Not a Classicist or Classical Archaeologist per se, but an important find at Alexandria Troas … here’s the incipit:
He stood there, unnerved by the thickets and nasty spiders surrounding him. The temperature was more than 100 degrees, but he didn’t care; he had finally found the sphendone. Last summer San Diego State exercise and nutritional sciences professor Robert Mechikoff made this remarkable find.
“It was one of those ‘A-ha!’ moments, and I started yelling and screaming,” he said. “I thought, ‘this is amazing.’”
On the second to last day of fieldwork in Alexandria Troas, Turkey, Mechikoff discovered a sphendone on the stadium he and his colleagues were excavating. The stadium was previously considered to be of Roman origin; however, the finding of the sphendone proved otherwise. A sphendone is a large, curved wall used to separate areas in ancient athletic venues. It is regarded as a unique attribute, only found in Greek structures.
Mechikoff’s discovery confirmed the venue was unquestionably Greek, which was a new and intriguing thought that rocked the historical and archaeological worlds. Mechikoff and his peers were the first people to excavate the site at Alexandria Troas, but with an extensive background in sports antiquity and Olympic history, it’s hardly the first of his impressive accomplishments.
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via Olympic historian digs up ancient arena |The Daily Aztec.
A related feature:
rogueclassicism 