On the Archaeology Trail

 Saturday and Sunday 8-9 October

Pete and Edna’s last night, so we saw them off at the Tree Bar, with Rob and Dave playing.  Here’s a pic of Dave and Pete playing Happy Families!

The next day was good for a walk – finally cool enough to consider exercise that isn’t taken in the water – so we walked down the hill taking the camera this time, to get some photos of the pipe dig.

You can see the pipe trench in the background – the pipe has been lifted out and tied off to some big olive tree stumps.  This is directly under a country lane.  There are no apologies, or even diversion signs: you just come across these works, so if you’re driving you turn back.

It’s a very clear wall, but it must be frustrating for the diggers not to be able to follow it into the fields on either side and get a proper idea of the site, but I suppose there’s no funding for it.

We continued on down the hill and went to have a look at the old Dorpfeldt site.  Dorpfeldt was an archaeologist at the turn of the century and was part of the expedition that discovered Troy with Schliemann.  He later settled in Nidri and became convinced that Lefkas was Homer’s Ithaca.  One of the sites he excavated has been long grown over, despite being signposted from the road.  These are Mycaenean burial tombs, and this is the first time they’ve been uncovered since the 30s.

I’m very glad I took this picture, as a few days later there was a JCB on the site, digging it all out.  Maybe the archaeologists were given one last chance, perhaps they’re putting another unnecessary apartment block there.  It saddened us to see it go.