Southeast promontories of Zakynthos

Location of the tholos tomb C576

In the southeast of the island of Zakynthos there were, before 2005, two major discoveries that can be plausibly dated to the Bronze Age.  Since 2005 Professor van Wijngaarden has led numerous surveys to this part of the island and considerably enlarged our understanding of this area.  But, right now,  I am concerned with the two primary discoveries which date back at least to the 1930’s.

First let’s look at the geography.  This area of Zakynthos consists of an east-facing plain bordered on the west by a range of low hills.  Cape Kalogeras is the severely eroded promontory at the upper right in our first image here.  At the base of Cape Kalogeras is the little populated area of Porto Roma. 

Proceeding to the extreme south we come to Cape Yerakas (variously transliterated as Gerakas and Gherakis).  Yerakas marks the southern boundary of Triodhia Bay.  The beach which it shelters on its east side is known as Gerakas Beach and the part of this same beach to the north is sometimes known as Triodi (Triodhia) Beach.  In the center of this little peninsula (and dominating what has been an agricultural area) is Vasilikos.  Up to the northwest is the range of small hills I mentioned and which average about 180 m. elevation.

Now that we know where everything is let’s see what Simpson has to say:

“The Kalogeros promontory is about a kilometre east of Vasiliko, and immediately east of the taverna at Porto Roma.  It is very eroded, and only about 150 m. east to west by 50 m. of top surface remains.  Parts of two houses were excavated.  The pottery (destroyed by the 1953 earthquake) ranged from LH I .. to LH III, of which a considerable quantity was found.  Not far to south of the site on the uninhabited Triodi beach on the headland of Yerakas at the farthest southeast tip of Zakynthos, is a ruined structure thought to be the remains of a Mycenaean tholos tomb … If this is so, it would presumably have been connected with the Kalogeros site, since the Yerakas promontory seems too exposed for a settlement.”[1]

So.  Simpson mentions the discovery of

A.  parts of two houses on Cape Kalogeras and

B.  a potential Mycenaean tholos tomb at a place called Triodi Beach and which is near Cape Yerakas. 

These discoveries go back to the activity of Miss Sylvia Benton and others in the 1930’s.  They were reported at that time.  Since then there has been further erosional activity at Cape Kalogeras.  Also the location of the Mycenaean tholos tomb has become, since that time, … somewhat obscure.

In 2010 Dr. van Wijngaarden led a survey in this area and one of the results was the rediscovery of the tomb.  In his survey report he describes the situation like this:

“During the  April campaign  we visited  an  area  near a popular beach,  which  was  inaccessible for survey  during  the  2006  campaign.  On  the  slopes  of  an  eroding  sandstone  ridge,  the  team encountered a very weathered round structure … , around which fragments of fine pottery were scattered. In all probability, these were the remains of a small Mycenaean tholos tomb, which is mentioned  by  several  authors,  but  which  we  had  been  unable  to  locate.  N.  Papadatos,  for  many years working in the Zakynthos museum, confirmed our ideas and informed us that in the 1970’s some basic restoring works aimed at stopping the erosion had been done. Nevertheless, the structure is nowadays very much in decay and hardly recognizable. During the summer campaign we were able to document the structure in some detail. It is roughly 3.50 m. in diameter and situated on a steep slope, which is subject to severe marine erosion. Pottery and bone fragments were collected,

confirming a Mycenaean date for the tomb.”[2]

Dr. van Wijngaarden clearly connects this tomb to the one mentioned by Simpson and others.  So, after having been … insecurely known it is now located.  Where?  Dr. van Wijngaarden does not tell us.  Can we find out?  Sure. 

I have already mentioned that Triodi beach is at the north and west end of the beach created by the shelter of Cape Yerakas.  We can see it clearly in Google Earth.  The first thing that jumps out at us is the section of extremely eroded sandstone ridges at 37.709080 N, 20.982875 E.  Generations of wind action have carved the sandstone into weird free-standing ridges.  A good example is this photograph from Panoramio which shows not only the sandstone ridges but Cape Yerakas in the distance.

(Picture by nikolagalabov)

These pictures strongly reminded me of the ‘Calanques’ in southern France near Cassis.  The photograph which Dr. Wijngaarden reproduces shows a smooth ridge on the skyline behind the tomb.  This doesn't look like the area of severest erosion.

(Picture by The Zakynthos Archaeology Project)

As a result I think that this picture was taken a little further down the beach.  Here is a picture taken just about 100 m. further to the east.  Here the arrow points to what looks like the same smooth ridgeline.

(picture by Kostas Ventouris)

 So, to wrap it all up I present this aerial view from Google Earth which shows the situation:

The location of the tholos tomb C576 on Zakynthos (within 50 m.)

This argument of mine is supported by Dr. Wijngaarden's own map which is reproduced in the 2010 Summary Report.[3]  Here it is:

The only point which Dr. Wijngaarden has marked in this region (F) is exactly where I propose that the tholos tomb is so I think we're good here to within 50 m.  

Over the years there has been a lack of clarity about which expeditions found what and where, precisely, things were found.  I hope this helps to clarify the location of the tholos tomb.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Status of the Mycenaean Atlas Project

Currently prototyping an alpha online version of the Atlas.  I'm probably about two months away from making it available.

I've recently received a large database of Bronze Age and Iron Age sites in continental Greece and the islands.  I estimate that it will add 1200 more unique sites in addition to additional information about the sites that I already have.

Anyone who would like to have a copy of the MAP database can send an e-mail to bobconsoli 'at' gmail.com or leave a comment on any of my posts.  

A large (about 2400 page) .pdf document which describes the entire database is available for the asking.

To run the MAP database requires a SQL server running on your desktop computer.   MySQL is such a server and it is powerful, industry-standard, and free.  

I can and will make .kml or .kmz files, which can be opened directly in Google Earth, available to those who would like them.

  

I can also create .csv files for people who would like to import Mycenaean Atlas Project data into Google Earth but would like it in tabular form.

If you like these posts then please follow me on Twitter (Squinchpix) or on Google+   (Robert Consoli)

Facebook?  Sorry.I.just.can't. 

Notes

[1] Simpson [1981], 155-6.

[2] van Wijngaarden [2010] 6.

[3] van Wijngaarden [2010] p. 2, fig. 2

Bibliography

Simpson[1981]: Simpson, Richard Hope. Mycenaean Greece. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981.

van Wijngaarden [2010]: van Wijngaarden, Gert Jan.  ‘Zakynthos Archaeology Project 2010 Summary report’, online here.

The Field, part 2

- Jesus, dis-je, il y a icy un nouveau monde?

- Certes, dist-il, il n'est mie nouveau, mais

l'on dist bien que hors d'icy y a une terre

neufve ou ilz ont et soleil et lune et tout plein

de belles besoignes; mais cestuy cy est plus ancien.

Gargantua and Pantagruel, ch. 32

Rabelais

What the Prisoner Experienced in the Cave

[From a previously unknown dialogue of Plato.  Part I is here.]

Socrates : Our prisoner awakens to find himself chained to a bench. His head has been constrained to face forward; in this way he can only see a kind of screen upon which are projected shadows. It happens that there is a fire behind our prisoners which casts these shadows onto the screen which is visible to them. The shadows are cast by large cut outs on long poles carried by actors who parade back and forth behind the prisoners. The shadows from these shapes are all that the prisoners can see. The shapes being carried are of every imaginable kind. There are cut-outs to signify the stars, the sun, the moon and the other heavenly bodies. Great houses and temples are represented as are humble abodes of common laborers. All the animals and plants are represented as well as all the other phenomena of the earth; mountains, hills, rivers, and roads. Some of the shapes are of human beings and their voices are simulated by those who carry the respective cut-outs.

Our prisoner rejoices to see this because they are of a much simpler version of that complex ‘reality’ which he, formerly a prisoner in the field, had previously been familiar. He finds everything much more comprehensible.

Glaucon : He prefers it to the open field?

Recess in S wall of Roman Agora. Athens, Attica, Greece. 1CBC.
Courtesy of SquinchPix

S. : And why not? Indeed his being imprisoned in the open field has prepared him to take maximum advantage from the cave. Because of his previous imprisonment he can far more easily detail the minutest shades of meaning in the ‘plays’ of the sign holders. Nothing for him is baffling; indeed the discourses of the priests and the prominent men (for they, too, are represented) are greatly simplified from the reality of such dignitaries in the upper world from which he has fled to this refuge. Would he not prefer these clearer meanings, Glaucon?

G. : Indeed, I don’t think so, Socrates!

S. : But consider, best of students, the upper world in which he was previously a prisoner was complex, incommensurable; sometimes cruel and baffling. The world of the cave, in which he is now so happy, is clear, plain, understandable. And, in addition, the vagaries of nature have no place in this better lower world.

G. : But how could a person choose a poor simulacrum over the richness of his former reality?

S. : Most of the prisoners (I mean, from the upper world of the Field) would choose it because they are safe in the Cave. The world is more comprehensible there. And you fail to consider the advantages of such a life over the disordered and chaotic mental life that he led previously. In the new life of the Cave ideal concepts are presented in their clearest and simplest form. They are easy to absorb. Instead of attempting to dredge meaning from complex phenomena (which, I assure you, are all too easy to misunderstand) the meaning of life and one’s place in it will be much simpler to absorb from the signs carried by the actors. Such a fortunate prisoner would never be confused about the founding ideas of life. Does one understand Virtue better from a controlled environment marked out by clear and intelligible signs or is it better to throw a child into a complex and confusing environment such as our own and trust to happenstance that the child will absorb the right lessons about life?

G. : The former, surely.

S. : Most certainly Glaucon, attentive one! For consider the study of Truth. The material world outside the cave has no certain or natural way of communicating knowledge of, or love of, the Truth to the poor prisoners sitting under the canopy in the field. And how can all the prisoners in the upper world all reach the same conclusions? Indeed, what certain and unerring idea can be communicated by means of the multifarious and ever-changing phenomena of the upper world? Because, Glaucon, what is Truth?

G. : Truth is the Unchanging.

S. : Precisely so! But how can the Unchanging emerge from the Changing?

G. : It cannot.

S. : Just so. But the opposite obtains in the Cave. For in the Cave the work of the great Truth-tellers can be clearly and unambiguously communicated by using symbols and words that have fixed and unchanging meanings. Now, suppose that our prisoner is again accidentally freed. What shall he do?

G. : Entirely free? Able to choose whether to stay in the cave or to go back out into the world of the field?

S. : Yes.

G. :Well, according to what you say, I suppose that he would ignore his new freedom – even conceal the fact that his bonds had slipped – and remain in the cave watching the projected shadows.

S. :  But let us continue this in our next meeting.

G.: Very well, Socrates.

The Arachne CMS seals database

I learned from the Aegeanet bulletin board that the Arachne CMS databases are online.  This includes a very large engraved seals database.

I have very little interest in engraved seals but I did go to this site anyway and looked at it.  I learned that the Heidelberg University Seals Database numbers about 13000 entries.  They do not allow access to their database except through a browser.   To do serious research work you’d have to look at every one of the 13,000 entries and you’d have to painstakingly recreate your seals DB from theirs one entry at a time.  Let’s say you can do two per hour.  That amounts to 6500 man hours.  There are only 2250 man hours in a work year.  That means that anyone who wants to use the Arachne seals DB for serious research has to spend 2.9 man years or 34.67 months in analysis and db building.   Along with all the errors that hand copying entails.

Which is an  unnecessary time expenditure because anyone who wants the Arachne seals database can have the entire thing with no more time investment than a couple of days to write a piece of software.   

How is that possible?

Well, first of all, it’s the internet and the internet is notoriously open.  It is open especially for benign purposes which this is.  But, second, the Arachne people have a sloppiness in their website which is that they show all the parameters to a page call right on their url line.  The result is that that url can be programmatically manipulated to allow you to download one page after another until you’ve downloaded every one of their pages.  The whole download process (images and all) would take, at most, a few minutes.  Once downloaded each page can be parsed for its constituent info (let me emphasize that the information being dumped is exactly the information that the web site is designed to provide in the first place and analyzing this page is exactly what your favorite web browser already does).  After download a series of sql statements can be generated which can create a customized form of their database on the local machine.  All of this can be done with a single program so that the sequence is ‘web pages in; SQL statements out’.

It would require that the would-be downloader write a program that is, in essence, a tiny customized browser that is designed just to read Arachne web pages.  That web browser can then parse the string coming from Arachne and write out sql statements that encapsulate the info of interest.  Once the sql statements are executed the database will be magically recreated on the local machine.

But let’s get back to that part about the sloppiness.  What does that look like?

A typical Arachne seals page

In this picture we see a typical Arachne seals page.   The browser I’m using, just for the record, is Chrome (Version 58.0.3029.110 (64-bit)).  See that red box towards the bottom?  That’s the information that you want to copy and put in your own database.  And the maxim is that if something is visible on your computer then it’s ON your computer and, if you can get access to it, you can do anything you want with it.  And, if you look at that little red circle at the top, you’ll see the number 495 there followed by an ampersand (&).  If you could change that number to 496 and reload the page then Arachne would serve the next image to your machine.  If you put that in a loop in a program then Arachne would serve ALL the images to your machine.  And I call this a sloppiness because those parameters don’t have to be visible.  I think that if Arachne really wanted to force you to use an approved browser then they should have used the POST method instead of GET for transmitting parameters.  That would make the passed parameters invisible.

What about the information in the red box?  How do you get hold of that?  Let’s look at a piece of the page string that is served by the Arachne servers.  This is the exact same string served to your regular browser and to see this, just use your browser to go to one of the Arachne web pages and then press the right mouse button on your mouse.  Then select 'View Source'.

...border="0" galleryimg="no"/></a><div style="font-size: 14px; padding: 3px; font-weight:bold;">Informationen</div><div class="info_wrap"><h3 class="info">Aufbewahrung: </h3><div class="info">Paläpaphos, Zypern, römisches Kammergrab.</div><div class="info">- Ortsangabe ist Fundort -</div><div class="info">Nikosia, Zypern, Cyprus Museum.</div><div class="info">- Ortsangabe ist Aufbewahrungsort -</div></div><div class="info_wrap"><h3 class="info">Herkunft: </h3><div class="info">Fundland: Zypern</div><div class="info">Fundort: Paläpaphos, CY</div><div class="info">Flur/Grabungsstätte: römisches Kammergrab</div><div class="info">Fundstelle: nein</div><div class="info">Platztypus: Grab</div><div class="info">Kontextdatierung: römisch</div><div class="info">Bereich: Zypern</div></div><div class="info_wrap"><h3 class="info">Form: </h3><div class="info">Siegelform: Lentoid</div><div class="info">Zahl der Siegelflächen: 1</div><div class="info">Wölbung der Siegelfläche: konvex</div><div class="info">Umriss der Siegelfläche: rund</div><div class="info">Dekor der Nebenseite: nein</div><div class="info">Art der Durchbohrung: diametral</div></div><div class="info_wrap"><h3 class="info">Material und Technik: </h3><div class="info">Material: Chalcedon?</div><div class="info">Bearbeitungstechnik: Rad, Rundperl, Tubus</div><div class="info">Sonstige Merkmale: nein</div></div><div class="....

Portion of the page string for an Arachne Seals web page

This string is the portion that creates the info box which I outlined in red above.  I changed some of the fields to red (I think that there are about 40 fields of interest) to show where they are.  The first ‘Fundland’ shows that this seal was found in Cyprus.  The second ‘Fundort’ gives you the location of the find city, namely Palaipaphos on Cyprus.  And so forth.  (And somewhere in here is the link to the high-resolution image of the seal.  Arachne snottily tells you that if you're just a casual user then you can only get the low-res version of the image  - or so they think.)  I emphasize that this page string is exactly the string that your Chrome or Firefox browser actually is sent by Arachne and from which your browser creates the web page that you see.  We just need a more efficient way to extract the data in a usable form and then create SQL statements out of it.  That's what's nice about this.  It is NOT a hack.  It does NOT try to change their data.  It does NOT attempt to modify their code to do something they don't want it to do.  It's merely a different way of consuming the product that they already WANT to deliver.

Much of web programming is done in a language called PHP.  PHP supports a call (leaving cURL completely out of the picture because we don’t need anything so sophisticated) called file_get_contents().  The parameter to this call is the URL whose page you are interested in acquiring.  When you execute this call the server on the Arachne machine returns the string representation of the page.  Your own favorite browser does exactly this except with much more powerful utilities.  When you get the page string back you can then do what I was suggesting which was to parse the page and write out the information in the form of SQL statements.  Writing out the SQL statements is trivial.  The whole program looks like this:

establish first URL

MAIN LOOP

web_page = file_get_contents(URL);

web_array = explode('><div class="info">', Web_page);

    FOR (every element of web_array)

            {

    IF start of element is a key word like ‘Fundort’ or ‘Fundstelle’                 then extract the argument and store it in a unique variable,                1..n

    }

Generate the SQL statement: e.g. “insert in seals values (‘Unique var 1’, ‘Unique var 2’, … ‘Unique var n’);”;

       END FOR LOOP

       update the URL to point to the next page.

END MAIN LOOP;

It’s a little more sophisticated than that.  The dates have to be extracted and placed in their own table since there can be a variable number of dates for each seal.   Basically, though, that’s all there is to it.  Now you may not want to do this but don't forget that this is always possible on the internet and for many more scholarly databases than just Arachne.  These internet tools are far more powerful than the uninitiated suppose.  What I suggest to Arachne is, if they really want to restrict access to only approved browsers, that they protect their URL line better.

And don't write back to me and say that this can't be done.  I got my version of this program running along with the associated database in about two days.  

Just for the exercise.

The Field

Oct5

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d”
WS

~~~~~~~~~~

[From a previously unknown dialogue of Plato]

Socrates: Imagine, Glaucon, a great field.

It sits in a landscape like ours; there are mountains around it, rivers, other plains and woods. In this new world there is every sort of animal and bird with which we are familiar as well as everything else in which we take pleasure. The sun, moon, and stars are just as they are in our own world.  Nor must we neglect to provide every plant and tree. In short, there is everything there to make men and women happy.

But now see!

In the midst of this landscape there is a grassy field and there, beneath a canopy,  people sit chained to benches and with their heads in fixed positions gazing out on this world. They have been this way all their lives.

Glaucon: A strange sight, Socrates! And these are strange prisoners.

S. : They are like ourselves.

Grounds of the Baths of Caracalla, Rome, Italy.
Courtesy of SquinchPix.com

Now further imagine that in front of them there are other people, ordinary town and country dwellers who are as free as we are ourselves. And they live out their daily lives in front of the prisoners. They earn money through trade or farming or crafts. They celebrate the feast days with processions and sacrifices. Every season of the year brings to these townspeople and farmers the required tasks and these, too, are played out before our prisoners. Nothing is hidden from our prisoners, not even their loves or hates, because the townspeople live for the prisoners alone. If the prisoners had lived their lives in this fashion, chained and yet perfectly free to see everything around them, would they not have gained an intimate and detailed knowledge of the lives of the town-dwellers which are lived, as it were, in their faces? Would they not think of what they have seen as comprising the whole of reality?

G. : Indeed they would, Socrates, but I don’t understand. Do you mean to say that they are chained up all the time?

S. : They are indeed, Glaucon. But I am about to release one. So imagine further that one of them, unseen by the guards, manages to loosen his shackles and slips away from his imprisonment undetected. He now wanders down the road and sees other towns, other rivers, other peoples. He has no trade or any knowledge of how to earn his daily bread since he has only seen such things but never performed them. He has only the thin clothing he has escaped in and is subject to the inclemency of the weather. The sun which had seemed such a friendly star to him through his whole previous life is now found to be too hot on occasion. And when it rains or snows he has no shelter but must cower under the nearest tree. For the first time in his life he is subject to every unhappy circumstance which our daily life affords. The moon, previously thought of as merely the lovely orb of the night, now announces only a bitter cold and a frightening darkness.

G. : A predicament indeed, Socrates!

S. : Certainly. And then, one day, while cowering in the hedges from some too-inquisitive wild dogs, he discovers a hole in the earth. It is wide and lofty enough for him to wander into without even bowing his head. He resolves to explore this cave and see whether he can turn it to his benefit. Immediately he is happier because he is out of the glare of the pitiless sun. The cold winds which had chilled him to the bone are now stilled. The marauding bears and wolves are here absent.

But then, as I allow no free men in my cave, he is set upon by men unknown and overpowered. Rendered unconscious, he awakes to find himself deep underground and once more chained to a bench before a kind of stage on which shadow plays are performed.

G. : But what sort of plays, Socrates?

S. : You shall see, Glaucon.