Today is the last day of work at Isthmia for this season, and I went out to get some photos of the Roman Bath that we’ve been studying. These aren’t the sexiest photos, but they give you a sense of the building that we’re studying and the landscape.
I took some flower photos this week too.
My colleague Richard Rothaus and I have been including the Hadji Mustafa fountain on our afternoon walks around the village of Corinth. In fact, we visit it so often that we’ve become friendly with the local working dogs (but not too friendly) who protect a flock of sheep nearby.
I’ve been working on getting a good photo of the fountain with uneven success (usually because I do things like forget to change my camera’s ISO settings or insist on shooting wide open or some insanity).
I’ve tried to shoot it with my little Sigma with varied, largely unsatisfying results:
I’ve gotten close with my big Sony:
Mostly, though Richard and I talk about the days when the Isthmia dig van stopped at the fountain to fill up water tanks and when we’d stop on the way into the field to fill up our water bottles.
We also talk about Pierre MacKay’s little article on the fountain that appeared in the Hesperia in 1967. I have my students read it in Greek history class because it is a lovely little article on a pretty fountain that doesn’t try to do any more than is necessary. It’s only four pages and it’s worth a read.
One of the more interesting conundrums that I’m encountering this summer is how to write about the afterlife of the Roman bath at Isthmia without getting dragged into endless detail (and the kind of fine grain arguments that archaeological knowledge requires). These kind of small arguments at the core of archaeological knowledge tend to be time consuming to write and have the ability to take up a lot of space in an article length publication.
The one solution to this problem is to find ways to collapse many of the fiddly little phasing arguments into broader patterns across a structure. For the Roman Bath at Isthmia, this involves identifying four main contexts for the building and making broad arguments for the processes that created these contexts. Of course, this runs the risk of conflating myriad different processes together. At the same time, it is often the best way to compartmentalize archaeological arguments to keep the reader from getting lost in the details.
1. The Surface and Final Collapse. The final collapse and the surface are commingled in most cases due to the under-excavation of the surface.
2. Early Byzantine Settlement. This level tends to appear less than a half meter below the surface units and often involves efforts to level areas atop the final collapse of the bath.
3. Main Bath Collapse. This level collapses (heh) several episodes of large scale collapse at the bath which range from seemingly deliberate events associated with the construction of the adjoining Hexamilion Wall to episodes apparently much later.
4. Late Roman Floor Activities. This is the most complex phase and involves the collapsing of the most complex sequences of events which range from evidence for construction of the Hexamilion Wall to a wide range of post-wall activities that our ceramic record seems to suggest happened over a fair short (well, for ceramics) span of time (100 years?).
While it is easy enough for archaeologists to accept that the surface and ploughzone reflect multiple, often-long term, natural and human interventions ranging from ploughing to erosional episodes and the introduction of aeolian sediments over decades or centuries, the other phases in our simplified reconstruction of the afterlife of the Roman Bath at Isthmia similarly collapse multiple events. This, of course, leads me to think of time and narrative in archaeology: how and when we’re willing to step back from complexity and simplify how we understand a situation. As our team this summer has increasingly thought about our work as part of a larger, book length project focused on the afterlife of the Roman Bath. As a result, we have plenty of time (and space) to develop the fussy smaller arguments that sequence events in the bath after the construction of the Hexamilion and during various episodes of collapse. For an article length work focused on the Early Medieval material, we need to elide some of these more intricate arguments to allow us to focus on the settlement material. Figuring out how to do this is my job over the next few days.
This past weekend, myself, Richard Rothaus, and his son Isaac took a trip to Delphi with stops at Osiris Loukas, Distomo, and Eleutherai, and I took some photos.
I eked out a little more listening time this week (but still not enough!) to Abdullah Ibrahim who passed away last week. I find his discography confusing, and I don’t know of any real guide to it. As a result, I’ve always restlessly scrolled through it listening to things that I like rather than trying to get a sense for his development as a musician.
I have always had a soft spot for Ibrahim’s unusual 1977 recording The Journey which featured among others Don Cherry and Hamiet Bluiett (and Roy Brooks and others on drums). Not only does Ibrahim play sax on the opening track, but some of his traditional-ish sounds give way to freer improvisation.
A similar ensemble, also performed in Ibrahim’s 1973 album African Space Program (including Cecil McBee on bass, Brooks on drums, and Carlos Ward on various woodwinds). Again, this isn’t usual Ibrahim faire, but it shows his ability to produce dynamic and interesting music with a range of performers.
Maybe his contemporary date, Black Lightning (1976), which I honestly don’t know much about, but I certainly enjoy is more representative of his 1970s output with a great South African band (featuring Kippie Moketsi (alto sax), Basil Manenberg (tenor sax, flute), and Duku Makasi (tenor sax)). It’s a great album.
Finally, I’ve long appreciated Ibrahim’s duet with Archie Shepp form 1978. I know it will never be part of the canon for either musician, but I like it:
I finally started to get my photography groove back this week after a trip to Olympia last weekend and to some warehouses on Monday.
While in the Olympia museum I became nostalgic for the photographs in my old art history textbooks from college. I spent hours distracted by the photographs of ancient statues (and, yes, I realize, in hindsight, that this was politically problematic behavior and of course, I know now that they were painted and so on, but I was 18 or 19 and didn’t really understand how hegemonic my gaze was at that moment). For some reason, I tried to recreate those images in my photographs. Hopefully these come across as nostalgic rather than promoting some kind of imperialist, Classical gaze, but perhaps these two things aren’t really separate.
For some reason architecture feels less fraught in our current climate. Mostly these were just fun photos.
I took a few photos at the dig house too.
Some summers, I find myself reading far more than I expected to read. Others, not so much. It’s been not so much this summer for whatever reason, but I do continue to chip away at books on my summer reading list and tell myself regularly that I should be reading.
This is the context for today’s three things Thursday.
Thing the First
I enjoyed Catherine Frieman Leila H. Araar, Nika Shilobod, Aris Politopoulos, and James L. Flexner’s recent article in the Annual Review of Anthropology, “Anarchist Theory and Inequality in Archaeology” (2026). It is a nice survey of anarchist and anarchist adjacent work and thought in archaeology. In particular, it draws a useful “distinction between anarchy, the lived experience of a social practice without leaders or hierarchy, and anarchism, an ideology that goes against any form of authority, rules, hierarchy, and inequality, and strives for social and human relationships of freedom, equality, and solidarity.” Their article seeks to connect anarchism (as a theory) with anarchist (and broadly mutualist) practices in archaeology. Their main point is rather simple: studying equality (and inequality) in the past forms the basis for a discipline that rejects inequality.
Thing the Second
A colleague alerted me to Paul Kosmin’s latest book, The Ancient Shore (Harvard 2024). Unlike books that focus on the sea—such as Braudel’s The Mediterranean World or Nicholas Purcell’s and Peregrine Horden’s The Corrupting Sea—Kosmin takes the shore itself, rather than the sea, as his focus. The shore represents that place where terrestrial powers meet the uncontrollable waters where the kinds of authority expressed in borders, citizenship, and control give way. As a result, the foreshore itself represents the kind of liminal zone where diverse communities commingle, traditional rules of society are suspended, and individuals and states negotiate identities and status. I’ve only read the first part of the book so far, but I was particularly interested Kosmin’s discussion of Hoq cave on the island of Socotra which preserved an impressive collection of inscriptions that connected the island to communities across the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. The inscriptions are simple and appear in a bewildering array of languages including Greek, Aramaic, and various Indian languages. It would appear that travelers and merchants inscribed most of the texts as they stopped by the island on their way to ports elsewhere or availed themselves to the island’s status as a entrepôt.
Thing the Third
This weekend, we plan to go to Delphi to see the site and, on the way, stop at Osios Loukas. Like every good aspiring Byzantinist, I planned to read the life of Osios Loukas the day before, but I also wanted to enliven my trip with some Angelos Sikelianos or his wife, Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. Together, they founded the Delphic Festival. Unfortunately, I cannot find a copy of either Eva Palmer-Sikelianos’s autobiography (Upward Panic compiled by John Ashton). Annoyingly, it’s been tricky to find Sikelianos’s selected poems online (beyond the smattering that appear on websites) and Upward Panic will cost $75 for a Kindle version! Fortunately, I have a tired old PDF of Carolyn Connor’s translation of The Life and Miracles of St. Luke of Steiris (1994) and that might have to satisfy my desire to read in place.
Last week, Josh Nudell (whose blog “Noodlings” I read quite frequently), commented on my distinction between writing as habit and writing deliberately. He suggested that for him, getting into the habit of writing helps him create a space (and time) where he can write more intentionally. I understand this.
For me, the challenge isn’t making time to write. Since the very end of my graduate school career, I’ve always managed to make time to write. In fact, it is so baked into my daily and weekly routine, that when I don’t write, I get anxious and distracted and feel off. Most of my daily writing appears on my blog or, increasingly, in my little notebook. Even as I take time to handwrite in my little notebook, the output is mostly low level writing and reflects what I consider to be low level thinking. This means it’s thinking without the benefit of research, revision, or careful consideration. In many cases my writing here represents “warm takes” conjured on walks, preliminary drafts of more serious work, or “speculatin’ on a hypothesis.” While writing in my notebook involves a more deliberate choice, when I re-read my entries, they strike me as even more casual (and careless). It turns out that even when I try to write deliberately and push myself to handwrite in a notebook, my habits of writing to write remains strong.
I reflects my tendency to write to scratch the itch to write. The problem is that over the course of a year, writing in my notebook and blog can absorb a tremendous about of time (and words!); I often write around 130k words per year here and another 30k or so in my notebook.
Recognizing the amount that I write (which represents around 2 million words over the lifetime of my blog) has given me pause. Every day, I spend an hour or so diligently pecking away on my keyboard or scratching in my notebook. Over the course of a week, a month, or a year, this adds up. It’s time when I’m not reading, not preparing my classes, not writing for a professional audience (or really much of any audience to be honest), and not “being present.” It is sobering to realize that a significant percentage of this work is habitual writing and not driven by any greater goal than this is what I do first thing every morning.
What really brings it home is comparing my blog and notebook to my academic output (which is my job and, among other things, the basis for my salary). Over the last 20 years or so, I’ve probably managed 400k words of professional, published writing. That’s about 20% of my total writing work over this time if I allow for a generous overlap between my blog and my scholarly output. When I exclude, say, 20% of my academic writing as template driven and habitual “blah, blah, blah,” the numbers become even more bleak. The amount of my writing that represents deliberate, purposeful, and meaningful prose is even lower still.
Of course, I understand runners train many more miles than you race. We read many more books than we love. We practice more than we perform. Our habits prepare us to do things well when the circumstance demands it.
That said, humans are also prone to excess (as we are reminded daily in the media) and sometimes doing things just to do things isn’t really justifiable. When I think about my writing, I fret that my habit doesn’t justify its cost.
I’m not someone who seeks out new places to go or things to see. In fact, I don’t particularly like to travel and I am “adventure adverse” (that said, I’m often guilty of picking up a new book to read at the expense of an old friend or playing a new album rather than listening to an older one; there seems like a contradiction here).
Anyway, I tend to experience the world iteratively. I often follow the same route when running or walking the dog or riding my bike. Over and over. I eat the same food at the same restaurants and when I travel, I like to go to the same places and when I’m there, I like to do the same things. I tell myself that with each visit, I notice new things that don’t upset the familiar, but add nuance and help me understand why familiarity brings me such joy (and confidence).
Occasionally, however, I do encounter something new even in a place I’ve been visiting for nearly 3 decades. Yesterday, it was worth it.
Working at Isthmia gives me less time to listen to music than working in Cyprus, but this weekend, I did have time to listen to the latest Ambrose Akinmusire and Mary Halvorson album, Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings (2026). I have to admit that I don’t know many albums that feature a duet between a trumpet and a guitar (although the concept seems to align with ECM’s mid-1970s sound). This album, though, is nothing like mid-1970s ECM. Akinmusire’s trumpet is too assertive—maybe along the lines of Wadada Leo Smith—and Halvorson’s guitar has an interesting edge that brings this album to life in an utterly contemporary way.
I’ve also been listening to Joe Henderson’s 1985 recording at the Village Vanguard: State of the Tenor (1986) with Ron Carter on bass and Al Foster on drums. It’s an album (actually two albums “Volume 1” and “Volume 2″) that I should listen to more seriously when I get home, but it’s been a nice companion this summer.
Finally, I’ve been enjoying Laura Misch’s new album, Lithic, which feels like an appropriately named album for my summer research leave. Apparently several tracks were recorded in Greece (Tinos and Hydra). I generally like Misch’s music even if it leans a bit more toward soundscapes than traditional improvised music. Lithic made my flight from Cyprus to Greece quite enjoyable.
Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 