Saturday

Saturday was open house day at the lab, and tons of people came to check out the current work being done on Katsalos and Kylindra cemeteries. There were so many visitors, both locals and tourists, that Andrea and I ended up having to lead our own private tours. We often had to sort out who spoke what language at the door in order to proceed. We have a couple of people who can lead tours in Greek, and one French speaker, but the majority of us speak only English. Luckily many Europeans speak English as a lingua franca, so we were able to get by. I did one tour for an Italian group as well as a few Greek groups. Often the visitor with the best English skills will translate into whatever language the group is most comfortable with. It takes a bit of time and patience to make sure all the visitors get a good understanding of our work, but they all leave thanking us for our efforts.



The Greek visitors were very happy to find out that burial practices two thousand years ago were similar to ones practiced today. Ancient and modern Greeks practice secondary burials, in which a person is initially interred in the cemetery for a few years after which they dig the bones up and move them to a family ossuary. We have evidence of secondary burial in the Katsalos cemetery, which dates to around 800 BC. We find lots of hand and foot bones, but the long bones and skulls are often missing. Often the smaller bones on the edges of the gave are left behind when the women come to collect the bones. Some rituals and traditions last a very long time.



After our rather frenzied visitors day, where we accomplished virtually no work, we decided to reward ourselves with dinner in the port. Here is a photo of a couple of the small fishing boats docked at the pier. A fisherman and his family are tending the small blue and white boat in the right hand corner.



More later.