Lefkaditi

Why would you know of Leukaditi, a quite village in the remote mountains of Greece? You might know of Delphi, a world-famous ancient site nearby, but Leukaditi is just another dot in a sea of toponyms. At Delphi, the omphalos of the universe, even the most staunch materialist cannot help but succumb to the mysteries of place. My own revelation took place in the modest neighboring village, where I encountered four crumbling houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I revisit my field notes from June 27, 2012, as I plan two undergraduate research collaborations to take place next summer. The houses of Leukaditi are important because they encapsulate an eternal struggle between organic and inorganic matter, in this case, between stone and wood. As in Delphi, the site is located at the nexus of two amply available building material: beautiful limestone from the mountain outcroppings and beautiful cedar from the forests that cover those mountains. Unlike vernacular architecture in other parts of the Mediterranean where wood and stone are clearly separated in the structure of the house (typically masonry walls; wooden openings and roof system), the vernacular of Phokis (as the region was known in antiquity) blends wood and stone on the exterior surface. Our research was first presented in Athens a few weeks ago in a conference on Mediterranean cultural heritage.

“The Lidoriki Project: A Historical Topography,” by Miltiadis Katsaros , Kostis Kourelis and Todd Brenningmeyer, Sixth Annual Congress, Science and Technology for the Safeguard of Cultural Heritage in the Mediterranean Basin, Athens, Greece, Oct. 25, 2013.