elsewhere in central and southern Greece). Members of the British
School at Athens developed an active programme in the Thermaic Gulf
and in central Macedonia during the period 1911–1918.^2
Investigations of historical topography were conducted against a
background of political uncertainty and periodic insecurity. The success
of such projects during this period of immense political upheaval seems
astonishing to observers of later generations. The twofinal decades of the
nineteenth and thefirst twenty years of the twentieth century witnessed
the partitioning of the former Ottoman provinces in Europe into new
nation states and the emergence of Bulgaria and of the west Balkan
polities that were subsumed, after the Second World War, into Yugo-
slavia.^3 The upland areas were particularly dangerous for foreign travel-
lers, even in peaceful times. Insurgencies and armed conflicts disrupted,
but did not put an end to scholarship. Historical investigators sometimes
had access to military maps, whose precision was driven by strategic
concerns unconnected with scholarly endeavours. But researchers had to
have a variety of practical skills that are no longer considered especially
useful for a historical or archaeological career. Heuzey’s ascent of one of
the southern peaks of Mount Olympos provided valuable technical
information for mountaineers over the next half century.^4 Transport
still retained the timeless rhythms of the pre-modern era. Travel was
conducted either on horseback, or on mules, or simply on foot. Carriages
were only realistic where there were serviceable metalled roads, which
provided access between major towns, but most ancient sites were off the
beaten track. An expedition consisted not just of the scholar himself
(occasionally herself), but of a whole party of local technicians and
guides, who could assist with identification and documentation, as well
as informal protection.^5 The strategic interests of various international
(^2) Casson provides a list of sites investigated in the east Balkans up to the mid 1920s
(1926, x–xiii; Ch. III, Appendix B, pp. 168–74, with map XIX at end). A notable contribu-
tion was made by scholars and engineers in the British Salonica Force. Treuil (1996, 410
Carte 1) shows prehistoric sites excavated by theÉfAin the period 1846–1919, including
Pylaia, Thermi, and Gona on the eastern shore of the Thermaic Gulf, with Kostievo,
Mačkur, Ploska Mogila, in the Hebros valley, Rašov on the right bank of the Tundja,
close to the bend near Kabyle; Grandjean and Salviat 2000, 38–41 for Thasos; Waterhouse
1986 and Gill 2011 on students of the British School at Athens.
(^3) Glenny 1999, 135–48, 307–402.
(^4) Heuzey’s description of the ascent assisted in determining which of the peaks was the
highest; eventually this was ascertained as that dubbed Venizelos (Baud-Bovy 1921).
(^5) Philippa-Touchais (1996, 231,fig. 7) shows a photograph of Polygnotos Kionaris
standing beside adiligencedrawn by a pair of horses, with the archaeologist Charles Picard
seated, a horseman in attendance (July 1912, close to Maroneia).
Introduction 3