The Wreck, part I

Fri 29 August
Sorry I left you hanging just as I was about to reach the punch line: the wreck itself, my purpose in coming to Albania.

It was discovered last summer by the RPM crew. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, their mission is to find the wrecks. That takes enough time, energy, and money. Their intent is then to encourage others to take up the challenge of excavation. And so I came to Albania, to explore the possibility of excavating the wreck discovered in 2007.

I came at the invitation of George Bass, whose name you may recognize as one of the founding fathers of underwater archaeology and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (http://ina.tamu.edu/ ). Dr. Bass has had a long-standing interest in the Albanian coastline. Already in the early 90s, soon after the country opened to the outside world, one of Bass’ students, Elizabeth Greene (http://www.brocku.ca/classics/greene.php), spent a year in Albania, working with Auron Tare to start up explore the possibilities of underwater archaeology in Albania. But the situation was still too unsettled. Now is a much more promising time.

Dr. Anastasi joined Derek, Liz, and me for 3 ½ mornings of diving on the wrecksite. DSO Joe captained the RHIB and Ardiola came along to translate. We would load up ourselves and our gear in the RHIB and get underway about 7:30 AM. It was lovely, zipping across the morning-calm blue. The atrocious burgeoning holiday construction projects in the vicinity of Saranda soon petered out and we raced by coastline still mostly rugged and empty, thanks to the fact that Butrint has been delared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Butrint — in legend, founded by Aeneas on his journey from Troy to Rome; archaeologically attested as a sanctuary of the Greek god of healing, then made a Roman colony by Caesar, a port city through the Ottoman period) is an incredible site and I could easily get diverted into a blog entry about it. But I shall restrain myself and instead refer you to the excellent website http://www.butrint.org/index.php and encourage you to visit the site.

We sped past the riverine entrance to Butrint, through the narrow strait separating Corfu and Albania. The morning seas and winds were usually calm, but by the afternoon stiff northwest breezes whipped whitecaps into the waves and it was easy to understand that ancient ships would have had difficulties standing off from this shore.

Our ship had banged up against the rocks and either sank or spilled its load immediately. And here I came upon an unexpected — but it should have been obvious — question: how to identify a shipwreck? Of course, it is easy when you come upon a hull or a coherent heap of cargo. But when is a jumbled spill of amphoras the remains of a shipwreck, and when is it just a pile of stuff dumped overboard in a desperate attempt to prevent a shipwreck? I have to admit that I never carefully considered this question. Let me tell you what I saw on the seabed, and maybe you’ll have some thoughts about this.

(Note: I shall post photos for the description below, asap. For now, just the text. Please check back in a week or so.)

The shoreline is steep and rocky and that same topography continues underwater. Within about 50 of the shore, the seabed has plunged to 25m. Above water, sparse vegetation anchored in shallow soil covers the hillside; below the waterline, however, the steep slope is covered by a deep layer of thick silt. Not much protrudes from that heavy silt until one reaches a ledge of bedrock, at about 23m down. A lead anchor stock (whereas modern anchors are weighted by their chains, ancient anchors used only ropes and therefore required a weighted element -- the bar at the top and perpendicular to the anchor shank in the image here), seated in the hollow of a boulder, was our visual hallmark for wreck’s location. About 25 amphoras lie strewn along the ledge for about 20-25m on either side of the anchor stock-boulder. Many are broken but into relatively large fragments and it looks like most of their pieces lie in close proximity. A further ca. 15 amphoras lie a bit further down the slope or appear in sporadic isolation in the silt layer above the ledge. And there are traces of more amphoras deeper in the silt. The majority of the amphoras are of a single type (“Corinthian B”), a few of a second type (“Corinthian A”), and there are a few intrusive pieces. (The wind/current/topographical conditions that led to one shipwreck would also have caused others; most (all?) near-shore shipwreck assemblages include some intrusive objects.) Is this a shipwreck, or is it simply jettisoned cargo? I think it is probably a wreck because I find it difficult to envision how jettisoning would have been thought effective in such close proximity to the shore. Or even/especially if this was a desperate last-ditch effort, how there would have been time to unload so many amphoras so quickly that they all landed together on the seabed. Under what circumstances would a captain still be dumping large quantities of cargo so close to shore? At this point, isn’t it too late?

The anchor stock in their midst may have been cast in a desperate last stand, though it could also have been a spare, stowed on board; it can be argued either way.

Accepting the hypothesis that these are the remains of a wreck, should we excavate it? I shall leave you to think about that question until tomorrow…

The Corinth-Albanian connection

Sat 23 August

Looking at a map of Greece, the obvious place to look for an important city is at the narrow isthmus that joins the Peloponnesian peninsula with the mainland. And in fact this is the location of one of the great ancient centers of Greek civilization, Corinth. Early in its history a wall of giant boulders was built across the isthmus, and it was an obvious line of defense for the Greeks who dared to stand up to Persian might. How often the armies and ambassadors of Sparta and Athens traversed this crossing!
More often it was a conduit for goods and ideas, not only between northern and southern Greece but also between the eastern and western Mediterranean. Journeys by sea were far more efficient than overland travel and the isthmus that straddled the Aegean sea and Corinthian gulf was the obvious shortcut between east and west, especially as rounding Cape Malea (the southern tip of the Peloponnese) was notoriously dangerous. Corinthian pottery is one of the hallmarks of the renaissance of Greek prosperity in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE; the lions and griffins and other fantastic animals that are its characteristic decoration were inspired by eastern iconography. Corinth then exported its interpretation of oriental ideas further west to Italy and Sicily and north to the Black Sea, where it founded colonies and sent its pottery. Corinthian influences can be traced in the elaborate terracottas of the early Etruscan civilization and in legend a Corinthian man fathered one of the kings of early Rome. Ancient texts tell of attempts to cut a canal across the isthmus. None succeeded but the Corinthians did build a long-used track for dragging ships or their cargo overland.

The name itself tells us that the Corinthians successfully managed their interests in the gulf that gave access to the west. They actively protected their conduit of prosperity. The great war between Sparta and Athens, Thucydides tells us, was sparked by competitiveness for control of the colonies at the western fringes of the gulf. In spite of the Atheno-centric bias of the surviving ancient texts, it is clear that modern-day Corfu and the Albanian coast across it were vital elements of Corinthian economy and politics.
Corinthian fortunes waxed and waned over the centuries. In antiquity, we see it highlighted again in the convoluted machinations of 4th-century Greek politics, and then again, much later, in Paul’s epistles. Archaeology complements the written records. Excavations in Corinth itself but even more so in its colonies and the people and places with which it traded tell us unintended, unedited stories of Corinth’s history and interactions with a wider world.

All this is by way of introducing our shipwreck, for its primary cargo was Corinthian amphoras. An amphora is a fired ceramic (terracotta) container with two handles and a fairly narrow mouth and usually with a base that is not flat, i.e. this is a container that is not designed to stand flat, its primary purpose must have been transport. It was probably designed for transporting oil or wine, but it could carry anything that poured or was viscous. At Uluburun (Turkey) where we excavated a ship that sank in the 13th century BCE, we found one amphora filled with glass beads and many that contained terebinth resin. Just like modern liquor bottles, amphora shapes are readily distinctive, although they are often characteristic of a place and time rather than a commodity. Archaeologists who work with amphoras can readily identify where and when an amphora was made based on the shape of its rim, handles, body, and toe. One hypothesis for the unwieldy (from a land-based point of view) shape of an amphora’s base is that it was designed for stacking in curved hulls and it is certainly true that we find many, many amphoras on the seabed and in port cities. In looking for ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, it is most often amphoras that we indicate we have found one. And it is these humble remainders that we rely on as signposts for the date and ports of call of the shipwreck.

The amphora assemblage found by RPM during their 2007 survey consists primarily of “Corinthian B/Corcyraean” amphoras. The details of their shape indicate that they date to the early 3rd century (ca. 285-260 BCE). As you might be able to guess from the designation for this amphora type, these were made in more than one location — Corinth and Corcyra (Corfu), but also perhaps other locations. A second type of amphora found on the site is more closely associated with Corinth. Directly or indirectly, this ship has some connection with Corinth.

OK, this time at least I got started talking about the wreck and what we are doing there. Now that I have started, I promise to keep on track. More wreck talk asap…

Supermen

Friday afternoon 22 August
Our wreck will again lie undisturbed (we hope). Four days of diving has provided us with the information we need to plan for a full-scale operation; this morning we took our last dive of the season.
[An aside: Joe just walked by and saw my writing. Asked me to be sure to mention that he’s a super-hero. There you have it, Joe. Now everyone reading this blog knows.
Speaking of super-heroes, there is a team of them on board the Hercules. I just had another amazing meal prepared by Elliot, the chef.
At first I wrote “cook” but that would have been plain wrong. For chef he is, in fact as in title. Every meal I have had on board here rates many stars. He manages to produce miracles in a kitchen just barely big enough for him to turn around, but large enough for objects to launch in dangerous trajectories when the ship lurches in heavy seas. We came in to dock early today because of a malfunction in the thrusters (which keep the ship stabilized on a GPS point); while the rest of us take a siesta in celebration of the luncheon-feast, Jeff the engineer is fixing the problem. My favorite story about Jeff (so far) is that he got this job as the result of a chance meeting with “a guy in a taxi, coming home from a bar”.
I don’t see Jerry, the boatswain’s mate just now, but that is unusual — he is inevitably around, doing what needs to be done to make the ship run. He is not too proud for any job, even the grossest. I exaggerated the siesta; I see Derek (WID) and Todd (RPM) on the sun-beaten stern deck, filling diving tanks. When I asked, Todd said that he is the “deck monkey and diver”. Whatever that means. He’s always around, doing dirty, heavy, hot, hard work. Howard, DSO (dive safety officer) also gets the title of one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He has perhaps borne the brunt of the WID team’s presence, for it falls upon him to organize our shared use of the RHIB and diving equipment. Somewhere, deep in his soul, he surely must wish we would go away. But no such word or even the hint of such a thought has surfaced. Maybe he’s such a nice guy that his soul actually has not entertained such a thought? Hard to believe, but it just might be true. Edwin, the first mate, also currently captains the ship. I know him least because he is necessarily occupied on the bridge. Like Elliot, Edwin hails from Malta; other members of the crew are from Key West, Australia, the Philippines, and finally there is Kim the gypsy, who roams between domiciles in the UK and France. Which is fitting, for his job is to fly the ROV — to control its path as it roams over the seabed searching for the targets identified by the multibeam scanner. As you might remember, I spent my first day on the Hercules glued to the video screen, watching the ROV at work. One can get mesmerized and Kim’s precision is vital to RPM’s mission. Like everyone on the crew, he has gone out of his way to welcome us. Just now, he is burning a copy of the morning’s ROV run, so that I can share it with the Ancient Seafaring class I’ll teach in the spring. Dr. J (Jeff Royal) is the archaeological director of the survey. I wrote about him in an earlier posting; in the several days since then, I have discovered only more positives that I would add to my description. But I won’t cause him to blush here. Finally, there is the man who makes it all happen: George Robb. I met him for the first time here in Albania, though I know his name because of his associations with INA and his several years of survey work in the Mediterranean. I have been most pleasantly surprised. Ten days is hardly time to claim to know a person. But it is true that all-day field days, with all their stresses, make for a thorough introduction. I came to Albania leery on many fronts; I leave with no reservations whatsoever in continuing and building upon the relationship George and I have established. We share a vision and I am grateful to him for communicating his knowledge and experience. I am where I am now in my career in great part because of the generosity of colleagues. It is my luck this summer once again to be among such people.
Let me add one more kudo for the entire crew: they are in the last week of a 4-month season. Anyone who has worked intensely in the field, especially for that long, recognizes how trying it must have been, in these last days, to accommodate a new bunch of people. Thank you to the entire RPM crew for your essential help in launching WID’s Albanian adventure.

Finally, one more person very important to the success of this past week: Ardiola, our interpreter. A pre-med student turned archaeology major. Dependable, clever, full of pizzazz. If this is the kind of students we attract, then underwater archaeology has a bright future here.

OK, I realize that my “aside” has turned long enough to be its own posting. More on the wreck later, I promise!

Safe in the harbor

Sarande

RHIB in high seas

my office

Conservation & Gjirokastro

Wed 20 August
Supposing that we do decide to excavate the wreck, what happens to the objects after we map them and raise them from the seabed? This is what I spent yesterday morning discussing with Professor Dr. Frederik Stamati — the director of Albania’s conservation laboratory in Tirana. I had offered to meet him in Tirana but much to my relief he volunteered to come down to Sarande. He took the night bus; it arrives sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I figured that he would nap in his hotel room upon arrival and we would meet sometime in the afternoon but no, this gray-haired man met me at a seaside café at 8:30 AM, dapper in pressed linen. He, I, Dr. Anastasi, and Auron Tare spent several hours discussing the challenges and possibilities raised by the commencement of underwater archaeology in Albania, starting — if all goes well — with the excavation of our wreck next summer. I cannot here recount the many twists and turns of the conversation but I am relieved to report that in the end we came to a mutual understanding. In short, the objects we raise will not have to make the journey to Tirana; rather, we are responsible for establishing a (temporary) conservation lab in the vicinity of Sarande and training (an) Albanian(s) (eventually) to oversee it. It is a big but necessary addition to our protocol. I feel both relieved and burdened.
The winds kicked up again in the afternoon — a sign that fall is approaching — and we could not go out to sea. Instead, the WID team made an excursion to Gjirokastro, an hour’s drive over one mountain range into a broad inland river valley. Gjirokastro sits in a controlling position mid-valley; to the north, a mountain pass marks the ancient trail from the Adriatic to Macedonia. The town happens to be the birthplace of Enver Hoxha, the Communist leader of Albania from WWII until 1985; it also happens to be the family home of my host, Auron Tare, and completely by chance Auron’s wife's sister married a man living in America whose family comes from the house next to Auron’s. I tell you all this because the town is famous for its tight clans and it is startling to see those connections continue through generations and across continents. Coincidence? (Ismael Kadare, the Albanian novelist best known in the west, winner of the first International Booker Prize, wrote a novel about Gjirokastro, titled "Chronicles in Stone").
Gjirokastro’s known history starts in the 13th century AD and it has been lived in continuously since then. I cannot believe it will not become a major tourist destination and I am happy to explore it before the boom of large busloads of jabbering tourists crowds its narrow, still quiet streets. We saw perhaps a dozen other foreigners during our seven-hour visit. We arrived late afternoon and climbed directly up to the castle that dominates the heights; a friendly entrance guard told us, in excellent English, the legend of a medieval princess who jumped to death with her baby rather than surrender to an enemy. In modern history, the castle functioned as a dungeon. And sometime soon after WW II an American plane was shot down/ran out of fuel (depends on the storyteller) and was put on show here in demonstration of the might of Hoxha’s power. It still sits on a parapet, keeping lonely watch with an array of dismembered cannons.
No picture I took conveys the panorama: steep mountains frame the broad, fertile valley; the manors of Gjirokastro clustered on the hilltops that bubble up around the castle, connected into a town by winding stone-paved streets; the center of town a huddled mass of gray slate roofs. The sun set as we walked and the town that had baked into silence in the strong midday light came alive in the mild gold of evening. Children played foreshortened games of soccer in the small spaces left by odd turns of the steep streets, old people and families brought chairs to their front doors and watched the occasional traffic; we were a special sight. Curious to me that the town lacked the trails of bouganvillea (I have no idea how to spell that word!) and the jasmine perfume I would find in such towns elsewhere in the Mediterranean. But no lack of figs — (how to write the words to convey the sweet delight of biting into a fig just plucked from the tree, squelching its syrupy innards, still warm from the noon sun?) — and great clusters of grapes hanging deep. We plucked and munched our hors d’oeuvres as we walked towards the restaurant.

I shall not torture you with a description of our meal, in a family restaurant set in a courtyard beneath tall trees, the cooling night air now and then streaked with sparks from the fire, the juicy lamb, the fresh trout, farm cheese, home-made wine and raki, greens and fruits just from the fields and trees, cold spring water.

First Dives

1:30 PM Mon 18 August

I am where I love to be. Behind me, the island of Corfu; before me, the coast of Albania. I am sitting on the shaded top deck of the Hercules, a quiet spot on this busy boat. In the wheelhouse (just forward of this deck), the captain steers us toward the afternoon’s sonar project; the entire ship throbs quietly on its engines. This morning’s excitement was that the deep thrusters (which keep the ship aligned on GPS coordinates) failed, but the crew is clever and handy enough to have made the repair and we chug cheerily along to the afternoon’s project.
Me, I had my excitement this morning. Our first official day of work on the wreck.
I know, I know, I have been silent for some days; I left you last just as the WID team arrived (Friday evening). WID = Waitt Institute for Discovery; the team =
• Joe, the DSO (“Dive Safety Officer”, responsible for dive plans, equipment, and safety); ex-Navy, no-nonsense when it comes to business but with a good sense of humor and perspective; calls me “Doc”;
• Liz, responsible for documenting (video, photography) and PR; a degree in astrophyics(!), intrepid (jumped in for her first dive of the season as soon as she finished throwing up from seasickness);
• her brother Derek, graduate student in marine biology, bringing extensive skills in diving and underwater photography; has already been invaluable in his excellent suggestions for how to approach this site;
The fifth member of our team is Adriani Anastasi, the Albanian government’s official representative in charge of overseeing all underwater archaeology projects and professor at the University of Tirana. I was greatly delighted at his greeting this morning: “We need to get the interpreter on board. I need to be able to communicate. I am not here to control. I want to be a working member of the team. I want to see how things are done. This is a beginning for underwater archaeology in Albania.” What a refreshing change from the overworked, jaded, or strictly bureaucratic government officials too often sent as representatives to archaeological projects.

Friday morning, my second day on the Hercules, George (Robb) invited me to dive on the wreck. It had been a year since I last dove (on the Roman shipwreck at Kizilburun, Turkey) and, honestly, the first dive was half about me adjusting and getting comfortable with the equipment. The first step is the most irritating: pulling on the stiff, tight-fitting wetsuit. Even skinny guys have a struggle, and it is definitely not a flattering moment for women – every curve is an obstacle, fat squelches into folds, spilling over the edges of the suit. On our RHIB (rigid hull inflatable boat) there are no corners of decency. Then you load on cumbersome equipment: a weight belt (mine weighs about 25 lbs.), the tank and its buoyancy vest (the latter is a misnomer outside the water). Fins further clutter any movement. Until you have a crew practiced in diving together, it is diffcult to gauge preparation time and so …

(9:30 PM — Did I say quiet place on the ship? My “office” did not remain private for long; a procession of conversations and then the wind picked up and we scurried home in heavy seas — no way to concentrate on the screen, and anyway it was much more fun to stand on the deck and get washed by the spray of the plunging waves. We arrived just as the sun washed the dinghy fishing boats in the quiet harbor with a golden tint. Various chores and dinner. Only now again a quiet moment. On Ani’s balcony; the family is out on the seafront promenade.)

… and so one is usually either hurriedly strapping on the last bits of gear while teammates encased in their wetsuits swelter in the sun, or the other way around. But eventually comes the welcome signal to roll over the sides of the rubber boat and fall into the cool sea, where one all that equipment finally has purpose and we gracefully transition from the sparkling, busy, cacophonous world of bright sun and noisy waves to muted blue.

One minute of kicking down and I am in my other world. Hovering over a seabed strewn with jars filled and loaded more than two millennia ago. I hang there and stare, looking to see the elements and patterns of the strew. Here a jar almost complete, there a shattered base, further down a collection of three, and over there a bowl, and much further something odd. I see then that many have collected along a ledge in the bedrock and perhaps there is a strange bulge in the sediment at the place of densest accumulation of objects?

It takes me through the second dive to feel familiar with the general outlines of the site. The third dive, this morning, was our first working day. The gentle easing in is over; it is time for me to step up. We met at the dock 7’ish: Liz, Derek, Joe, Dr. Anastasi, Ardiola (the interpreter), and I. The seas were beginning to build toward their afternoon rough and we had a bumpy half-hour’ish ride out to the site. Liz’ sea-sickness patch wore off; poor thing, she threw up just before her dive. Tough girl, she shrugged and dove anyway. The smile on her face when she surfaced erased all troubles. No matter how much footage of wreck diving you may have seen in documentaries or movies, it cannot prepare you for the actual experience of diving, or of diving on an ancient shipwreck. The cargo we examined today sank at a time when people who remembered Alexander the Great still lived. Today we dove on their debris.

We had two dives each and have managed to label most of the important groupings in preparation for mapping, and Derek has begun to photograph. Next step will be to produce a preliminary map; we start on that in earnest the next diving day.

The autumn winds are picking up and the easy daily dives of summer can no longer be assumed.

The timing for a weather day-off tomorrow is not so bad. The official in charge of the Albanian conservation lab is coming from Tirana tomorrow in order to find out more about what we expect to uncover and discuss the possibilities available in Albania for conservation of large quantities of objects raised from the sea. I will not raise a single amphora until I have facilities for conservation and storage. Archaeology does not end with discovery.

Introductions

3 AM Fri 15 August
It’s a crazy hour. I woke up with my head swimming with the impressions and agendas of the last 36 hours. Maybe writing a few of them down will clear my too-busy brain…

There’s a scene from an ancient story that sticks in my head. Three thousand years ago an Egyptian named Wenamun sailed to Lebanon in search of cedar on behalf of his pharaoh, Rameses IX, who needed the wood to build a ceremonial barge for the sun-god, Amun-Re. In the surviving fragments of papyrus we can read Wenamun’s account of his encounters with priests, pirates, harbor masters, bribes, robberies, despair and wonder. The scene that sticks in my head is his description of a meeting with the king of Byblos: “And I found him squatting in his loft and when he turned his back against the window, the waves of the Great Sea of Syria were breaking against the rear of his head.”

That picture came to me as I sat on the balcony of my host’s house, just off the waterfront of Saranda. Auron (Ani) Tare, the Albanian who is facilitating this project, sat in a wicker chair with his back to the harbor, his face framed by the sparkling waters, speaking to me of his dreams for developing maritime archaeology in Albania. Ani is a man of big visions and many connections, our guide through the logistics of setting up a project in Albania.

It is always a challenge to figure out how to work in a foreign country. The convolutions of recent history in Albania and the resultant diverse, often conflicting, never clearly expressed layers of officialdom and bureaucracy make this a difficult place in which to figure out how to get things done. RPM and now WID are working in Albania thanks to Ani’s efforts; my entrée here is through them and thus through him. So it is good, finally, to meet this mover and shaker. He is not an academic or an archaeologist; his interest in archaeology is a passion, not a vocation. That works against and for him, and for those who hitch their wagon to his star.

That first evening I also met two other people who are vital to the success of the Butrint shipwreck project: George Robb and Jeff Royal of RPM. All last summer and already for two weeks this summer, they have been conducting a survey of the Albanian coast, primarily by means of multibeam sonar and an ROV, supplemented with some SCUBA diving. (Their webpage is linked at the upper right of this page). They are the discoverers of the wreck I am here to investigate.

Like Ani, George Robb is involved with underwater archaeology as a matter of passion. He likes to figure out the technology that enables discovery and then he likes to go hunting with it. Thank goodness. That passion and the fact that he has and is willing to devote the means needed to pursue it is all to the benefit of academics like me. I boarded his ship, passed by the massive ROV, into the bank of computers and screens that is the command-post for RPM’s operations, and realized again the broad expanse of skills needed to conduct archaeology. This ship and its equipment are worlds away from the shelves of books that are my main tools of analysis.

Jeff Royal has chosen to bridge the gap. An archaeologist by training, he took a gamble and went the non-traditional route; instead of pursuing a university career, he joined RPM where his job is to define and ensure the archaeological agenda. Jeff and I both started in the same place, but whereas I chose to delve deeply into a specified time and region of expertise, Jeff has had to develop general familiarity with the wide array of ships and cargoes that RPM has discovered. Both kinds of archaeologist are vital to the continued growth of our field.

I spent all day Thursday on the RPM research vessel watching the team work. The task of the day was to check anomalies previously revealed by the multi-beam survey. This involves sending the ROV with its sonar, cameras, maniples, and suction/blowing capacities to find out and explore whatever caused the anomalous reading. I’ll tell you straight away that today was exciting only for me — the RPM crew was not thrilled by the results of the day’s search (a shoe, newspaper, other rubbish and natural features). It is one thing to intellectually understand the process of remote survey — I have read about it and teach it in my seafaring class — but it is entirely different actually to participate. It was a beautiful Mediterranean day, a bright sun and sparkling seas. Those of you who know me will find it hard to imagine that I spent that entire day inside a dark cabin, watching video feed. The thrill of (potential) discovery kept me glued to the screen. I gained a much better appreciation for the human dimension of the technology. Today’s anomaly-reconnaissance, for example, needed not only the ROV, its accoutrements, and the associate computer technology, but also the human skills of the person who flies the ROV, and the people who analyze what is being projected on the screen and then further direct the ROV’s actions. I realized the many, many hours of experience it takes to interpret the flecks of sonar, the pings of the multibeam, the bits of seabed captured by the ROV lens. It takes humans to figure out the story in all that data. Thank goodness.

I did get my swim in, finally, at sunset, in the still-clear harbor of Saranda. I looked back at the shore, at the burgeoning development of this town, and hoped that this place would not go the way of most of the Mediterranean coast. The years of isolation and the subsequent decade of turmoil retarded the development of the Albanian coast and thus protected it. But it is catching up. Too fast?

Tomorrow I go diving, and the WID folk arrive.

Scenes from the bus trip

6AM Thurs 14 August
Not even a minute to sit down and write yesterday.

Woke up at 5, to catch the 6AM bus to Saranda. I was told it would be a 6-hour trip. Not fun to contemplate after a full day of plane-sitting but I was looking forward to getting a sense of Albanian countryside. Part of the reason that I chose this departure time is that its route runs along the coast, rather than the slightly inland route of the 8:30 bus. The other reason was to avoid the afternoon heat.

I’ll start right off with the bad news. It took 10 hours, not 6. One short break at the 3-hour mark, a longer one at 5 ½ hours at a restaurant – I skipped the meal because I thought we were close to the end (yes, I could read the map, but I figured that the road must get better and we’d zip through the rest of the trip; though I was still puzzled at taking such a long break so close to the end of the trip). I arrived in Saranda at 4PM hot, hungry, tired.

But the good news more than fills the glass. The bus ride was interesting and/or stunning, and my first face-to-face meetings with Auron (Ani) Tare (our Albanian liason, and so much more) and Jeff Royal and George Robb of RPM were really good.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

For those of you who are reading this because you are contemplating a trip to Albania, a bit of practical advice. Credit cards are rarely accepted here, even at good hotels. Neither are dollars. But ATMs are everywhere.

The buses really are air-conditioned, as advertised. Nothing like the Turkish buses, however: no lemon cologne, no cushy seats, no toilets. But they do offer radio entertainment –- constantly and at a substantial level, except when the blessed mountains cut out the signals. Mostly bad rock music, in many languages. I wondered if anyone wanted to hear it. The hip younger people on the bus had their own music with them and surely this wasn’t what the adults listened to at home? The bus driver spent much of the trip talking on his non-hands-free cell phone, which worried me at some of the more dangerous or tricky parts of the drive.

The first half of the drive was uneventful, driving-wise, the only challenge being to pass slower vehicles on this two-lane (one each way) highway. It is a major highway, so there is lots of slow truck traffic to be passed. There are no shoulders, so the passing all needs to be done into oncoming traffic. But not a situation that requires two hands, apparently.

For the first couple hours we drove through countryside that surprised me because it was so green –- water was plentiful, small farms filled the vista, the bus driver stopped for apples. I saw the occasional mosque and, more often, traces of the old ways: donkeys pulling wooden carts, people cutting crops by hand in the fields, old men herding flocks of big turkey-looking birds.

Around Fieri, we transitioned from the Balkans into the dry landscape, olive groves and vineyards of the Mediterranean. In the guidebook I read that at Vlora we crossed from the Adriatic into the Ionic. Here, too, we came to the first of the two mountain ridges we would cross in this trip. Jet lag and the steady bumpety-bump of the rolling bus had been threatening sleep, but the dramatic views and roads/navigation of the mountainside woke me right up.

The mountains faced us suddenly, vaulting from the flat floodplain of ancient Apollonia. We twisted and turned steadily for the better part of an hour. I was reminded of my first trip to the Mediterranean, in the 80s, before all the highways had been built in Greece. The short crow-flying distances of featureless maps in reality long hours of crawling bus rides through stupendous views and hamlets whose isolation was now obvious. And like those long-ago Greek roads, yesterdays’ roads were 1.5 vehicles wide, turns carved by and for tractors, and yet somehow there was two-way traffic and the bus drivers could make those turns. The only difference is that there are no good-luck charms dangling along the top and sides and from the mirrors of the windshield. Nothing. A result of the decades of official atheism??

Here the mountains mostly cut out both the radio signals and the phone airwaves. Thank goodness.

We stopped at the top of the pass south of Vlora, where a small restaurant had been built next to a spring welling from the mountainside. This is the lunch I skipped, though I did spend the time collecting wild blackberries. The mountain air mitigated the noon heat and I sat at the view, munching the sun-drenched sweet berries.

The northern side of the ridge, our climb up, had been tree-covered; the southern expanse was a bare, sheer tumble down the mountain. At one point I counted 8 long switchbacks below me. Yes, there were no guardrails to block my vision. The radio and phone signals had nothing to block them, either.

Not this high up, but everywhere further down and all along our route, the view from the highway was marked by dumps of trash. My day on the road in Albania makes it clear to me that two major challenges for this country are its road infrastructure and its trash.

They are working on the roads. Much of the reason it took another 4 hours to drive from Vlora to Saranda is the road projects. The partially paved tracks winding through the villages are being replaced by a two-lane tarred road. Our bus negotiated ever so slowly the narrow winds of the old road, the tractors and dump trucks and bridge-builders, and lurched dustily along the newly graded but not yet asphalted new roads. Here I remembered the other skill for which I forgave bus drivers’ swagger in the old days: how they negotiate villages. The “highway” that now runs through the towns were first built as donkey, maybe cart, tracks snaking between the houses. Those houses have stood there for generations. The roads are not easily widened. The topography governed the paths in the first place, and there are not easy alternative routes to be found. Somehow two directions of traffic now pass through those villages. Their ability at inches gives the bus drivers bragging rights. The inhabitants sit on their balconies – often level with my bus window – and watch the show. Horns blare. The driver’s helper gets out and gives directions. Very occasionally the bus driver must squeeze out of his door to look himself. The radio is still playing. The traffic in either direction is piling up. More horns. Dogs start barking, donkeys bray.

I recognized the shape, but could not see the colors, of my suitcase when it was pulled out of the hold at Saranda. Probably very dusty myself, I walked along the promenade, along the sparkling sea. I found my hosts sitting in the cool shaded darkness of a balcony, an old stone house just off the waterfront. But I shall have to continue later…

Short first night in Tirana

The sound of children screaming as the roller-coaster swooped jolted me from my doze.  Or so I thought for a confused moment.  But actually we were all on the plane, finally taking off after a long wait on the runway at Heathrow.  It wasn't a big plane and the sound and feel of take-off were powerful and the kids screamed in delight.  They were having fun!  It started with a row in the middle and spread through the whole plane, the kids laughing and screaming with delight.  A few shushes from the parents, until they realized that the kids' fun was infecting the adults on the plane with smiles.

A promising first impression.  I had been telling my friends in San Antonio that I felt a little bit like Dorothy about to step into Oz as I contemplated my trip to Albania.  Not much seemed familiar -- history, language, currency. And then I got too busy to visualize.  But then as I walked towards the boarding gate at Gatwick curiosity perked through my trans-Atlantic fatigue.  What would my fellow passengers be like?

Mediterranean in appearance, of course.  Large families of many generations.  Elders taken care of, children indulged.  Dark clothes, or glittery.  But no head scarves.  And no huge suitcases and bags and string-tied paper-covered bundles of Western goods cramming the overhead compartments and jamming the foot space.  And most unexpected, this sense of fun.  The lively chatter continued throughout the flight -- a far cry from the staid trans-Atlantic crowd of the Dallas-Heathrow flight.  We landed with as much excitement as the take-off, with ample cheering and clapping, led by the children.  And immediately every one jumped up into the aisle, though it was clear that it would be minutes still until the doors would open.  No orderly procession by row here. No, everyone jumped into the aisle and locked into an unmovable mass.  I wish I had had my camera out -- I was sitting near the last row -- every row in front of me was completely empty -- every person and their baggage somehow squeezed into the aisle, giggling at the absurdity of tangled arms, straps, bags. They saw me sitting there, still, and created an inch of room, so that I, too, could stand in the tangle until the doors finally opened.   could not be rude and refuse.

Most of the Albania we flew over was mountains partitioned by rivers and a coast of deep and frequent indentations (bays, inlets) and the occasional plain.  Tirana's airport lies in one of these large plains -- a patchwork of green fields and modest farmsteads.  The airport is most basic: a couple of runways framing and surrounded by fields, a small terminal.  It is the kind of airport where you take a bus from the plane, though it would be just as easy to walk across the small tarmac.  I love being able to step directly into the open air.  Here it smelled just as I imagined as we were landing: of damp earth and mown fields.  We had watched the sun set into the Mediterranean as we approached for the landing and by the time the doors opened, soft night air was settling.

The terminal is obviously very new (I learned later that it was opened this spring) but already too small -- our single smallish plane load inundated the customs area and there are only two baggage carousels.  A far cry from the Dallas, Heathrow and Gatwick behemoths (sp?) I had just transited.  In scale, comparable to the Long Beach airport; for those of you who have not been there, think of the airport in the final scenes of Casablanca.  

Thank you, Katie, for having advised me to get some Euros in London.  Visa fare due upon arrival -- leks (the Albanian currency) or Euros only, and no exchange office until after one goes through customs.  But a machine in the baggage area, and I was relieved to find out that in fact my bank card works here.  

Competition among the taxi drivers was fierce and the travel-information desk was in cahoots. I chose the unofficial option and got into an ancient Mercedes with a driver who hustled.  We careened along the two-lane, no shoulder, unlit country road that leads from the national airport into Tirana.  Within 15 minutes deep country began to become city -- the road became a highway of 3 lanes each direction, first factories, then car lots, increasingly apartment blocks with more and more retail stores intermingled, and then we were in city center.  I was struck by the relative quiet and darkness -- traffic was fast and brutal, but no horns honking. And still no streetlights.  Pedestrians and pushcarts emerged suddenly from the darkness.

Auron Tare, my host, had made a reservation for me at the Hotel California (I trust that the song does not apply) -- modest, clean, just around the corner from the central square, and it has wireless!  It is so nice not to have to figure out where to stay!  I arrived at about 9:30.  Looking forward to a long sleep.  But... the bus to Sarande leaves at 6 AM.  Yes, 6 AM.  Yikes.

A quick walk to the central square.  You guessed it, dark.  But the large public buildings that bound it on two sides were lit up:  Socialist-style, big, heavy colonnaded blocks of buildings. An opera, a library, and I presume a civic building with a giant workers' mural (I need to read up on all of this in the guidebook tomorrow).  Hopefully will have time to explore this city at the end of my Albanian venture.  For now, just this quick walk and glimpse.  The paved center of the square filled with kids riding all-terrain vehicles -- apparently for rent -- and their parents sitting around the edges, watching.  At one far corner of the square, a minaret.  As I watched the kids buzzing around, the last call to prayer of the day.  

Time for me to go to bed!

More about the team

I am waiting to introduce the essential members of the team -- our Albanian hosts and colleagues -- until I meet them in person.  But I should mention two right away: Mr. Auron Tare and Dr. Adrian Anastasi.  Mr. Tare is the person who makes it all "go" and Dr. Anastasi is a member of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology.  Without them, none of this would be possible.

Albania??

Albania?  First associations: isolated, Illyrian pirates, and Zog.  For most of my life, Albania has been the place northwest of Greece that was closed to the outside world.  Illyrian pirates I know about because they always come up in the seafaring course that I teach; their infamy comes down to us through Roman sources -- ruthless but most able seafarers, the stuff of Roman nightmares.  And Zog, I have no idea why I know this name, but it is a name that sticks in the memory.

Now I have read a bit and can say a little more.  Albania reopened to the west only in the early 1990s; in the half-century since WW II, its closest ties were with Russia, then China, and after 1978 increasingly isolated from any outside contact.  The early 1990s were years of tremendous economic, political, and social upheaval.  But things have calmed in this recent decade and the trickle of western archaeologists coming to Albania to establish collaborative projects with their Albanian colleagues is growing into a flood.  So I am arriving at a propitious time.  

About the pirates -- I shall save that for another posting.

But before I sign off, about Zog.  Full name Ahmet Zogu. A clan chief from the northern central Albania who eventually became president with absolute powers. Crowned himself Zog I, King of the Albanians, in 1928.  Fled Albania ten years later, when Mussolini annexed the country.  He never returned.  His wife did; she died in Tirana in 2002.  I would have liked to sit down to tea with her -- what stories she had seen!

The adventure begins Mon 11th.  More then...