Life at the site is invigorating. The main camp is built on an ex-WWII German gun position, so our kitchen is a bunker and our shower the (appropriately) excavated ammunition shed. Life is conducted under two large US military tents, one holding our equipment (suits, B.C.’s, regulators, tanks, computers, compressors etc.) and the other our cots, which we often carry out along the cliff face for the cool sea breezes and the incomparable stars. The day begins at sunrise, either with a swim, cooking, or paperwork, followed by a breakfast of kasha and tea. The dive team will then load the vehicles and head the 3 kilometers to a stony beach just off the wreck, where we assemble whatever equipment we’ll need for the day. This generally includes a hookah compressor (a floating air compressor that allows four divers to go to depths of 35 feet without the encumbrance of tanks and B.C.’s and extending bottom time to up to three hours per dive), a small surface boat for the dive manager and whatever cameras, lift bags or DPV’s (diver propulsion vehicles) will be necessary.

We’re in the water by 9:30 and back at base between 2 and 5, depending on the conditions. We lay the new artifacts out, sometimes leaving the more delicate ones in salt water for preservation. They’re drawn, photographed, recorded and some of the hardier pieces are reconstructed. Video and photographs are compressed, paired with explanations, and posted to the Centre’s website (http://www.fieldschool.univ.kiev.ua/fs01.html) and our interactive dig hosted by the AIA (http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/blacksea/).

The end result of the excavation season is a summary report finished during the Autumn and early Winter. Often, presentations are given at the annual EAA conference, which will be held in Zadar, Croatia this September. This year the team’s Ms. Yana Morozova is organizing the EAA conference session entitled “10 centuries of Byzantine trade: from the 5th to the 15th centuries A.D.” and I will be presenting an overview of the Centre’s work entitled “Salvaging History: International outreach and collaboration in the north Black Sea”.

If you’d like more information about the excavation or would like to participate during upcoming seasons, please browse the above mentioned websites and feel free to email me at ndianajohn@yahoo.com.
Best wishes,
John Albertson

Sean Easton’s interests range widely; he has presented and published on Greek and Roman authors, from the most prominent (such as Ovid and Virgil) to the more esoteric (such as Lucan and Dio Chrysostom); among his interests is Greco-Roman magic, so we may soon be learning about arcana more intriguing even than Harry Potter’s expelliarmus and furnunculus spells.

Yurie Hong is currently working with a wide variety of Greek medical, poetic and historiographical texts, looking at images of pregnancy and childbirth and at ways in which these are often appropriated by male authors. Her interests in gender studies and ancient medicine will expand the range of departmental specialities. Like her husband Sean, Yurie has most recently been teaching at Arizona State University.

For many, Mary McHugh needs no introduction, having already established a devout thiasos of Gustavus groupies when she taught here in 2004-05. Her interests range from Roman history and art history to gender studies and Greek philosophy. She has studied at the American Academy in Rome and presented and published on topics from Julio-Claudian women to Roman cuisine and Latin pedagogy. Her J-term course (A Taste of Roman Food) is still frequently cited in conversation. Mary (shown here midstream) will be joining us from Hamilton College.

Among the other illuminati presenting at the conference were Katie Bukowski (’04, now a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Stewart Flory (classics emeritus), Sean Easton, Yurie Hong Easton and Mary McHugh, our three new tenure-track professors who will be joining us in the fall.