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Presented by Hector Williams
 
Join Hector in exploring three remarkable archaeological sites excavated by UBC in Turkey and Greece, revealing ancient cities, temples, churches, theatres, mosaics, tombs, and extraordinary discoveries that illuminate daily life from the Classical Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and medieval periods. 

Week 1.
Anemurium was a large Roman and early Byzantine city on the south coast of Turkey, which UBC excavated in the 1970s-1980s and which we have recently published in two volumes. Architectural finds were especially extensive and included four churches of the 5-6th centuries as well as earlier public buildings like large baths, an odeon and theatre, and over 350 substantial tombs built above ground. Many of the buildings had fine mosaic floors, including a scene from the prophet Isiah.
 
Week 2.
Mytilene was and still is the most important city of the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos.  The poet Sappho was its most famous citizen, who created the earliest Greek personal love poetry in the late 7th c. BCE. Survey and excavations between 1983-2009 uncovered a previously unknown sanctuary of the fertility goddesses Demeter and Persephone for the annual Thesmophoria, a festival attended by the women of the city.  We also uncovered the burial chapel and associated graves from the 15th century belonging to the Gattelusi, a Genoese family who ruled the northern Aegean then for the Byzantine Empire.  Near the North Harbour of the city we found a variety of buildings, including a tavern/brothel of the early 4th century CE and the grave of a much later suspected vampire buried with 20 cm iron spikes through neck, pelvis and ankles.
 
Week 3.
Stymphalos was a small but rich city on the northern frontier of ancient Arcadia in the Greek Pelopponese, which UBC has been studying since 1982.  Excavations in 15 areas of the ancient town uncovered a regular grid plan across the city with well built houses on either sides of six metre wide streets, a later Roman villa with fine painted wall plaster and rich finds as well as a remarkable sanctuary on the acropolis the the goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia, with hundreds of votive objects (including over a hundred pieces of jewelry).  Other building included a large theatre, a palaistra (wrestlng school) and a still functioning fountain of the 4th century BCE.

Bio: Hector Williams has taught classics and archaeology at UBC for 45 years and has given numerous talks at Brock House in the past.