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Excavations at Azoria |
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Prof. Fitzsimons, new to the Department of Ancient History and Classics at Trent in 2004, is the architect on the Azoria Project, an excavation of the Early Iron Age town Azoria (ca. 1200-480 B.C.) on the island of Crete in the Greek Aegean. The purpose of the excavation, which began in 2002, is to recover evidence to be used in the reconstruction of the site's social, political, economic and religious organization. In his role as architect, Prof. Fitzsimons painstakingly draws architectural remains, stone by stone, for ten weeks every summer. "The daily grind is a bit tedious, but as the summer progresses, each week sees you putting more and more of your individual drawings together, and as you do, and as your overall impression of the site improves, all the work becomes worthwhile," says Prof. Fitzsimons. "By the end of the summer, you've got this fantastic image staring back at you, a wonderful pay-off for the daily grind of heat, sweat and tedium," adding his love of architecture and mythology have converged in his career. "By drawing each individual stone, you get a much better impression of both how these structures were pieced together and how each structure relates to the overall plan of the site as a whole." Prof. Fitzsimons has drawn the walls of the andreion, where the elite once dined, as well as the prytaneion, which was once a meeting place for the aristocrats. He says Azoria was at one time an entire town, and is today integral to the investigation of the nature of urbanism and the growth of the polis, or city state. "We're interested in how people got from the scattered villages of the 12th through 8th centuries, to the congregated urban settlements of the 7th century and beyond. We're investigating what mechanisms were at play and exploring the nature of the growth of the urban complex - its physical, political and social characteristics."
"This is an incredible opportunity for the students to gain insight into the methods of and obstacles to a modern archaeological excavation, to work and interact with specialists not only from our project, but from a number of excavations being conducted in the area, and to see first-hand the archaeological and artefactual remains that they have been discussing in class," he adds. "Moreover, by spending seven weeks on Crete, they get an excellent opportunity to participate in the modern Greek landscape and learn about various aspects of village life in modern Greece." Meanwhile, Prof. Fitzsimons is also completing his Ph.D. at the University of Cincinnati. The focus of his studies is the development of monumental architecture and its association with the emergence of palatial civilization. At Trent, he teaches the courses Elementary Greek, Greek Myths & Mythology, Introduction to Classical Archaeology & Art History and The Ancient City. ¶ Posted March 14, 2005 |
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Professor Rodney Fitzsimons is the first to say it's not "Indiana Jones
work," but his architectural drawings of the remains at Azoria, East Crete,
are helping to unlock the mystery that is urbanization in the Mediterranean
in the first millennium B.C. 
And this summer, he will involve as many as 10 Trent
students in the investigation as part of the Department of Ancient History
and Classics Summer Field School at Azoria from May to July. The students
will have the opportunity to work as assistants to field archaeologists and
specialists such as surveyors, architects, illustrators,
palaeoethnobotanists, zooarchaeologists, biological anthropologists and
geomorphologists. The students will spend half their time in their field and
the other half in the study centre, says Prof. Fitzsimons.