Three Things Thursday: An Abstract, a Panel, and Poetry

It’s going to be another day of weirdly crappy weather, but we’re almost a third of the way through the semester and it’s not -20°! Maybe it’s the strange weather, maybe it’s the hectic semester, or maybe it’s a kind of general fatigue, but I’m having a tough time feeling like February will be a productive month.

This probably accounts for this rather anemic Three Things Thursday:

Thing the First

My greatest accomplishment this week was this abstract for a Friends of ASOR Talk. The talk will be on March 7th (I think). More details soon.

For the last two decades, the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project has explored the coastal region of Pyla village. Located 10 km east of Larnaka and immediately below the famous Late Bronze Age site atop the Kokkinokremos coastal ridge, Koutsopetria featured a now-infilled embayment which likely served as a harbor in antiquity. The location of the site near an ancient harbor and astride the major road running between ancient cities of Kition and Salamis likely led to the fortification of the prominent coastal height of Vigla in the Hellenistic period. This site likely served as strategic outpost for mercenaries during the tumultuous period after Alexander the Great’s death when his successors battled for control over the island and the Mediterranean littoral. The forces occupying the fort appear to have abandoned it within a generation of its construction leaving behind a fascinating window into the tumultuous life of this strategic site.

During the Roman and Late Roman period, a prosperous town developed in the coastal zone. Excavations in the 1990s by the Department of Antiquities revealed parts of an Early Christian basilica and the intensive survey carried out by our team showed that the site had trade connections across the Mediterranean. The rise and decline of the Roman period settlement at Koutsopetria was less abrupt than that of its Hellenistic predecessor on Vigla, but our work at Koutsopetria similarly offers a window into an era of significant change on the island. Our excavations and survey at Koutsopetria have revealed that the church and surrounding settlement likely experienced a gradual abandonment over the course of the 7th and 8th centuries. This suggests that the site did not succumb to a catastrophic end at the hands of Arab raiders, but declined gradually perhaps as a result of the changing economic and political landscape of the region. 

This talk will interweave the story of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project with our understanding of the history of the site during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Late Roman periods.

Thing the Second

Kevin McGeough and I are happy to announce that we’ve had a Workshop accepted for the 2024 ASOR Conference in Boston. 

Here’s the abstract:

Contemporary Perspectives on Near Eastern And Mediterranean Pseudoarchaeology (Workshop)

Despite decades of debunking, pseudoarchaeology remains evergreen. A recent documentary series devoted to yet another pseudoarchaeologcial expedition to prove the existence of Atlantis provoked yet another chorus of outrage from archaeologists. Atlantis, in particular, appears to attract perniciously persistent perspectives anchored in Victorian racism and colonialism. At the same time, it is clear that Atlantis continues to fascinate 21st-century audiences not because of their deep attraction to Platonic rhetoric, but because it also offers a way to think about the consequences of catastrophic climate change. In general, pseudoarchaeological sites, artifacts, and explanations continue to resonate with contemporary challenges including race, identity, forced migration, millenarianism, and globalization.

In light of the ongoing relevance of pseudoarchaeology, this workshop seeks to situate specific pseudoarchaeological phenomenon in their intellectual, historical, social, and even archaeological context by considering the following questions:

1. What are the intellectual, social, political, and material contexts for pseudoarchaeology?

2. How have pseudoarchaeologists responded to normative archaeological arguments, methods, epistemologies, and institutions?

3. How have pseudoarchaeological ideas circulated? What genres, media, and institutions create space for pseudoarchaeology?

4. Have disciplinary efforts to debunk or critique pseudoarchaeology benefited or harmed the discipline?

5. How does the growing appreciation of the plurality of archaeologies create new space within the discipline to recognize and learn from pseudoarchaeological traditions?

As a workshop presenters will present a very brief pseudoarchaeological case study and address these five questions directly. These brief presentations will provide the foundation for an open discussion in the remainder of the workshop.

Thing the Third

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been re-reading William Carlos Williams, Spring and All (1923). I’m particularly appreciating the 2011 reprint produced by New Directions Publishing which preserve in all its glory the original Contact Editions typesetting and (cough) editing. 

There’s something about the poem’s bleak rendering of the interwar American landscape shaped by the memories of the Great War and the failed promise of industrialization that resonated with me more strongly (and urgently?) than T.S. Elliot’s Wasteland (1922), to which it is often compared. Any number of casual and academic observers have noted that Williams 

I don’t read a lot of poetry and most of what I read is confined to my work as the editor of North Dakota Quarterly and to the casual perusing of various little magazines. When I read something like Williams’ Spring and All, though, I am reminded just how powerful poetry can be and how much more poetry I should read.