Faculty of Classics University of Oxford |
6. The Sphakia SurveyThe Sphakia Survey is an interdisciplinary archaeological project which is reconstructing the sequence of human activity in Sphakia, from the time that people arrived in the area (by c.3000 BC), up to AD 1900, the end of the Turkish period in Crete. The Survey uses environmental, archaeological, material, and local ('ethnographic') information. It is jointly directed by Lucia Nixon (St Hilda's College, Oxford) and Jennifer Moody (University of Texas at Austin).
A subsidiary but important goal has been to train students (directly by fieldwork, and indirectly through the Sphakia Survey video). We are committed to using a wide range of media in order to report on the Survey to the widest possible audience: inhabitants of Sphakia and other people in Greece; general public in the United Kingdom, Canada, United States and elsewhere; academics and researchers; and students (school and university). The project began in the 1980s. In 1986 the North West Cretan office of the Greek Archaeological Service in Khania suggested the investigation of Sphakia to Lucia Nixon. Between 1987 and 1992 small groups of walkers covered selected sample areas within Sphakia, recording archaeological and environmental data, and collecting surface finds, especially pottery and stone tools. The Survey also revisited the sites already discovered (and in doing so found others), describing each site in its setting, and making further surface collections. Study of the finds began in 1989, and continued for brief periods in 1991 and 1992, with full study seasons in 1993, 1994 and 1995. Further work on the finds was done in 1996 (Moody), 1997 (Nixon, Evely, Robinson, Francis), 1998 (Moody), and 1999 (Nixon). Much work on the databases was done 1999-2001 (Harlan, Price). This fed in to the design and construction of the web site, 1999-2000 (Price, Nixon, Humanities Computing Development Team).
The Survey possesses over 5,000 slides and black and white photographs, of which some 1,300 have been scanned and are also preserved on CD-Roms. It possesses a filing cabinet of paper files (field notes etc), a dozen original video tapes (as well as the edited video), and dozens of 1:5000 maps. The database has 356 site records, 13,500 pottery records, and thousands of linked records with further data. It does not have a central office. Slides and paper records are kept at 103 Southmoor Road, Oxford, while other material is kept in Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Our raw material is not accessible to others until the final print publication is completed. Details of preliminary articles, published in journals and conference volumes, are on our website. A fifty minute video, produced jointly with Educational Technology Resources Centre (now Media Production Unit), is available from the Media Production Unit (37 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JF; karen.carey@admin.ox.ac.uk), as well as Oxbow Books and Blackwells. Part of the final publication is now available on http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk which presents introductory material for the general public, a case study for students, and research data for academics. The web site has 1,200 pictures, nearly all in colour, including site and landscape views; typical and endemic plants; finds such as stone tools and pottery, and close-ups to show ceramic fabrics and inclusions; searchable databases, maps, preliminary articles republished (including one in Greek), video clip. The second part of the final publication will be two print volumes, which are in preparation for Oxford University Press.
Work has been funded from the following: the Craven Committee,
Oxford; the Emergency Research Fund, Oxford; Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada; The Institute for Aegean
Prehistory, New York; Queen's University at Kingston, Canada; University
of New Brunswick, Canada; Baylor University, Texas, USA; Scouloudi
Foundation, Greece.
© C@O 2011: Classics at Oxford, Faculty of Classics. Webmaster. Last updated:
November 1, 2011.
|
