Denver Graninger completed his term as Carpenter Fellow this spring. He will be missed.
The Regular Members of 2009-10 are now scattered in the Mediterranean and home in the U.S., and as the School has filled up with the two Summer Sessions, Agora volunteers, and returning senior scholars, it’s a good time to reflect on the past year. We had an outstanding group of students with diverse interests, ranging from Mycenaean textiles to the imagery of Roman conquest in Augustan authors. Our winter program was completed with an outing to Aigina, as is traditional, but under glowering skies; nonetheless we saw everything as planned and we had a sense of nostalgia for our last trip as a group.
In March, some students opted to go to Sicily, a joint trip with the American Academy in Rome, led by the two Mellon Professors of Classical Studies (me and my counterpart in Rome, Corey Brennan). We were able to visit a whole range of sites and explored numerous Greek temples, a modern (1960s) commemoration of victims of a terrible earthquake at Giubellino by Alberto Burri, spectacular Byzantine mosaics in Palermo and Monreale, and saw remains of a Punic ship in Lilybaeum—and we enjoyed sampling Sicilian cannoli across the island.
Another optional trip, to Lycia, was offered by Prof. John Camp, and the group explored many of the breathtakingly gorgeous sites, both inland and along the coast. Students saw lots of tombs with ogival roofs, tombs cut into the faces of cliffs, sculpture, fortifications and whole cities and harbors in need of further study.
Excavations at Corinth have been ongoing since the beginning of April (see related story), and students have been returning to Athens with glowing reports of the interesting finds in the trenches and the fun of living in the dig house at Corinth. Other students have been working away in the Blegen library, making good use of their time for work on dissertations.
We recently had a farewell gathering for Denver Graninger and Tanya Spicer, who are about to leave for Sofia. Denver is the new Director of the American Research Center there, and he is already learning to speak Bulgarian! It has been wonderful to work with Denver during the two years he was Carpenter Fellow, and he and Tanya will be sorely missed. Fortunately they are not going far, and Denver and I are already plotting future trips that will feature Thrace and the Black Sea.
