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Dickinson students are again spending the summer in Mycenae, Greece participating in the excavations, archaeological survey, investigation and research of the legendary Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae and its surrounding area in the region of Argolid, Greece. Alison Cuneo '07, a graduate in archaeology and classical studies, is the leading archaeology lab assistant and recently sent an update.
Hello fellow Dickinsonians,
I hope this e-mail finds you well. The excavation is in its final days, but I feel as though I only arrived yesterday. We have all been so incredibly busy and having so much fun that we barely noticed July slipping by. We broke ground on the first season of the Mycenae Lower Town Project, which will hopefully be the first excavation of a Mycenaean town.
There was an opening ceremony during the first week that involved important town officials, the local priest and Spyros Iakovides, director of Mycenae. Since then five trenches have been excavated by teams of Dickinson, Greek and British students which are led by pairs of Dickinson graduates and graduate students from across the country.
Although the first year is always expected to produce the smallest amount of information and finds, nevertheless we have been coming across a number of interesting architectural features and artifacts, including figurines, an amulet, coins and stone or clay tools. We have been putting our ground-penetrating radar and magnetometric survey results to the test, and so far they have been incredibly accurate. This is one of the few archaeological projects that has been able to test their survey finds with a full-scale excavation. Other technological aspects of the dig include the use of GIS to create models of each trench in order to plot every single find and feature, a revolutionary way of processing archaeological data.
Despite the 5:30 a.m. wake-up call, the blazing heat and occasional windstorms, the students have been very hardworking and upbeat. This is one of the best groups we've ever had and we know it can only go up from here.
Hope all is well in Carlisle, and I hope it's not as hot there as it is here! Take care and Geia sas!
Photos from last summer's excavations are also available.
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