Category: iSamothrace

  • Columns, Altar Courts, and Angel Babies: An architecture blog post on Samothrace

    The 2015 summer season had many architectural projects to tackle! Within our office cottage lies the “architecture grotto,” where our motto is “home is where the surfboard is,” surfboard being the nickname of the tank of a laptop used for architecture software.

  • Getting Stoned

    Acid testing is crucial for identifying various stone types in the field. Often, rocks look the same, but are quite different.

  • Surveying on Samothrace

    The 2015 Samothrace survey team has been very busy capturing data throughout the site to help spatially locate a number of buildings and geographical features. This year, we used several new technologies to improve our understanding of the site. For the first time in Samothracian history, we captured aerial imagery using an aerial robot. Unfortunately,…

  • Mapping the Stones of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods

    The Sanctuary of the Great Gods at Samothrace is constructed from a wide variety of local stone types. Over the past three seasons we have researched which types of stones were used in the construction of these buildings and from which parts of the island they may have been quarried.

  • Octopi, Goats, and Bugs, Oh, My!

    Even for those who have traveled to the island of Samothrace in past seasons, life on the island holds many surprises.  Dominated by the towering peaks of Mount Fengari, the island’s rugged, mountainous landscape is contrasted by the azure blue sea that surrounds it.  As one of our fellow teammates, Matthew, has remarked on several…

  • To the Rescue! Excavating for Site Management

    Excavation has a long and glorious history here on Samothrace.  Antiquarians have visited the sanctuary since 1444, when Cyriacus of Ancona visited the Genoese nobility on the island and drew some of the sanctuary’s buildings.  German, French, Greek, Austrian, and Czech teams have all completed excavations on the site; American excavations sponsored by New York…

  • The Byzantine Mysteries

    Commanding a majestic view of the central sanctuary, the Winged Victory of Samothrace (Nike) would not have been left exposed to the elements up in her precinct.  We believe that she was surrounded by a superstructure but what this building looked like, or even if it was roofed, remains a mystery.  The superstructure appears to…

  • The Topography of Sacred Space

    Even a casual glance at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods will reveal that it is situated in a ravine so that the central sanctuary is flanked by one hill to the west and another to the east. How the topography of the landscape enhanced the Sanctuary’s effect on initiates and supplicants is less obvious.…

  • Shading the Shellac: Drawing for Conservation

    As conservators, we examine objects in all kinds of ways: we touch, we smell, we tap with bamboo skewers. But seldom do we actually draw the objects we treat. In general, high-resolution photography serves as our visual documentation. My classmate Kate Brugioni and I were delighted to discover that Samothracian objects often benefit from a…

  • The “Archaeology” of Samothracian Archaeology

    A key element in this season’s project of studying the architectural frame in which the Nike of Samothrace stood is the reconstruction of previous archaeological excavations in the area. Kirsten and I have undertaken this project of “excavating” the excavations of the 20th century. To begin this work, we read through the old excavation diaries…