Jamieson Donati is a Senior Associate Member and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow researching mediterranean urbanism and landscape archaeology using satellite remote sensing, GIS, and geophysics. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Geophysical, Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeoenvironment at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies.
Q: What is your particular field of interest?
A: My field of interest is Greek urbanism and the development of the city in the 1st millennium BC. When I was a PhD student I was focusing more on the Greek Agora, but since I’ve gotten my degree I’ve expanded to looking at larger issues of the city in classical antiquity. Recently I’ve been focusing on the application of remote sensing technologies and geophysics to study ancient urbanism. I’m particularly interested in how we can use fieldwork methodologies in new and inventive ways to study the development of the Greek city.
Q: How did you get interested in this?
A: After I got my PhD I started working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Crete. They happen to have a focus on the application of tech, geophysics, and remote sensing to explore historical landscapes. I had done this in the past, and done field surveys in my research before, but once I was at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies I got a lot more proficient in using satellite imagery to answer the sort of archeological and historical questions I was interested in.
Q: And what are the questions you’re interested in?
A: I’m interested in the spatial organization of the city, looking at whether it’s a rational organization or not, and the movement within the city. The Greek city is one of the first instances in history where we’re arranging cities rationally--using orthogonal organization of streets and city-blocks. Using remote sensing and geophysics you can cover a wide area in a relatively short amount of time, and thus you can answer questions of city organization on a broad scale. These larger fieldwork methods can answer questions that with traditional approaches are more difficult because of their time-intensive nature.
Q: So what are you working on at the moment?
A: My project here is to study the development of town-planning in the Peloponnese. We’ve done surveys at a number of Greek cities in the Peloponnese and now I’m analyzing that data.
Q: Where do you work when you’re not at the ASCSA?
A: I work in Rethymo but I live in Thessaloniki because my wife is Greek and she has a professorship teacher position there. I was living in Crete for five years, in Thess’ for 2. My wife and I actually met as members of the school here.
Q: When did you first become involved with the American School?
A: I first was a summer session undergrad and then upon completion of my Masters I was a regular member in ’03-04 and that’s where I met my wife. So I have spent 13 years here in Greece. I returned to the school for a full year as a student associate member when I was writing my PhD, but this is my first time back at the school in 8 or 9 years. For the most part things don’t change too much, there’s been an expansion of facilities but most of the same faces are here.
Q: Can you tell us about your NEH Fellowship?
A: I have a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to research the survey data that we have from the Peloponnese at about 3 cities. From this evidence we have a good indication of town planning. We found evidence for rational town planning in all the settlements--spatial distribution of houses, settlements, built areas, unbuilt areas. Now I will condense that information into a publication and also using it as a basis for exploring the history and development of town planning in the Peloponnese. There are other examples, but this new evidence adds a lot of knowledge. Often when people talk about town planning they talk about settlements in Sicily or elsewhere in Italy, so this shows trends in Greek urbanism are happening in the Peloponnese as well. The Peloponnese has been largely ignored as a site for city planning for the most part.
Q: What resources will you be using for your research?
A: I’m going to be pretty much researching at the library for 5 months, occasionally traveling in the Peloponnese. I will work with the material in GIS, take measurements, do statistical analysis, put it together, make sense of it, and finally get an archaeological interpretation of a broader understanding of these cities and cities in the Peloponnese.
Q: How are other archaeologists using these same remote sensing and geophysics technologies?
A: Archaeological fieldwork is integrating these methods more and more. With GIS you can process data and view it spatially in ways you couldn’t before. Geophysics as well has been used in Greece for some decades. The new thing now is there are new instruments that allow for very quick survey methods with the same, if even better, resolution than before. I can now survey half a city in a very small time frame. Satellite remote sensing is even newer. It hasn’t been used extensively in Greece, usually only in basic ways to see things on the ground. One thing I try to do is process the satellite imagery in a different way. The satellite images have multispectral bands such as infrared that allow you to see things on the ground you wouldn’t otherwise. I’ve had success using satellite imagery to identify roads and things on the ground, so I think in the future we will see more application of this. I think in the future Archaeological fieldwork will start with aerial and satellite imagery, move to geophysics, then target specific areas with excavation if going for the total archaeology approach.
Q:What is your favorite souvlaki place in Athens?
A: If I say souvlaki I would have to say Kolonaki Kalamaki. But my knowledge of Athenian restaurants is currently 8 years old.
Q: What is your favorite place in Athens?
A: It’s hard to pinpoint. I think I have favorite areas. Spending a lot of time at the school you grow attached to the area in Kolonaki and places like the Lykavittos. It’s always nice to walk around these familiar places to see the stores and cafes. When going out with friends I like going out to Exarchia and the Gazi area, there’s a lot of hidden restaurants and bars there. Walking around the Plaka is also nice every so often, seeing the tourists.
Q: If you were a Greek god or goddess, which one would you be?
A: Initially I’d say Dionysus. But I think that would involve too much effort and I would get quite tired with the late night revelry. As my final answer I would say Zeus--sitting on top of Olympus watching everything, throwing a lighting bolt every now and then.
Q: What do you get from your experience here at the ASCSA?
A: I mean the greatest experience is being involved with a community with similar interests who are able to help you develop your research ideas and research projects-- to broaden your research perspective. Not only talking to the senior researchers but also meeting the new students who are coming here every year to hear what they’re interested in. There’s an active lively environment that I think is unique to the American School.
