“I am an Archaeologist!”
Coming through Passport Control in Munich, the guard was curious as to why we were spending eight weeks in Greece, on “tourism”. I blurted out, “I am an archaeologist!” He was delighted, stamped our passports, and we were on our way.
By the normal definitions of words, I am not an “archaeologist”. The last trench I dug was a drainage ditch at a horse-barn in 1991. I read books, tell stories, and write computer code. But when people ask what I do, to save time I tend to say, “I study ancient stuff.” Etymologically at least, that makes me arkhaiologikos (ἀρχαιολογικός).
I’ll wear the title, at the risk of stolen valor. Amy and I are doing a self-guided tour these eight weeks. The excellent Trekking Hellas is booking hotels and luggage transfers for us, but every day we just walk forth and hike all day, seeing what we see. We have a car (rentals in Greece are cheap), so we have perfect freedom.
We are not, generally, going to famous sites or museums. At a museum, you might learn a lot, but it will be stuff other people know. Along a trail on Mt. Pelion that clearly hasn’t been walked in months, there’s no telling what you might see. I understand ancient Macedonia better now that I’ve driven myself from Thessaloniki, through Molossia, Epirus, and Achaea, to Patras. We’ve seen the 1,000 year old plane tree (Platanus orientalus) in Tsagkarada in Magnesia. We’ve hiked over mountains and along coastlines, dodging dogs and stepping over the occasional goat carcass. We know the brambles in a personal way. We can tell you that “path” is a word that can have many meanings.
The ancient world was people living their lives, and those lives were as affected by the landscape as much as by their pots, temples, jewlery, and loom-weights. So our hiking trip seem to be embodying the logos of archaea. We’re not digging, measuring, drawing, and cataloging, and not even reading that much. Just walking and talking. Call it a “cultural field-survey.”
