News - Week 5: Closing time

Andrzej and Vassilis discusses how to proceed with the recording of the excavated area.

Our favorite quest

Jonathan Bardis - The Seagull

Author: Konstantina Vafiadou, Panagiotis Athanasopoulos, Mads M. Nielsen and Bjoern Lovén

Bjoern Lovén reports

This week we closed down Zea, and for me personally our seven years of excavations in Zea has been extremely rewarding on many levels. To see my team develop, work perfectly and produce scientific results that will add a few, but very important pieces to the puzzle of this all important chapter in World History – Athens and the Piraeus in the 5th and 4th centuries BC – is a privilege and I wish to thank my team for their excellent work and everybody who has believed in us. Special thanks go to the Carlsberg Foundations for investing their trust and funding in our project – we will give back twofold.

Next week we begin excavations in Mounichia (modern Mikrolimano) where two seasons of survey work in 2005 and 2006, have already shown that this harbour has an immense archaeological potential - we have high hopes for groundbreaking new discoveries!!

Konstantina Vafiadou, Mads M. Nielsen and Panagiotis Athanasopoulos report

One of the most fascinating and rewarding feelings throughout our excavating years in Piraeus has been when local community embraces our work and passion and comprehends the significance of our work and the relevance of it with modern Piraeus. In this time span of seven years, several local people have turned from distant observers of our complicated diving habits to close friends always willing to help and assist in any way, sharing our passion for archaeology of Piraeus.

Grigoris Syrigos is definitely such a case. Grigoris is one of our local fans. We say fan because he comes to us, but in reality, we are the fan of him. You see, Grigoris brings us refreshments in the form of juices, pies and Danish (no punt intended, in case anybody thought so!). He himself, quite like JB (see below), is a world traveller, and has brought many interesting things with him from around the world. He has kept us company with stories to laugh at or ponder about, and we look forward to seeing you again Grigori!

Another friend, and certainly our favourite, is our young friend in the photograph to the right. Our young friend was passing by almost every day after school with his grandfather. He was really excited by looking at the divers. His favourite was Mads. Each time our young friend was on site and Mads was diving, we were calling Mads to come out and greet him. This simple gesture made our young friend very happy. Once we even gave him the underwater communication in order to speak with Mads in English!! Our friend was very interested in our finds. Every day he was asking about the finds of the day and whether we had found any columns. This Friday he admitted to us that when he grows up he wants to become a ‘diver-archaeologist’.

Finally, JB, not to be confused with the highly intoxicating drink some people might have a thirst for. JB is Jonathan Bardis - The Seagull. Some might recognize the name, and yes, he is the longtime friend and inspiration of Richard Bach. JB keeps us company on the weary days with his passionate, occasionally crazy, inspired approach to life. But mostly he inspires us with his singing, performance of seagull dances and eating habits. Obviously one would have thought he loved flying, but he mostly likes to sit, and just be there, or somewhere. He is a good and spirited companion to all of us, and we hope that like Fletcher, we too will achieve a higher level of consciousness through his teachings, here in the harbour of famed Athens! In that spirit, we all say - Peace, Love & Archaeology!