It was not until a year after the launch of Current Archaeology that we began to think of taking a break, and we decided to go to Greece. We would drive down in our van and hopefully collect enough material for an issue.  

Although we did not realise it at the time,  Greece was going through interesting politics, and we saw both sides of the events.  The leading figure in Greek archaeology was the flamboyant figure of Spiridon Marinatos, who was sometimes called the ‘Mortimer Wheeler’ of Greek Archaeology. His greatest achievement was on the volcanic island of Thera, or Santorini,  which was destroyed by a huge earthquake in the 16^th century at the height of the Neopalatial Minoan Empire.  He located a major town, Akrotiri that was well preserved under  the eruption, which he excavated. However later on a wall collapsed while he was excavating and he was killed and buried on the site.  

However in 1967, some colonels in the Greek army carried out a coup d’etat and installed a military government, only to be ousted seven years later when they blundered over Cyprus. At first they were reluctantly accepted as they inherited an economic upswing. and seeing that Marinatos had strong right wing views, they appointed him head of the Greek Archaeological Service.  He invited us to his grand house, where we listened spellbound as he expounded Greece archaeology. If the colonels wanted a spokesman,  it was a very flashy performance.

The opposite was Nicholas Platon, the foremost Greek scholar,  who did not hold right wing views. He was the Professor of Archaeology at Thessalonica, but he specialised in Crete where he re-organised the history of the Minoans into the Pre-palatial, the Proto- palatial, the Neopalatial and finally the Post-palatial periods. He also excavated the Minoan palace at Zakro at the far east of the island, facing Cyprus.  He too invited us back to his flat, but it was the opposite to Marinatos, a rather dingy flat more befitting a student than a professor.  But he wrote a splendid article for Current Archaeology and Zakro is very much accepted as one of the Minoan palaces, with the advantage that the town that lies behind it has also been partially excavated.

Yet when comparing Marinatos and Platon, it must be said the Platon was the better scholar. Marinatos’ theory that the destruction of the Neoplatial Minoan empire was caused by the eruption of Thera, has been shown to be wrong – the dates are several generations adrift. But Platon’s division of Minoan history is now widely accepted.  

When we arrived in Greece, an early port of call was at the British School at Athens in its fine premises where we were welcomed by the director, Peter Megaw (one of the Megaws who were prominent in the archaeology of the Isle of Man). He explained that one of his major tasks was to supervise the young graduates who had been sent out to the school to study Greek archaeology in Greece.  He explained that all too often the subject of the thesis that they had been given at their university in England was in real terms hopelessly impracticable, and he tried to steer them onto something slightly more practical. 

We also visited the American School, which is at the bottom of the garden of the British School.  The British School arrived first in Athens and acquired a fine property, and the American School began by squatting at the bottom end of the garden but soon became a rather larger organisation.  

Olympia

We also visited the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, grandly accommodated in a house paid for by Schliemann, where they told us all about their excavations at Olympia.

In the 19^th century, the various foreign schools specialised in one major site and the Germans got Olympia, where they began digging in 1878 and are still digging. Because there is no town, – it was only occupied for a fortnight once every four years, the site is divided into two parts, the sacred and profane.  

In early years, they concentrated on the sacred part, excavating the great temple, but recently, for the last century or so, work has been concentrated on the profane part, and three sites in particular have been excavated. The first were the Great Baths by the river Kladeos, where it was fascinating to compare the Greek baths which are more like hip baths,  with the  Roman baths which were more like swimming baths. 

Then there was a fascinating so called workshop of Phidias. Phidias was the  great sculptor who in the 5^th century sculpted the great statue of  Zeus, 40 feet high comparable to the great statue of Athena which he built at the same time at Athens.  Nearby, there is a large building which Pausanias tells us was the workshop of Pausanias.

Doubts have been raised whether Phideas would need such a large workshop,    but the doubts were largely put to rest when they found a small drinking cup which was scratched on the base ‘I belong to Phidias’ . You won’t get a better confirmation than that! 

However, the most remarkable site came unexpectedly when they were excavating the site of the Stadion, the race tracks for footracing, 200 yards long.  The original Stadion was built in the 5^th century,  but unexpectedly underneath it were  150 wells filled with debris and rubbish from the Archaic period. It would appear that every year a well was dug  and offerings were made but when the games were over, they were they were not backfilled but simply abandoned and used as rubbish pits. The offerings were  mostly of armour and they have produced the finest collection of archaic Greek armour, particularly helmets that is  so far known. 

 Re-reading the article 57 years later, I feel it is not bad,  and I’m amazed that I was able to extract too much information in what must have been a very short visit.  

Renfrew and others

This issue shows well the riches we were able to extract from Greek archaeology.  We began with a masterly accountant by Colin Renfrew of the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, we featuring his excavations at, Saliagos. This was followed by Nicholas Platon and a magnificent account of his excavations of the Palace at Zakhro, and an account of his new version of Minoan history. 

We then come on to Thebes which is a mysterious city, very rich in myth but little to see in classical Greece but there are considerable quantities of Minoan Linear B tablets, which shows that it must have been one of the major towns of Mycenaean Greece.

And then a fascinating account of Lefkandi, which has become almost the type site of the Dark Ages of Greece between the 10^th and 8^th centuries BC.   Subsequently it has been the subject of major excavations by Irene Lemos,  but this was a preliminary report by Mervyn Popham and Hugh Sackett revealing that this was  a site well worth excavating.

Thessalonika

The grandest excavations we visited were at Thessalonica. Today it is the second city of Greece, but it was only founded in the 2^nd century BC, but it flourished under Alexander the Great, whose generals returned home and built marvellous tombs.

But in Thessalonica itself, a proposed new law court came down on the classical agora, and after a major tussle between lawyers and archaeologists, the archaeologists eventually won and we had a splendid account of how they excavated the agora.

 Looking back on our Greek adventure, I am amazed at how much we discovered, and the very solid information we imparted.  

An interesting sidetrack was when Wendy wanted to visit a friend of hers who had married a Greek and gone to live in Greece. The friend was a judge, – whatever that means. She knew the town where he lived (Naoussa?) , but not his address, so we decided to call in at the bank to see if they knew his address, which they did. . However we heard subsequently that at the bank they couldn’t make out quite who we were.  I was wearing my bow tie, and Wendy had put on a skirt, but they couldn’t understand what a very respectable man wearing a bow tie was doing, going around with a girl who was wearing a mini skirt. Yet it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, just a normal skirt, but in a small town in Greece under the Colonels, it was considered to be a scandalous mini skirt. Oh well, in Greek eyes, I had married a tart. 

I remember an interesting episode when we were driving home along the motorway that ran the length of what was then Yugoslavia; although it was a dual carriageway it was not yet asphalted,  it was a dust track with not much traffic and in the middle of it we met another British Dormobile going in the opposite direction, and we both stopped simultaneously and got out, greeting each other like travellers in a distant world.  We got out, shook hands and wished each other well and went on our ways.  Those were the days.

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