The Iklaina Project is an archaeological fieldschool open to students of both the University of Missouri-St. Louis and other universities. You can choose to participate for credit or you can volunteer (“audi”) not for credit. Students can receive 6 cr. hrs. as a combination of the two courses mentioned below (credit is transferable to other universities with prior approval): 1) Anthropology 3290, Current Issues in Anthropology: Greek History and Culture (3.0 cr. h.)
2) Anthropology 2109, Archaeological Field School (3.0 cr. h.)
The field school is described in more detail below. See this page for registration procedures.
The costs for the 2012 season are posted here.
The field school has three components:
- Archaeological Excavation
- excavation of the Early Helladic, Middle Helladic, and Mycenaean settlement at Iklaina
- Work with the finds and ceramics at the Pylos museum. This entails:
- washing and sorting pottery lots
- identifying and dating pottery shapes
- cataloguing important ceramics and artifact finds
- Travel to major sites and museums in GreeceThis summer’s expedition includes trips to the following sites and their museums:
- The Palace of Nestor at Pylos, with its archive of tablets in the Linear B script, as well as its tholos tombs
- Mycenae, the capital city of Greece in Homer’s Iliad, and home to Agamemnon, king of the Greeks in the Trojan war
- Nafplio, the first capital of modern Greece
- the medieval castles of Methoni and its beach
- ancient Olympia, home of the Olympic Games, where we will have special tours of the ancient stadium and athletic installations
- a one-day cruise to the island of Sphakteria and adjacent Golden Beach
- and there will be plenty of time to explore all of the nearby beaches of sandy Pylos
- Evening lectures on Greek history, literature, philosophy, archaeology, art, and culture.
Daily Schedule 6:00am Wake-up call 6:30am Breakfast in the hotel lounge. Departure for the site (ride ca. 20 mins.) 7:00-11:00 Excavation 11:00-11:30 Break for a light lunch 11:30-13:00 Excavation 13:30-17:00 Free time (usually we explore the beaches of the area) 17:00-19:00 Evening lectures and/or work in the lab (drawings, writing, studying of finds, etc.) 19:30-21:30 Dinner at the hotel’s seafront dining area. The rest of the evening is free.
