Thursday afternoon I received an email indicating where to go if we were looking to go to Corinth on Friday. On a whim, I decided to go and it was one of the best days I have had here so far. First off, our program director's husband is the head of excavations at the American School there. Second off, it is beautiful. Third, there is a sweet castle there.

     Corinth is about an hour train ride outside of Greece and situated on the original ismuth, after which all ismi are named. The excavations director was one of the most interesting people I've met in Greece thus far. He was incredibly well educated and full of interesting facts regarding the importance of Corinth, geography of Greece, historical events, and mythology. He even explained very well a theory regarding the credibility of the Odyssey regarding Helen and Penelope. He took us under the ropes and right up next to the monuments and even let us, I know brace yourself, touch them. It was forbidden fruit syndrome to a "T." Seeing all these monuments makes you want to touch them, and for me, climb them (we'll get to this). After showing us the excavated sites which were really thought-provoking and a time capsule, he took us to the newly excavated sites and let us walk around there and explained they are currently using a new method of excavating. The old school thought is what is seen in movies, lots of 2x2 holes with about a 2' walk path between them for wheel barrels. However, this leaves a 2x2 walking path that must be excavated after everything else and then pieced together with the objects from either side of the foot bridge. Thus is leads to lengthy excavations. The new system however, just takes the top layer off all across the whole site and then records its findings layers at a time. It basically changes an excavation being published in about 5-10 years from what used to take 30. Just thought that was neat to see real cutting edge stuff.

    We then got to look at the most recent findings of bones and pottery fragments and actually touch them. This was the most gratifying thing so far. I cannot tell you how much pottery I have seen in museums, but to finally touch it was unreal and yet another case of forbidden fruit syndome.

     After we left the site, some people went to lunch; but I was fully energized and excited that we were in mountains and chose to hike up to the top of this mountain overlooking the archaeological site which has a fortified citadel atop it. The hike up was great, I miss the outdoors and hiking around mountains with olive and lime trees only adds to the experience. Hiking up there on my own was the most free I've felt in a long time. It was such a good break from the Athens city life. At the top, the guard informed me I had 40 minutes to see the whole site before he left and would lock the gate. Thus, I literally ran around the whole site - so glad I'm in good shape. I was the only one in there and was climbing over fortified walls, scaling towers, and leaping from rock to rock to see the site. This was like a little kids dream come true: running around a real castle. All I needed was a suit of armor, a sword, and maybe a few enemies to fight and I would have had the best day of my life. I probably did climb some things I shouldn't have, but hey, no cameras and no guards - why not? I came running out of the castle walls with one minute to spare, dripping with sweat, and a huge smile on my face.

     I've commented on this before, but I've always thought all the excavations in the world are done and that what is going to be found has been found. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Archaeologists still have yet to find any neighborhoods in Corinth; they simply do not know where the people lived. On top of that, in the past year alone, 5 students earned their pH.D from the Corinth site alone. Not to mention the director of excavations rambled off about 10 other sites that have recently begun their new method of excavating. On top of that, within the past 5 years one of his students rewrote text books. Literally discovered what was considered 3rd century pottery was actually 2nd century pottery. It's amazing to me how much more we have to learn. On top of that, I have another plea for the liberal arts as the director began throwing around times like Calcium Carbonate oxidizing and the Silicon oxidizing to form waterproof barriers. He was educated in how the chemical processes enabled the pottery and fortification of the walls. On top of that, they excavated a graveyard that had 240 bodies in it. From those bodies such as where the muscles attached, how the bones were deformed, etc. they have pieced together stories and pieces of the past. More and more, the importance of a liberal education becomes increasingly important.