Christofilis Maggidis, Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Dickinson College, knows he's found an archaeological gold mine--an ancient town, and likely something bigger, near the palace at Mycenae, Greece. He and his students also know that they and their successors must patiently scratch away at the surface--for decades and perhaps generations--before the world can see the full extent of their discovery. Their work was made possible, in part, by a $400,000 grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation in 2004. As director of the Dickinson College Excavation Project and Archaeological Survey at Mycenae, Maggidis guides students every summer through the process of unearthing clues to what everyday life was like when Homer's epic warriors and kings walked the earth more than 3,000 years ago. Each year, they find more evidence--including roads, walls, dams and pottery--of the daily lives of the commoners who lived in the valley below the citadel. Homer's Iliad describes events of Mycenaean life inside and outside the citadel, 70 percent of which has been excavated by archeologists since its discovery in the 1800s. Maggidis knows he has found a town, and he is confident it may someday be classified as a city. For now, it is called Lower Town, and it is home to what Maggidis described in the January/February 2008 issue of Archaeology magazine as "the greatest opportunity of the last 150 years of excavations." (See article) Maggidis and his students use a 21st-century array of high-tech equipment at the excavation site, much of which was purchased with the grant funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation's Liberal Arts Program, to enhance interdisciplinary studies in archaeology and anthropology. This includes ground-penetrating radar, geophysical prospecting devices, remote sensors, and magnetometers. Data from the devices helps the archeologist and his students determine where to dig and how far down to go. Maggidis and his fellow researchers and students are also feeding survey data into computers to create a 3-D digital model of Lower Town. This summer, a dozen Dickinson undergraduates will travel to Greece and team up with 15 graduate students--many of them Dickinson alumni--and 10 specialists from around the globe to continue the survey and excavation. Before the students get near Mycenaean soil, they spend hours probing Dickinson dirt in a simulated excavation field that was also equipped through the Keck grant. Maggidis' lab assistant, Allison Cuneo '07, says: "Giving students the opportunity to learn excavation essentials by means of applied practice allows them to understand the purpose of certain excavation procedures and develop proper technique. This cuts down on the amount of time needed to train students when they first arrive on site, because it is expected that they know how to record, take correct measurements, draw archaeological plans and identify common artifacts. Also, because our indoor dig is a simulated and controlled environment, it allows students to make mistakes and learn from them without the fear of destroying important information." Related Links: http://www.dickinson.edu http://alpha.dickinson.edu/departments/clst/ http://www.archaeology.org/0801/abstracts/homer.html Nonlinear Dynamics Mycenae Discoveries Westmont Telescope Project Neptune Get Notified Sign up to receive an email notification when we add new Impact stories. Notify me Tell Your Story If you have received a W.M. Keck Foundation grant in the past and have an Impact Story you would like to share, send us a few images and a summary of 500 words or less with your contact information to: impact@wmkeck.org