This morning I hope to reiterate some of the transects conducted by Red Team 1981 from July 26th or so through the 31st in the Pikrodhafni valley just southwest of Ermioni Village. These dates correspond to a number of sites including E42 to E46.

I have walked out on the shelf that E40 is located on. There are copious amounts of pottery about which seem to increase toward the northern edge of the shelf in the maquis. The area is covered in low grass, so visibility is fairly good. I took a video walk down from the now paved road. I reiterated the series of transects conducted in July of 1981 across the field (refer to 1:5000 trace map of area).

Panorama taken @ N 37° 22.755 E 023° 12.214.

To the north underneath the maquis are a large number of stones which have collected during field clearance, but no wall stones are discernable. Near where I just completed the sound check I came across the upper portion of an obsidian bi-face.

Upon leaving E40 I attempted to reiterate a transect taken from West to East (1:5000 trace map) on a course parallel to the road . However, I was eventually forced back on the road because of the thickness of the brush (not to mention the super gnarly white and black spiders that wait with their huge webs around every twist and turn.

On to E42.

Making my way to the top of the hill where E42 is located is proving to be most difficult. Snakes and huge spiders are only half the battle. The maquis is incredibly thick and I must wind my way through a maze of boulders and impenetrable foliage to the top, which I am now just a few meters shy of. However, I have seen ceramic fragments all over the hill. I keep trying.

I reached the top of the hill and the scatter decreased to almost nil. So I have now backtracked and taken a panorama on the West flank of the hill near the summit @ N 37° 22.313 E 023° 12.472.

Upon retracing my steps through the maze of maquis I have walked through the area of the scatter I mentioned earlier. E42 appears to be located just south of the summit. I will now take what has become the routine footage.

Sound footage at 10:25am @ N 37° 22.791 E 023° 12.429.

At 10:30 I drove to the Demos in Ermioni in order to ask about the conservation and presentation of archaeological aspects of the town . I was able to speak with George Dimaraes (spell?) the assistant mayor. I inquire as to whether there was any interest in presenting the regional archaeology to locals and tourists alike. He maintained that there was a great deal of interest. However there are no funds for such projects. The money, according to George, bottlenecks in Naplion and is focused on the sites in the Argolid Plain. Very little money filters to this area of the Argolid and thusly there is very little that can be done. For George, this is why the area of the Basilica adjacent to the Demos is treated like a dump.

George directed me through the map in his office and gave me the number of an archaeologist who worked in the area. I don’t think he understood from my erratic Greek that I was interested in how the local people regarded the archaeological past.

I have returned to the area I was working in this morning to inspect the vicinity of E41. Much of the open field mentioned in 1981 is now under the thick cover of olives contained within an area fenced with barbed wire. I will have a look around and attempt to locate E41. I’m afraid that the change in land-use will make the reiteration of the transects as difficult as they were with E42 earlier in the day.

I took a short video walk from the west along the road and down into the fenced olive grove near E41. The area has been recently plowed. As a result visibility is quite good. There are ceramics everywhere—many roof tile fragments. A large quantity of these has fresh breaks. I will walk down through the olives for a sort distance with the camera and return to take a panorama and sound footage.

The scatter quickly dies out as one walks to the east through the olives. It is relatively windy today so I am sure the microphone will pick up allot of background noise.

Sound footage taken at 12:28pm @ N 37° 22.841 E 023° 12.234.

I will now reiterate some transects taken by Blue Team in July of 81 toward the southwest along the road and continue with a video walk up to E50.

I have just completed my video walk up from the northeast. I found E50 after a few zigzag patterns up the hill. The lower portion of the northern wall has been undermined while a pile of rubble and tree stumps have been bulldozed against the southern wall. The interior is heavily overgrown and I could not make out any fresco remains on the inside wall. A carob tree is growing out the center of the ruined structure. I will take a panorama on the north and south side of the structure.

Sound sample taken at 1:15pm @ N 37° 22.787 E 023° 12.051.

Upon climbing on top of the north wall for a second time to photograph the overgrown conditions of the interior I broke back limbs of the carob tree, which covered up traces of fresco. I took a photograph of the little that remained. I will walk to the south of E50 in an attempt to locate the limestone column reported by the AEP as buried within a terrace.

I walked along the terraces in the area to the south of E50. These terraces have fallen into disrepair. Maquis and other scrubs have taken over many of the terrace lines so that the fabric of their outer wall faces were completely covered. Where the wall stones were visible many were collapsing out into the lower terrace line. I was not able to locate the fragment of a limestone column. I have returned to Ermioni for lunch. There is a constant and intense wind. Otherwise I feel fairly energetic. I plan on revisiting at least four more sites in the afternoon.

I have returned to the area where I was working this morning. I have completed two video transects of the field in which Blue Team identified a continuous scatter on the 29th of July 1981. I also noted a substantial and continuous scatter across the entire field. I will attempt to identify the area 100m out from the beginning of the transect at which Blue Team noted an appreciable increase in materials. I used the dirt road to the west as the starting point for my transects.

E51—I located an area about 60m east of the small dirt road and 80m north of the paved road where the scatter was much denser.

I took a panorama @ N 37° 22.928 E 023° 12.252.

The field has been recently cut for hay, so ground visibility was OK. It is too windy to take a sound sample so I will shove off to the east in an effort to revisit E43, etc.

I have, however, decided to take a crack at E52. I walked the N—S length of the field roughly 200m northeast of E51. I did not see any limestone wall lines. There were, however, several stone cairns piled up in the area. I took a panorama and photograph of one of the stone cairns in the general area of where the AEP located E52. I also noted a few roof tile fragments about the surface, but not too many: @ N 37° 22.960 E 023° 12.331. None of the limestone blocks in the cairn appeared to be roughly worked from the angle they were thrown into the pile.

Incidentally, most of the field cairns in this area tend to form at the base of olive or carob trees where farmers toss them out of the fields.

I will move on.

I am not far from E43 to the south in a field between the monastery and the road from Krandidi and Ermioni. There are a few extremely ancient olives in this field. I have just photographed one that was roughly 3m in diameter on its western side. This tree is probably well over 1500 years old by Rackham and Moody estimates…

The tree is located @ N 37° 22.770 E 023° 12.763.

I took a panorama of the area not far from the olive to the west @ N 37° 22.770 E 023° 12.750.

The field where E43 is located is now planted in citrus trees and is closed off in places near the main road. I will therefore set out for both E76 and E13 for the end of the day.

I took off my shoes and walked out to E76 which now sits in .60m of water. There are 3 parallel lines of stone now out of straight alignment because of the sea.

These are located @ N 37° 22.919 E 023° 13.658.

It would be definitely worthwhile to return to E76 with a snorkel and mask. There are two larger lines of stones running E—W. Just north of them is a third line which may have another deeper course of stone running below them on the same line. There was also another smaller line of stones running E—W just E of these 3 lines. I will now walk up to E13.

I just completed my video sequence of the Ermioni Magoula, E13. I took a GPS reading on the western slope among some of the exposed building/structural walls @ N 37° 23.008 E 023° 13.925.

I walked up the western slope across multiple structural walls. On the western portion of the summit there have been excavations as suggested by the open trenches. The excavations exposed the plan of a structure with a central cross wall. I took a panorama here.

I continued along one of the southern terraces through a great deal of contemporary garbage no doubt from the house on top. I continued walking around the southern portion of the hill to the east where the bedrock is exposed upon the summit. Here I took another panorama and proceeded toward the road bulldozed to provide assess up to the house.

The upper section of the road was cut through roughly 1.5m of earth exposing a number of walls, wall collapse, and fill. I took a panorama of the cutting along with along with some general footage of the cutting. I also walked up the road with the camera and completed the sequence by walking off the western edge of the hill.

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