Interview with a Classical Archaeologist

This is going to sound silly, but one of my favorite discoveries was a simple brick. In Roman times, the brick makers would either drag their fingers across the surface of the bricks or even sometimes squish their fingers into the brick before it dried. The idea was to roughen the sides of the brick so the mortar would stick to it better. One time I pulled one of these bricks out of the ground, dusted it off, and put my fingers in the same holes that the brick maker had left behind. I thought to myself—I’m as close as you can get to shaking hands with someone else across 2,000 years of history! These bricks are quite common, but each time I do it, I get the same thrill.

We’re trying to do something new at the Michigan State University excavations at Isthmia. In the past, some archaeologists excavated more than they could share with the public, so the storerooms at Isthmia are full of artifacts, notes, and drawings that need to be organized and prepared for publication. I know that when people hear that I’m an archaeologist, they think I’m busy all day digging trenches and finding treasures. Trust me, I’d like to be doing that too! But at the present, I’m trying to make good on the promises made by our archaeological predecessors to publish all that we found in the past.

Remember, when an archaeologist gets permission to excavate something, that deal comes with an obligation to share what’s been found with the local Greek community, other scholars, and anyone else who may be interested. So right now, we’re trying to publish a lot of the site’s excavation findings from the 1960s and 1970s. It’s the right thing to do. And to be honest, it can be kind of fun. We have the advantage of time and distance between us and what was recognized. This allows us to identify patterns in the archaeological record that our predecessors didn’t see in their time. So for me at least, it’s just as exciting as making new discoveries in a trench.

There’s an ongoing discussion about whether “digital archaeology” is a real thing or just a catchphrase to make what we do more interesting. On the one hand, just because we use different tools doesn’t need to mean that archaeology has changed. There used to be a time in the 1800s when archaeologists didn’t even use cameras. Does the invention and use of cameras mean that we began practicing “photographic archaeology”? Actually, maybe it does because cameras allow us to record things in our work (snapshots of ongoing work, magnified pictures of artifacts, etc.) that have really changed the way we understand the past. So in that sense, maybe the use of computers, GPS, databases, and modeling software have changed the way we do our work today. To be sure, they have certainly allowed information to be gathered, processed, and shared more quickly and with a wider range of people than ever before. So most of what we do has not changed, but some digital technologies have really helped us to share with others what we’ve discovered and how we interpret the past.

Timothy: Try to learn a little Greek. A few expressions like Γειά σας (hello), ναί (yes), όχι (no), and Δεν μιλώ ελληνικά (I don’t speak Greek) can be really useful. Wear
lighter clothes that don’t get as hot. Bring a snorkel because there is a lot to see underwater—fish, urchins, and sometimes if you’re lucky, even an octopus.

Theodore: Remember to drink lots of water because it gets hot there. Also bring something to entertain yourself because there can be long drives between places. Greek-style dinners last a long time too. Bring swimming masks and swimsuits because there are a lot of good beaches.