One of the most far-flung outposts of ancient Greek
civilization is quietly situated on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine.
The
2,500-year-old city of Chersonesos has been home to the Greeks, Romans,
Byzantines and Slavs and has survived invasions by the Mongols,
Ottoman Turks and others. It’s the entry point of the Orthodox
faith to Russia.
It’s neighbor to modern Sevastopol, the secretive
site of the Soviet Black Sea fleet. Yet few outside the region have
heard of the
site, and even fewer have visited.
This is expected to change in coming
decades, due in large part to the work of The University of Texas
at Austin’s Institute of Classical
Archaeology (ICA).
ICA has been working at Chersonesos since
1992 when its director and founder, Dr. Joseph Coleman Carter, was
invited to the site by the
National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos. Over the next decade, ICA
created long-term collaborations with the Preserve and the governments
of Ukraine and Sevastopol. Those collaborations evolved beyond simply
excavating the site.
The organizations are now working together on
multiple plans to preserve Chersonesos for future generations, with
very substantial backing
from the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI).
Among the projects is
the creation of an archaeological park at Chersonesos that will preserve
the ancient landscape of the city and its territory,
or “chora.” Visitors will witness ancient wheat production,
an ancient vineyard and gardens, including an herb garden. It will
be the first-ever park of a chora, illuminating rural life of the
past for visitors and bringing tourists to the area to help stimulate
the local economy.
The territory of Chersonesos contains many stone
farmhouses, and much of the dense grid of country lanes that divided
the chora still exists.
And the artifacts recovered at the site—from decorated sarcophagi
to mosaic floors to household items in blue glass—are as impressive
as those found at any site around the world.
“Here is a city that is almost completely preserved,
because nothing was built over it,” says Carter. “It was
simply abandoned.”
Today locals pass through the ancient city
to get to the beaches on its coast, and a handful of families come
to the chora to visit their
dachas, or country homes. But while Ukraine acknowledges Chersonesos
as a critical part of its cultural heritage—an image of the
city appears on a denomination of Ukrainian currency—making
this monument to the past accessible to the world has been a challenge.
“It’s really nice to be able to help
them,” Surina. “They
are so devoted to the site, giving their lives working for a great
goal, but with little monetary reward. All of a sudden they have this
opportunity. It’s very meaningful for all of us. And it’s
something very tangible and completely driven by what people are asking
for.”
Working with preservation at this level is a recent
turn for ICA. Its real claim to fame is its pioneering work in the
archaeology
of
the chora. In fact, ICA is recognized as an international leader in
the study of rural populations in the classical world.
ICA’s
groundbreaking project on the study of rural populations began in
1974 at Metaponto in the far south of Italy. Its work has
turned the common image of the archaeologist—with wide-brimmed
hat and brush in hand—on its head.
“We’ve carried archaeology a bit further
than classical archaeologists have in the past,” Carter says. “We
look to economic motivations and causative explanations that go beyond
generals and battles and
so forth. What was the situation of the land? Why were these people
suffering from malaria and syphilis? What crops were they raising?
Why did their economy fail?”
Answering questions like these requires
a multidisciplinary approach. Archaeologists working with ICA still
survey the land. But at the
same time palaeobotanists study seeds to determine what crops were
common in the ancient world. Geomorphologists conduct intense studies
of the soil. Physical anthropologists examine human remains. ICA even
helped move archaeology into the space age.
ICA has partnered with
the university’s Center
for Space Research
(CSR) to use remote sensing images from space to view ancient territories.
ICA and CSR received a major grant from NASA to study imagery of Chersonesos,
which enables researchers to better understand the way land was divided
in the chora.
“I think we can be considered a leader in this
area,” Carter
says. “No other project has had the same range that we have
in terms of the scientific approaches that have been employed.”
As
ICA brings the full range of archaeology to the chora of Chersonesos,
the site brings a new focus to ICA. The need to not just excavate
but also preserve and develop the site encouraged ICA to evolve from
an organization focused on rural archaeology to one geared toward
public archaeology as well.
“Public archaeology is a branch of archaeology
where you try to combine the interests of all parties, scholars and
the local community, the
government and the tourism sector,” says Glenn Mack, Ukraine
project director at ICA. “You try to bring them all together
to reach an agreement for the common good. And the common good is
to preserve these monuments, these areas of ancient civilization,
and make them physically and intellectually accessible.”
With
the support of PHI, ICA will continue to partner with the Preserve
and the Ukrainian and Crimean governments to develop Chersonesos into
a site that will draw tourists and scholars from all over the world.
And a first step in generating interest in the site is making the
site’s history and findings available.
To that end, ICA and the
National Preserve of Chersonesos published the book “Crimean
Chersonesos: City, Chora, Museum, and Environs” in
2003. The book is the first time since 1913 that anything extensive
has been written in English about the site. Featuring hundreds of
color photographs and architectural reconstructions of the site, it
introduces the site to the world, and represents the kind of vision
that ICA brings to the field of archaeology.
“Excavation and study, yes, we do both every
summer,” Mack says. “But
the publications and the building of a laboratory at the museum and
undertaking an archaeological park represent a significant long-term
plan. Most archaeologists wouldn’t commit themselves to such
a degree.”
