Demuth & Williams No. 5

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

Charles Demuth, The Figure 5 in Gold (1928), Museum of Modern Art, New York
William Carlos Williams, "The Great Figure," Sour Grapes (1921)

Five House Thoughts

In the spirit of Bill Caraher's Friday Quick Hits, I will list five inspiring ideas that emerged last week from lectures and readings

1. Housing Refugees in Lancaster

The Ware Institute for Civic Engagement at Franklin & Marshall has become one of my favorite connectors. One of the Ware Institute's initiatives is to engage F&M students with refugees living in our community, many placed in housing next to our college. This week's Common Hour was organized by the volunteers who assist these refugees and it was very inspiring. I have decided to add a component of architectural analysis on the construction of transient dwelling by these community and engage students in my architectural history classes on first-hand investigations, interviews, analysis, etc. I have been brainstorming with Ware Institute dir. Susan Dicklitch on the right recipe for such a project or internship. Common Hour convinced me of the amazing potential of a refugee architectural angle. In my Spring seminar, Lancaster: Architecture of Faith, I hope to explore new cultural identities in Lancaster through places of worship. In other words, I hope to focus part of the seminar on the role of faith in contemporary transient communities like our Iraqi and Burmese refugees right on College Avenue. I've started to read up on the architecture of camps, see Charlie Hailey, Camps: A Guide to 21st-Century's Space (2009) and I've been following the horrendous refugee housing issues in Greece for a few years.

2. Housing College Women

The third installment of the lectures series that I organized at F&M was devoted to the architecture of women's colleges in Victorian England and the United States: Margaret Vickery "Buildings for Bluestockings: Architectural Design Strategies for Women's Colleges in the 19th Century." Women's colleges stressed a domestic architectural identity and tried hard not to resemble the monastic paradigms of male colleges. While men's colleges were designed around cloisters with free access to individual bachelors, women's colleges were heavily monitored by corridors. Vickery's lecture gave us an opportunity to think about contemporary notions of domesticity in our College House system. Those interested in these issues should read Vickery's The Architecture and Social Space of Women's Colleges in Late Victorian England (1999) and Smith College: The Campus Guide (2007).

3. Housing the Accumulation of Objects

Thanks to the New York Times Home and Garden section, I have discovered a new favorite photographer. Corine May Botz has been photographing the collection of stuff in people's homes. For her M.A. thesis, she photographed the houses of agoraphobics. Monacelli Press has just published another project devoted to Haunted Houses (2010). Botz's most current work explores The Secret Life of Objects and can be previewed in her blog. For the introduction to Botz's work, see Penelope Green, "Documenting Accumulation and Its Discontents," NYT (Nov. 3, 2010). I was thrilled to see reference to architectural historian Anthony Vidler, whose work on the Uncanny has heavily inspired my last paper "Fleshing Out the Byzantine House." My friend Michael Clapper, who works on houses and the ordinary art that people habitually collected (including Kincaid) will surely love Botz, too. Maybe we can invite her to speak at F&M.

4. Housing in Global Highrises

Domestic vistas--psychotic or voyeuristic--also come through global perspectives. Take a peak at the Highrise Project. Click here and see Katerina Cizek's "Out My Window," 360 degrees of vertical domesticities across the world.

5. Writers' Windows

Matteo Pericoli is well known for his long architectural drawings of Manhattan. Pericoli began a new series featuring views out of the windows of well known contemporary writers throughout the. Four installments have been published in the New York Times, views out of the apartments of Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, Daniel Kehlman in Berlin, Andrea Levy in London, and Ryu Murakami in Tokyo.

Circus

Train Wave

The main decorative motif at Pennsylvania Station in Lancaster is a stylized wave that runs around the entire waiting room. Although Pennsylvania Station in Philadelphia is sparsely decorated, the same motif is visible inside the marble door frames. Here is a sketch of Philadelphia's train wave (1930):
... and Lancaster's train wave (1929).
I do not know enough about the Pennsylvania Railroad company to identify the wave as a corporate logo. But I do find it very evocative of the notion of movement through space, the blowing of steam and the rolling wheels articulated through the static language of classical architecture. Lancaster's station replicates the wave throughout the station, on the wooden seas and on the exterior facade:

Location: 40°03'25.70"N, 76°18'27.60"W
53 McGovern Avenue, Lancaster, PA 17602

Fleshing Out the Byzantine House

Yesterday morning, I gave a paper at the 36th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference. My paper included archaeological data from Athens, Corinth, Chersonesos, Sicily and Egypt and focused on fetuses buried under house floors (not uncommon). The introduction and the conclusion of the paper were formally written but the case studies were extemporaneously presented from the slides. The paper was just the beginning of a longer article that I hope to write soon, but I offer the draft here. One can cite the paper as, Kostis Kourelis, "Fleshing Out the Byzantine House," Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts 36 (2010) 117-118, where the following text is published. I should also note that this paper originated from this blog, see Byzantine Children Burials (Aug. 28, 2008). I want to thank all of you who responded in person or by email to that posting. It illustrates for me the value of blogging and the free exchange of ideas.

FLESHING OUT THE BYZANTINE HOUSE
ABSTRACT

The mutable nature of domestic architecture has guaranteed the disappearance of most houses from the extant material record visible to the architectural historian. Thanks to commemorative and ritual functions, on the other hand, churches survive in greater numbers and are deployed to tell the whole story of Byzantine architecture. Recent efforts to fill this domestic gap have produced a corpus of houses excavated with greater sensitivity towards anthropological rather than formal architectural questions.

New archaeological evidence allows us to, literally, flesh out the Byzantine house through its engagement in precise ecologies, its inclusion of organic matter and even its incorporation of human bodies. A softer archaeological lens reveals soft tissues of domestic architecture less evident under the harder lens of architectural studies. We look at three categories of artifacts. First, we consider the burial of family members within the house floors. Fetus burials from Athens, domestic family tombs from Chersonesos, or hospice burials from Corinth highlight the Byzantine practice of in-house burials. Second, we consider other living forms involved in the construction of Byzantine houses. A geological study of mortar samples from the Peloponnesos reveals the incorporation of organic material in the making of the walls, typically collected from the community’s own trash heaps. Such organic inclusions complement our knowledge of animal sacrifice during foundation rituals. Third, we consider the ecological niches that different Byzantine settlements engage and the environmental exploitation evident in the houses, from the woods used in construction to the woods used in firing the hearths.

If we admit all this organic evidence into the discussion, we can stipulate an anthropological tension between hard and soft architectural entities. Walls, floors and ceilings formed the physical envelope of Byzantine life. Houses prescribed social life (eating, sleeping, working, playing, praying, procreating) but also embodied deceased organic life. Investigating this type of flesh more broadly allows us to challenge our assumptions of architectural meaning in Byzantium. Masonry was not an inert as the modern scholar would have it. Masonry lived, breathed, listened and occasionally spoke.

Houses are a paradigmatic building type that cannot be separated from the processes of developmental psychology. From early childhood, houses articulate the distinction between animate and inanimate powers that culture proceeds to formulate. To use Sigmund Freud’s terminology, our notion of home incorporates its correlate, “the unhomely” or “uncanny.” Contemporary architectural theory has embraced Freud’s canonical essay on (“Unheimlich,” 1925) in the postmodern armature. Marrying the theoretical uncanny with new archaeological data sheds light on the Byzantine house and throws a wrench (perhaps a toy-wrench) into the stony assumptions of Byzantine architectural history.

My Powerpoint presentation had 60 slides but, unfortunately, I cannot include it here because much of what I showed is still unpublished. The image above is an Early Byzantine doll excavated in Karanis and now at the Kelsey Museum, see E. Gazda, Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times (Ann Arbor, 1983) 29, fig. 52, reprinted in Maguire et al., Art and Holy Power in the Early Christian House (Champagne Urbana, 1989) 228, no. 146.

I was thrilled to be included in a wonderful company of papers. The panel was not organized in advance, but was selected from blind abstract submissions. Good job to the program committee and the speakers for a truly thought-provoking morning. Stay tuned because we might be podcasting all the papers.

ARCHITECTURAL SPACE: DOMESTIC, ACOUSTIC, MONASTIC
Session VIIC: Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010, 9:00-11:30

Chair: Ida Sinkevic (Lafayette College)

Fleshing Out the Byzantine House
Kostis Kourelis (Franklin & Marshall College)

The Past is Noise: Architectural Contexts and the Soundways of Byzantium
Amy Papalexandrou (Austin, TX)

The Materiality of Medieval Monastic Spaces in Egypt
Darlene L. Brooks Hestrom (Wittenberg University)

Cave-Cells and Ascetic Practice in Byzantine and Crusader Paphos
Nikolas Bakirtzis (The Cyprus Institute)

Miracle and Monastic Space: Hermitage of St. Petar of Korisa
Svetlana Smolcic-Mkuljevic (Faculty of IT, Belgrade)

Train Track Classicism

Pennsylvania Station at 30th Street is one of the greatest monuments of Beaux Arts classicism in Philadelphia. Louis Kahn insisted that every visitor to the city enter through this monument (rather than by car or airplane). The building was part of an ambitious urban development project unrealized because of the Great Depression. Its architects, Graham, Anderson, Probst and White were the survivors of Daniel Burnham's firm, founded in 1912 after Burnham died. Burnham is one of the most important urbanist in the U.S., best known for his 1893 Chicago World's Fair, the City Beautiful Movement, the 1901 Washington D.C. Plan, etc. A couple of years before he died, Burnham had also designed the Wanamaker Department Store in Philadelphia (1910). His firm continued his urbanist ideas in 30th Street Station and the Terminal Tower Complex in Cleveland (1916-34). Both projects explore the movement between town and suburbs, made possible by regional rail lines. For a short overview of this historical moment, see "System and Flow," in Dell Upton's textbook, Architecture in the United States (1998), pp. 197-206.

I have been looking at 30th Street Station for years, but I recently noticed a thought-provoking detail, two pairs of horizontal lines set against the canonical Corinthian base of the exterior facade. They ran along the piers and the exterior wall, across the bases of the 10 large columns that frame the west and east porches. These four lines are the only protrusions in the otherwise flat facade. At one reading, they should be read as streamlined projections of the Ionic and Corinthian spira. Looking at my drawing above, you see that the large Corinthian bases have two scotia and an exaggerated spira in the middle (with two protruding bands). The double scotia is picked up on the wall across from the column base. Interpreted outside the learned rules of the classical orders, however, the four lines are literal translations of tracks, lifted 90 degrees from plan into elevation. They graphically represent the ingoing and outgoing rail lines visible on the ground. Once you recognize them, you find these bands throughout the station. Placed at the level of the human body, moreover, the bands illustrate the rushed passage that travelers take through the station on their way to their train track above or below.

The detail, thus, speaks multiple languages, traditional, modern and phenomenological. This is what I love about 1930s American architecture. It is caught in the tension between traditionalism and modernism, which is usually swept over in the heroic narrative of modernism (thanks to Siegfied Gideion). I hope to illuminate more tensions of this sort in a seminar that I just proposed for the Spring, "The 1930s: Building American Modernity."

Location: 39°57'20.16"N, 75°10'57.47"W
30th & Market Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104

African Spiritual Healing in Athens

Walking back from the ACS courier service office near Vathi Square, Athens, an African immigrant handed me this small sheet of paper, advertising his office of spiritual healing. The leaflet is a testament to the multicultural realities of modern Athens and the availability of African spiritual practices to the desperate economic times. By posting it on my blog, I hope to rescue it from historical oblivion and offer it as a primary source for Greek history. We need to all be collecting the ephemera of globalization, which is wonderfully undigital. This text is as low budget as texts can get. It is printed, distributed and discarded and along the way, its author hopes, two people would have made a contact. This piece of paper is a textual medium that will bring together a Greek native and an African immigrant. The advertisement reads as follows (in English and Greek):

"BAMBO INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN SPIRITUAL HEALER AND ADVISOR

Over 20 years experience no matter what your problems are I can help you solve the most difficult once in the fastest way than any one does even when you have been disappointed by other spiritualists. I can bring the loved once more than they are before. I can bring unknown one in love. I also give powerful talisman for protection. Impotency sexual court case exams carrier. Successful business depression and many other things."

ΜΕΓΑΛΟ ΜΕΝΤΙΟΥΜ DINAMI BAMBO Πνευματιστής!

Πάνω από 20 χρόνια εμπειρίας ανεξάρτητα από το ποια είναι τα προβλήματα σας. Μπορώ να σας βοηθήσω να λύσετε τα δυσκολότερα από αυτά στον μικρότερο χρόνο από οποιονδήποτε άλλον ακόμα και αν έχετε απογοητευθεί από άλλους πνευματιστές. Μπορώ να κάνω άγνωστους μεταξύ τους ανθρώπους να ερωτευθούν. Επίσης δίνω πανίσχυρο φυλακτό για προστασία. Λύνω σημαντικές δικαστικές υποθέσεις σεξουαλικού περιεχομένου. Επιτυχίες Επαγγελματικές συμβουλές και πολλά άλλα."

One of the most fundamental transformations of Greece happening this very moment is the globalization of its citizenship. Anyone that has walked around Omonia, Kypseli, Patissia and other 1960s middle-class neighborhoods cannot fail to notice the minority of Greeks. The demographics have affected the political discussion, sometimes toward intolerance (the right) or old-school labor naivete (the left). What we might now call "inner city" public schools tell an amazing demographic story. Practically every year, I direct American undergraduates in archaeological projects in Greece. The multicultural reality is the first thing that they notice. Nevertheless, American programs in Greece have failed to capitalize on the sociological potential. Arcadia's program is a noteworthy exception, which incorporates an element of civic service, beyond the traditional grand tourism.

1915 Lombardic Letters: Evans Building

I have marveled at the medieval script used in The Thomas W. Evans Museum and Dental Institute, School of Dentistry, University of Pennsylvania (1915). The less formal eastern entrance employs Lombardic letters (seen here) while the more formal southern entrance uses Gothic black letter. This historical incongruity illustrates a degree of interpretive freedom. I have only sketched the top line of the inscription. Drawing it, rather than photographing it, is the best way that I can understand it. The font is lively with curving serifs and squeezed round volumes. I was also intrigued by the three-dimensional contrast in the four capital letters of the inscription. Whereas all the other letters protrude from the surface of the wall, the capitals are recessed. The three limestone blocks illustrated in the drawing above measure ca. 6 1/2 ft. by 13 in.

I direct you to historical photos of the entire complex, including a view of the southern portal, see Harold D. Eberlein, "Two Dental Buildings in Philadelphia and Boston," Architectural Record 37, no. 6 (June 1915) 517-534.

Although not very well known, the architect of the Evans Building was John Windrim, who designed over 200 buildings in the Philadelphia area, including the Wanamaker Memorial Tower (1908) next to Saint James the Less (1846), the most important Ecclesiological building in the U.S. and many Bell Telephone stations. John Windrim inherited his father's firm, the office of James Windrim, who designed the Masonic Temple across the street from City Hall (1873), and my favorite bridge over the Schuylkill, the metal Falls Bridge (1895). For more information on the building and projects of Windrim, see the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings database.

Thomas W. Evans (1823-1897) is buried just a few blocks southwest of his dental foundation at Woodland Cemetery. His grave is one of the grandest monuments, a towering gray obelisk.

My F&M colleagues will be interested to know that Evans started his dental career in Lancaster. He made his fortune, however, by settling in Paris, introducing gold tooth feelings to Europe and becoming the dentist and adviser to Napoleon III. According to his obituary, he attended the teeth of Europe's royalty from Queen Victoria to the Ottoman sultan.

Location: 39°57'07.15"N, 75°12'11.34"W
40th & Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Time Definite Services

I was riding behind this truck on the Schuylkill Expressway and I was really overtaken by the graphics of this company from Illinois, Time Definite Services, Inc. The logo shows an analog clock with its circumference growing in thickness. The hands end with an airplane and a truck. I especially liked the truck pictogram for its clarity, and its economical perspective. I admit that part of this sketch was done while driving.

Main Line

Pictorial notes -- looking out of the window -- Main Line train ride from Amtrak 30th Street Station (top left) to Overbrook (bottom right)

Main Line

Quick drawing, view from train, rolling out of 30th Street Station on Main Line. Drawing on arbitrary homework assignment in hand

Masons of the Morea

Dimitri Nakassis asked me about secondary literature on architectural labor in vernacular Greece, so I’m taking the opportunity to gather up a few thoughts. Although the study of vernacular architecture in Greece begins ca. 1925, early folklorists and architectural historians were more interested in the formal principles of houses and their decoration rather than the labor that produced it and its organization. For the early studies, see Demetris Pikionis, Angeliki Hadjimichali, Anastasios Orlandos and George Megas. The 1920s generation set up the educational infrastructure of research at the Polytechneion, where every graduating architect and engineer went out into the rural provinces and produced painstaking documentation of the surviving stock. It was not until the 1960s, that attention turned onto the sociology of architectural labor.

In summary, architectural labor from the 18th to the early 20th century was organized in itinerant groups of masons. They would specialize on the finer aspects of construction, such as the corners, quoins, the windows, openings and roofing and would hire local work for the unspecialized work, such as building infill walls. Itinerant masons typically came from mountainous villages that had little access to agricultural land. The best known masons of the 19th century were Albanians. With no work at home, they would be gone for most of the year, leaving behind the womenfolk to raise the family. They would return to their villages for one or two months every year and, if lucky, succeed in impregnating their wives. Itinerant masons occasionally migrated to new territories where there was demand, thus, creating a new local tradition. For instance, Albanian masons settled in Peloponnesian mountain villages, like Langadia in Arcadia, turning those new villages into “mason villages” (μαστοροχώρια). It’s a bit ironic that during the 1980s and 1990s, a new wave of Albanian masons found themselves as the new builders of the countryside given the shortage of male hands. What is different with this immigration wave, however, is that Albanian workmen were exploited by Greek contractors. Although the new Albanians retained a lot more knowledge of stone-masonry than the 1980s Greeks, they had undergone a transformation. Isolated geographically by the Iron Curtain, they lost the labor market that had allowed them to perfect their art. New material, like concrete, had already transformed the Albanian building trades. Sadly, the typical Albanian stonework of the 1980s-2000s is characterized by goops of concrete rolling between stones. Much of this Albanian stonework is decorative stone applied over a concrete structure.

By the early 19th century, the Peloponnesian masons were in such great demand that the new nation-state would explicitly recruit them to build the new capital of Athens. The pride of Peloponnesian stonemasons working in Athens can be seen, for instance, in a mason’s graffiti on the Temple of Sounion from ca. 1920s. The life of the itinerant stone mason was tough. The group was hierarchical according to seniority and expertise. The masons also developed their own language and technical vocabulary. Since these groups of men spent so much time together, they filled their workday with talk. And in order that the local populations not understand exactly what they were saying, some anthropologists argue, they developed their own code. This code language has been well documented. As one might expect, a lot of it is gender specific and sexist. One of the mason’s vocabulary that made it into modern Greek usage is “boulouki” which describes the social group. With the advent of reinforced concrete (beton arme), traditional building crafts and their organization disappeared. Since this happened so much later in Greece than in the industrial European north, Greece offers a good case study. Certain specialized crafts, like plasterers were still needed to decorate the concrete frames. They survived well into the 1960s and 1970s (and Miltiadis Katsaros is documenting them). Marble working specialists were artificially resuscitated with the opening of the Penteli quarries for the building of Neoclassical Athens in the 19th century. Interestingly enough, the staggering resources devoted to the restoration of the Acropolis (one of the longest uncompleted projects) has also sustained a group of stonemasons from the islands of Paros, Naxos and the islands with marble quarries.

And now a few words about the secondary literature. While documenting vernacular architecture in Eleia and Achaia, the Morea Project conducted a few interviews on the mason traditions. Mary Coulton (folklorist at Oxford) supervised that part of the project. Unfortunately, we have not published this adequately, but see Frederick A. Cooper, Kostis Kourelis et al. Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwestern Peloponnese (1250-1950) (Athens, 2004). On the Greek side, the absolutely best starting point on the architecture of vernacular architecture is Giannis Kizis publication on the construction of houses in Mount Peleion. Kizis teaches at the Polytechneion in Athens. Unlike his predecessors (Pikionis, Orlandos, etc.) who were interested in formal features and the expression of Hellenism, Kizis has brought Greek vernacular architectural studies to the standards of international scholarship. The study on Mount Peleion is an exemplary synthetic work, see Giannis Kizis, Η Πηλιορείτικη οικοδομία. Η αρχιτεκτονική της κατοικίας στο Πήλιο από τον 17ο στον 19ο αιώνα (Athens, 1994). Since the 1990s, Kizis has turned into a restorations dynamo, and some have complained that his professional practice has overtaken his scholarly focus.

On the anthropological study of the traditional masons, my favor author is Chrestos G. Konstantinopoulos, who has done a lot some serious data gathering, see Οι παραδοσιακοί χτίστες της Πελοποννήσου. Ιστορική και λαογραφική μελέτη (The Traditional Masons of the Peloponnese: Historical and Ethnographic Study) (Athens, 1983), and Η μαθητεία στις κομπανίες των χτιστών της Πελοποννήσου (Education in the Mason Companies of the Peloponnese) (Athens, 1987). The latter includes a very amusing glossary of the masonic code language. Although problematic with its methodology, Melissa’s Παραδοσιακή Αρχιτεκτονική στην Ελλάδα (Vernacular Architecture in Greece) is still pretty informative. One of my favorite recent studies about the transformation of building labor under colonialism is Michael Given’s study of Cyprus under the British, see The Archaeology of the Colonized (London and New York, 2004), photo above from National Geographic (1928).

I'm sure there is so much more to say about the scholarship of Greek vernacular masons, but these are the first thoughts that come to mind.

Morea Project Revisited

It's very disheartening that the Morea Project data exists on-line but it is practically un-Googleable. As a result, nobody ever looks at it, uses it in scholarship, or ever comments on it. Thus, I feel compelled to advertise it. Everyone, please click here. Archaeological Sites of Eleia, the latest iteration of the website, contains all the digitized data from the Morea Project, including scans of our B/W negatives. The photos themselves have become archival since most of the houses were documented 15-some years ago. Moreover, the region suffered devastating fires in 2007 that destroyed many of our villages. Our photographs are, sadly, the last testament before the destruction.

The Morea Project recorded thousands of specimen of medieval and early modern houses between 1991 and 2001. The project was published in Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos (1205-1955) (Athens, 2002). My dissertation, "Landmarks of Rural Archaeology: Medieval Settlements in the Northwestern Peloponnese" (2003) provided a denser publication of the medieval settlements.

A Morea Project exhibition with original drawings, photos and models took place at the Gennadeios Library in Athens, May 21-August 15, 2002 and then traveled to Eleia. While the Greek archaeological service was preparing the spectacular Chlemoutsi Museum, the Morea Project was on display in the castle for almost three continuous years, August 17, 2004-July 17, 2007.

In the meantime, the digital genius Todd Brenningmeyer produced an on-line catalog under the MARWP website. In 2007, the Greek Ministry of Culture asked us to make available the Morea Project data in the new Pyrgos Archaeological Museum. The museum is housed in the old neoclassical market of Ernst Ziller. Although the building itself has been beautifully restored, the exhibits have not been installed and the museum has not yet openned. The opportunity to repackage the data for the Pyrgos Museum lead Todd Brenningmeyer to improve his on-line catalog and create a brand new website that you clicked on earlier.

This last June, Todd and I started a new collaboration, re-photographing some of the Morea Project sites in Eleia. This work was done under the auspices of the Pyrgos Museum and the Greek Archaeological Service. We brought students from our respective schools (University of Maryville, Franklin & Marshall) and experimented with new aerial photogrammetric tools. Todd had received a grant from Hewlett Packard with which he bought all the advanced technology (GPS's, cameras, GIS and photogrammetric software, kites, ballon etc.), and we pooled together our academic resources. The collaboration was terrific and we are tempted in turning it into an annual field school.

For instance, we revisited Taxiarches, the first village that the Morea Project completed almost 20 years ago, and rephotographed all the houses. This means that we now have a record of what happened in Taxiarches between 1991 and 2010. The village continues to be semi-abandoned. The greatest shock to me was to see an African immigrants herding the village's sheep. The streets are being repaved by Albanian workmen. Emigrants are returning for the summer, including Greek-Americans who worked in the World Trade Center (and were lucky enough not to go to work on 9/11). Like many "traditional" villages in Greece, the processes of globalization are evident.

The photo above shows Taxiarches' main spring house dating to 1832.

Tanagras 1925 Portrait

While visiting my Aunt Kalliope in Athens, I noticed this autographed portrait of Angelos Tanagras (her dearly loved uncle) hanging in the living room. The lighting was low and I wasn't able to take a good photo. Next time, I hope to take it out of the frame and scan it. It's definitely the greatest photo of Tanagras I've ever seen. As the medals testify, he was an admiral and decorated for his contributions to the navy as a medical doctor. For instance, he set up the medical relief program after the burning of Smyrna in 1922 (only three years before this photo was taken).

Although Tanagras died years before I was born, his presence remained physical in the family through his admiral's hat that respectfully rested on a ledge in my grandmother's house.

My aunt Kalliope was named after Tanagras' mother. And our daughter Kalliope is named after both my aunt and my great great aunt.

Paranormal Research in Pennsylvania

Returning to blogging after my summer hiatus, I turn my attention to three people revolving around the constellation of paranormal archaeology: Bill Caraher's Dream Archaeology, my great uncle Tanagras and my colleague at F&M anthropologist Misty Bastian.

If you remember, a couple of years ago Yannis Hamilakis wrote on the relationship between modern (objective) and premodern (less objective) archaeological relationships. He argued that Greeks had an indigenous relationship to archaeology before the emergence of a professional modern discipline. The erasure of this earlier mode the profession constitutes a form of colonialism. For the details, see Hamilakis, Y. 2008. Decolonising Greek archaeology: indigenous archaeologies, modernist archaeology, and the post-colonial critique. In Damaskos, D. and Plantzos, D. (eds), A Singular Antiquity. Athens: The Benaki Museum, pp. 273-84. (Download PDF here) Hamilakis discusses these ideas in his ground breaking book, The Nation and Its Ruins (Oxford, 2007)

Analyzing Late Antique, Byzantine and Early Modern case studies, Bill Caraher began an exploration of dream archaeology, an aspect of indigenous archaeology where dream visions direct archaeological investigation. See, Caraher's working draft here.

All these inspirations made me contemplate my great uncle Angelos Tanagras, one of the founders of Psychical Research in the early 20th century. I blogged about him (here) and about his relationship to archaeology (here). Thanks to those postings, I have come into contact with two prominent historians of Tanagras, Peter Mulacz and Nikolaos Koumartzis. Mulacz is the Vice President of the Austrian Society of Psychical Research. He has sent me the photo above showing the 1930 meeting of the Society of Psychical Research in Athens. Nikolaos Koumartzis has published a much-needed history, Psychical Research in Greece, Paranormal Greece: Psychical Research in Greece (Athens, 2009).

While attending F&M's conference on the curriculum, I got a quick chance to catch up with my colleague Misty Bastian in Anthropology. She quickly filled me in on her fascinating new research on paranormal Pennsylvania. You can read all about it in Haunted Hackman (The Diplomat, Aug. 26, 2010). Now, I look forward to future conversations, virtual, real and even paranormal. Bastian is best known for her work in Nigeria and infamous among students for her seminars on magic (ancient, modern, western and non-nonwestern).

National Team of Immigrants

One way to look at U.S. soccer is not as a "foreign" sport but as a register of American immigration policy. Today's World Cup game against England was the most ever watched match in American history. I hope all the proud American spectators appreciated the tapestry of immigrants representing the U.S. The great majority of the 23-member squad is hyphenated-American, sons of immigrants from Latin American, Africa and Europe (Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad, Haiti, Brazil, Nigeria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Scotland).

Goalkeeper Tim Howard's mother is Hungarian and his father is African-American (Howard should also be a poster boy for Turette syndrome). Clint Dempsey, who scored the U.S. goal, learned soccer by kicking the ball with Mexican immigrants in his native Texas. Benny Feilhaber's grandfather was an Austrian Jew who fled to Brazil in 1938. Feilhaber was born in Brazil, and parents moved to the U.S. when he was 6. Jonathan Spector's grandparents were German, which made it easy for him to work in Germany. Oguchi Onyewu's parents are Nigerian and moved to the U.S. to attend Howard University. Hercules Gomez was born in Los Angeles to Mexican-American parents. Stuart Holden's parents are Scottish (moved to Texas to work for Chevron). Carlos Bocanegra has his roots in the Mexican border. Jonathan Borstein's father is Jewish and his mother is Mexican. Ricardo Clark's has Trinidadian ancestry. Edson Buddle has Jamaican ancestry. Francisco Torres is mixed Mexican and American. Jozy Altidore's parents are Haitian. Brad Guzan is of Polish-American ancestry. Jonathan Spector's grandparents were German, which made it easy for his to start his soccer career in Germany. Many of the U.S. national team members play in European or Latin American leagues, where they have actually experienced racism. Two African-American players have been targets of European racism. DeMarcus Beasley had his car blown up in Scotland and Oguchi Onyewu was subjected to racist comments by Belgian players resulting into a law-suit.

I must now say a couple of things about South Carolina. It's not the first state that comes to mind when one thinks of internationalism, but actually this is far from the truth. As we all know, the new South is where America's next multicultural heart is currently beating. Having taught at Clemson from 2003 to 2007, I can also testify to the role that southern universities play in supporting international talent in less celebrated sports (soccer, track and field, etc). Consider the astounding fact that two members of the U.S. national team playing today are Clemson grads. Oguchi Onyewu attended Clemson a year or two before I arrived. He is Clemson's best celebrated players, signed by A.C. Milan last year (although he injured himself thereafter). Stuart Holden attended Clemson University when I was teaching there and I saw him play. Brad Guzan attended the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Soccer is strong in my new academic home, a small college with a minuscule sports budget (compared to Clemson) but no shortage of international dreams. I am very proud of Franklin & Marshall's Soccer Africa Project. Under the guidance of coach Dan Wagner and Susan Dicklitch (dir. Ware Center for Civic Engagement), F&M has been combating HIV/Aids and poverty in South Africa through the international power of soccer. In 2010, this initiative opened a field house in Khayelitsha, South Africa, which is no small achievement.

Theory and Method in Byzantine Archaeology

Bill Caraher and I are working on a proposal for a collection of essays focusing on exciting theoretical approaches to the field of Byzantine archaeology

Beyond Icons: Theory and Method in Byzantine Archaeology
Ed. William Caraher and Kostis Kourelis

Over the past three decades, archaeologists interested in the Byzantine period have made significant contributions to archaeological methodology and theoretical approaches to the study of the Medieval period in the Eastern Mediterranean. Byantinists represent some of the keenest “early adopters” of new field methods, technologies, and interpretative tools, and have contributed to the overall intellectual development of archaeology as a discipline. At the same time, the interpretation of the material culture of Byzantium has become steadily more engaged with a dynamic range of theoretical approaches. These approaches have sought to understand the Byzantine experience in relation to a set of profound new questions that have emerged at the center of the humanities and the social sciences (anthropology, sociology). Issues of material culture and its relation to identity, gender, power, sexuality, performance, colonialism, Middle-range theory, processualism and postprocessualism have become central to the discipline of Byzantine archaeology.

The prominence of archaeologists within the transdisciplinary space of Byzantine studies has certainly contribued to their ability to react and to contribute to theoretical problems rising across the humanities (art history, philology, anthropology, economic, social, and political history, architecture, etc.). Until recently, however, the contributions of broader theoretical and methodological discourses within Byzantine archaeology has tended to be marginal to the larger discourse of Byzantine studies. In fact, the impact of Byzantine archaeologists has tended to be greater in the fields of Mediterranean archaeology, architectural history, and even critical theory than in the field of Byzantine studies proper. This volume seeks to redress this issue by bringing together a major series of papers focusing on method and theory in the specific context of Byzantine archaeology.

The goal of this collection is to highlight theoretical innovations that have risen from wide variety of perspectives and have never been featured in a collective manner. We hope that this volume will encapsulate a rising engagement with theory among a young generation of scholars. We believe that the discipline of Byzantine archaeology find itself at an interesting cross-road as expressed, for example, by "Byzantine Archaeology in North America: Conversations on Archaeology," held at Dumbarton Oaks on April 9-10, 2010.

We are currently soliciting abstracts for contributions to this volume. Since the volume seeks to foreground the contributions of theory and method to Byzantine archaeology (and vice versa), we encourage papers that directly engage the theoretical and methodological discourse in a transparent and prominent way. We hope that all the papers address some aspect outlined in Matthew Johnson's standard textbook, Archaeological Theory: An Introduction (Chichester, 2010). In fact, we envision titles that feature the theoretical and methodological perspective prominently : e.g. Post-Colonialism and the Byzantine Other or Intensive Surface Survey and Byzantine Settlement.

In an effort to encompass the range of theoretical and methodological contributions present in Byzantine archaeology, we are looking for papers of less than 8,000 words and prefer papers of 5,000 words. Our aim is to have a complete set of titles and 200-word abstracts by September 1, 2010. At this time, we will solicit a publisher. We hope that manuscripts will be completed by February 2011 and the volume will go into production in April 2011.

A number of contributors have already engaged with the production of this volume and have developed ideas on the the following topics. We are very much interested in your contribution for this volume and/or any additional feedback. Please, contact Bill Caraher (william.caraher@und.edu) or Kostis Kourelis (kkourelis@gmail.com) with any comments.

THEORY

Habitus: Dar Brooks Hedstrom (Wittenberg College)
Hybridity/Post-Colonialism: Bill Caraher (University of North Dakota)
Mediterraneanism: Günder Varinlioğlu (Dumbarton Oaks)
Materiality: Glenn Peers (University of Texas, Austin)
Modernism/Modernity: Kostis Kourelis (Franklin & Marshall College)
Performance/Orality: Amy Papalexandrou (University of Texas)
Space and Place: Ann Marie Yasin (University of Southern California)
Syndicalism: Demetris Athanasoulis (Greek Ministry of Culture)

METHOD

Digital Future: Sebastian Heath (New York University)
Intensive Survey: David Pettegrew (Messiah College)
Regional Survey: Fotini Kondyli (University of Amsterdam)
Open Area Excavation: Guy Sanders (Corinth Excavations, ASCSA)
Stratigraphic Context: Adam Rabinowitz (University of Texas, Austin)
Remote Sensing: Kostis Kourelis (Franklin & Marshall College)

Stymphalia Environment Museum

Towering over the ancient site of Stymphalia a heroic modernist museum can be seen for miles. It grows out of the rocks, like a Frank Lloyd Wright building but its Brutalist concrete make it distinctively Polytechneio modern. Unfortunately, it has received less attention than the new Acropolis Museum, partially because it's home-grown, and partially because it contains no fetishized antiquities. The building was designed by Greece's most respected architects and teachers, Tassos Papaioannou and Demetris Isaias. It received the Best Building of 2008 prize by the Greek Institute of Architecture and it has been included in the Phaedon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture (2008).

The Environment Museum is an addition to one of the most interesting museological experiments in Greece, sponsored by Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation. The Foundation has also created a Museum of Marble Crafts in Tinos, the Rooftile and Brickworks Museum in Volos, the Museum of Industrial Olive Oil Production in Lesbos, the Silk Museum in Soufli and (my absolute favorite museum in all of Greece) the Museum of Water Energy in Dimitsana. The new institution is the first museum devoted to Environmental Consciousness in Greece. It sits over Lake Stymphalis, an ecological zone that has attracted much debate from environmentalists. Although seemingly pristine, the lake had been ravaged by agricultural pesticides calling for action (see Natura 2000 program)

Greece's President Karolos Papoulias inaugurated the Stymphalia Environment Museum this last weekend. The museum has taken a few years to complete. Those of us that have worked with the Canadian excavations in Ancient Stymphalia have been watching the building foundations for about 5 years. The slowness of its construction was interesting in its own right, growing expressively like a modern ruin. For more information about this museum and the Piraeus Bank Cultural Foundation see here).

I am looking forward to visiting the Museum now that it has opened. Unfortunately, Stymphalia is located in the mountains of the Corinthia and (for better or for worse) receives very few visitors. For that reason, people have expressed skepticism over it's success. I am optimistic. After all, remoteness from tourist centers is necessary for the preservation of the environment, the museum's subject. I hope it becomes a destination and brings attention to the Cistercian Abbey of Zaraka, which was a 13th-century ecological experiment. For Conn College's Zaraka Survey see here.

During the last Archaeological Institute of America meetings in Anaheim, I met with Stymphalia Excavations director, Hector Williams. He gave me an update on the preservation state of the site and its environs. One thing that we hope to do is bring a group of students to document the deserted village of Kionia. Unfortunately, we cannot do it this summer but hopefully in 2011. The volume on the Cistercian Abbey of Zaraka edited by Sheila Campbell is under production. One of the things that I need to do this summer is write up my contribution, an essay on the ecology of Frankish settlements and monasteries. Waterworks, mills, canalization and other such features have been noted by the Stymphalia landscape survey undertaken by Ben Gourley.

It is absolutely thrilling that an environmental line of scholarship can now be aligned by a museological experience at Stymphalia. Greece's treasures are located away from the bright lights of tourism.

Benson Memorial: Islamic Philadelphia

Wondering through Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia with Kalliope, I came across this beautiful limestone memorial for the Benson family, which I quickly sketched on the left. It is situated against the slope of the hill facing towards the Schuylkill River with a number of equally beautiful neighbors. The monument is dated to 1868.

I haven't had a chance to research the Benson history, but I found a nice photograph in Bryn Mawr's collection taken by Robert Newell ca. 1870 (see below). The monument contains various cultural inspirations, but it most prominent features three horse-shoe arches inspired by the architecture of the Alhambra. I am reading through Washington Irving's 1832 The Alhambra to fully comprehend the cultural magnetism that Moorish Spain exercised in the antebellum imagination of young America. I have searched through all of Laurel Hill and Woodland cemeteries but have come across no other Islamic-inspired memorial. The Benson monument seems unique.

Additional posts on Islamic Philadelphia:
Rodeph Shalom Synagogue
Gibson House
Horticultural Hall

Rodeph Shalom: Islamic Philadelphia

A most impressive Islamic-inspired building in Philadelphia was designed by Frank Furness in 1871 for the Rodelph Shalom congregation. Rodeph Shalom is the oldest Ashkenazy Jewish congregation in North America, established in 1795. The structure, located on Broad and Vernon Streets does not survive anymore. It was replaced in 1928 by an equally impressive Islamic/Byzantine Revival building.

Given today's Middle-East conflict, it seems unbelievable that Jewish communities would chose an Islamic architectural style to depict themselves in their diasporic setting. But things were different in the 19th century. The tradition of associating Islamic architecture with Judaism began in Germany in the 1830s. Some of the earliest such monuments include Friedrich von Gärtner Munich synagogue and Gottfried Semper's Dresden Synagogue, both destroyed during the Kristallnacht of 1938. The first Islamic-styled synagogue in the U.S. was the Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati, built in 1865. The architectural flexibility of synagogues is a fascinating topic in its own right. Johanna Schein, one of the students in my Lancaster: Architecture of Faith seminar, studied the reasons why that Shaarai Shomayim congregation presented itself in a Renaissance style in 1896, seeking to assimilate in the Georgian character of old German Lancaster.

The photograph here, shows the 1928 synagogue that survives today designed by Philadelphia firm, Simon and Simon. The current building was restored in 1992 (see beautiful interior photos here). I had the great pleasure of attending Nick and Jill's wedding here a few years ago. The building is a must. It stands only a few blocks north of Frank Furness's best known building, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. During my lecture at Pittsburgh last weekend, I was thrilled to visit the Rodef Shalom Congregation on 5th Avenue designed by Henry Hornbostel in 1908. For more information on all the buildings of Pittsburgh's Rodef Shalom, see here.

Additional posts on Islamic Philadelphia:

Gibson House
Horticultural Hall