagged the bus-- but we managed nonetheless to visit some forty sites and museums.
A typical day began with a forced march uphill to some remote ancient site where, after a concise overview by our leader, we would spread out over the ruins to reconnoiter, handouts in hand (or mouth, depending on the steepness of the locale) as we scaled towers, scrutinized inscriptions, and pondered the mystery of guttae-less mutules. The archaeological richness and preservation of the sites we saw was truly impressive. To keep them all in order, we had to invent Homeric epithets: many-tadpoled Miletos, well-puppied Smyrna, lignite-rich Stratonikeia. Even so, some antiquities remained elusive, such as the bejeweled fish giving prophesies at Labranda, the spring flowing with wine at Teos, and the precise location of the Battle of the Granicus.
Meritt Felllow Tom Garvey on the fortification tower of Herakleia (Photo: John W.I. Lee)
The students gave excellent reports on topics ranging from the Hittite presence in Ionia to the multicultural music of early twentieth-century Smyrna. We also had wonderful guest speakers. In Bodrum the long-time underwater archaeologist Don Frey described the adventure and challenge of excavating ancient wrecks and taught us the indispensable phrase “choke gazelle” (çok güzel). In Istanbul, where many of us spent a few extra days, a special treat was the chance to stroll around Hagia Sophia with Professor John Freely.
Each traveler had her special high points. For Mellon Professor Margie Miles it was the tantalizing jumble of Proconnesian marble blocks that once constituted the enormous Temple of Hadrian at Kyzikos. For Whitehead Professor Rebecca Ammerman, it was slithering, à la Indiana Jones, through a dark, sooty tunnel deep within the tumulus at Belevi to see an intact libation tube. For others, it was the opportunity to conduct research on the Turkish carpet and souvenir industries, and the numerous varieties of rakı. At Pergamon, to the bewilderment and delight of a local shopkeeper, we made a raid on every available copy of the tenth edition of Akurgal’s Ancient Civilizations and Ruins of Turkey.
We will long remember the majestic mosques of Bursa, the lentil soup that sustained us, the extraordinary landscape of snow-capped mountains and daisy-filled valleys, and especially the warm and friendly people, like the diminutive fig seller of Ephesos-- even if we still don’t have all forty-odd sites quite straight in our heads. Tanned and exhausted, we “Camp-followers” have returned to Loring Hall, but are already eager to march out again with our leader who, like Alexander the Great, prepared for breakfast with a night march, and whose lunch was a frugal breakfast.
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