#interview with Pylo

[aktionfsa-blog-blog]

Europa rüstet auf - auch an den Grenzen

"Asylkompromiss" verletzt Menschenrechte

Inzwischen sind 10 weitere Jahre seit unserer Demo mit nebenstehenden Transparent am Brandenburger Tor vergangen und die Abschottung der EU gegenüber Menschen aus anderen Ländern ist noch rigider und unmenschlicher geworden. Dagegen protestieren wir gemeinsam mit Pro Asyl, die uns zu den aktuellen "Änderungen in der Migrationspolitik" und zu konkreten Fällen von schwersten Menschenrechtsverletzungen schreiben:

Europa rüstet auf - wir unterstützen Menschenrechtsverteidigerinnen an den Grenzen!

Europa schottet sich weiter ab. Der Zusammenarbeit mit libyschen Warlords und dem Deal mit Tunesien folgt nun ein milliardenschweres Abkommen mit Ägypten. Ganz in der Tradition des EU-Türkei-Deals, der in diesen Tagen seinen achten Jahrestag hatte - und der vollends gescheitert ist. Diese Politik sorgt für Missachtung der Menschenrechte, Gewalt und Todesopfer an Europas Grenzen. Seit vielen Jahren unterstützen wir die Arbeit unserer Partnerorganisationen in den Ländern an den Außengrenzen. Pro Asyl berichtet zur Situation vor Ort von ihren Kolleginnen Nursen von Mülteci-Der in der Türkei, Milica von klikAktiv in Serbien und unserem Team in Griechenland, das unermüdlich für die Menschenrechte kämpft - bis hin zum Europäischen Gerichtshof und oft erfolgreich, wie im Fall Pserimos.

Tote Geflüchtete als griechische Kontinuität: Von Farmakonisi über Pserimos nach Pylos Griechenland ist immer wieder Schauplatz von Menschenrechtsverletzungen gegenüber Schutzsuchenden. Vergangenes Jahr wurde das Land wegen dem Fall Farmakonisi vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) verurteilt. Nun folgte ein Urteil wegen der tödlichen Schüsse vor Pserimos. Noch offen ist das Verfahren zur Katastrophe von Pylos.

Serbiens Grenzen sind Schauplatz von Pushbacks & Gewalt Serbien ist das letzte Land auf der Balkanroute, das nicht zur EU gehört - aber an gleich vier EU-Staaten grenzt. Die versuchte Abschottung der europäischen Außengrenzen wird dort also besonders deutlich. Milica Svabic von unserer Partnerorganisation klikAktiv berichtet zur Situation vor Ort.

Für viele Flüchtlinge in der Türkei ist die Lage aussichtslos Die türkische Partnerorganisation von PRO ASYL, Mülteci-Der in Izmir, hat im vergangenen Jahr Schutzsuchende unterstützt, die vom starken Erdbeben im Südosten des Landes betroffen waren. Im Interview schildert Nursen von Mülteci-Der uns die existenziellen Herausforderungen, vor denen sie in der Türkei weiterhin stehen.

Fakten gegen die Mythen des EU-Türkei-Deals Vor acht Jahren trat der EU-Türkei Deal in Kraft, mit dem Flucht in die Europäische Union verhindert werden sollte. Obwohl der Deal bis heute zu massivem Leid von Schutzsuchenden führt, halten sich falsche Behauptungen und der Mythos einer "Erfolgsgeschichte" hartnäckig. PRO ASYL kritisierte den Deal von Anfang an und setzt Fakten dagegen.

Mehr dazu bei https://www.proasyl.de

Kategorie[23]: Flucht & Migration Short-Link dieser Seite: a-fsa.de/d/3zR Link zu dieser Seite: https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/8733-20240402-europa-ruestet-auf-auch-an-den-grenzen.html

[nando161mando]

NEW: In an exclusive interview, Unicorn Riot heard from a volunteer at Alarm Phone about the deadly shipwreck off the coast of Pylos, the role of the Greek Coast Guard and the safety and rescue protocols at sea. Moreover, the general context of the anti-immigration policies of the European Union was examined along with the illegal practices of the Greek Coast Guard and deterrence policies in recent years, which have affected migration routes.

[argyrocratie]

“Greek authorities have been in the spotlight before for pushbacks, towing migrant vessels out of their territorial waters. According to the monitoring group  Aegean Boat Report, between 2017 and 2022,  48,983 people were pushed back from Greek islands into Turkish waters.

(...)

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles has documented Greece’s systematic lack of response to alerts of people in distress and pushbacks by land and sea. In May, the New York Times published footage of Greek authorities taking asylum seekers to the country’s coast and abandoning them on a raft, a practice that was also documented by Der Spiegel in October 2022.

“Given the history of misconduct by the Greek coast guard and its documented involvement in pushbacks, we certainly have reason to question their version of events,” Sunderland said.

“It is a responsibility and duty for the Greek government to give us transparent and clear answers, which is not happening for the moment,” Efi Latsoudi from the Greek NGO Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) said. “We don’t have a clear picture.

-

Malakasa ‘like a prison’ 

The Malakasa Reception and Identification Center north of Athens, where 71 survivors of the June 14 Pylos shipwreck were staying on Saturday, 17/6/2023 (Alicia Medina/Syria Direct)

Friends and relatives of the missing gathered at the door of the Malakasa Reception and Identification Center on Saturday morning. On the other side of the barbed wire fence,  a handful of survivors stared at the photos on phones passed to them by family members frantically asking: “Is he alive?”

(...)

Muhammad Sablah, a 24-year-old from Aleppo, is one of the survivors at Malakasa. Before boarding the ship, he had fled from Syria to Lebanon and on to Libya in the hopes of reuniting with his brother and sister in Germany. He did not want to talk about the sinking on Saturday.  “I just want to leave this center and go to Germany,” he said.  “They are telling us we can’t leave. This feels like a prison!” A camp worker told him to get away from the fence, and the interview ended.

Sablah said he only personally saw four women and three children on the boat, but that there were many unaccompanied teenagers. Amjad, a 27-year-old from Homs, confirmed these figures and said the boat was carrying “Egyptians, Syrians and Pakistanis.” Through the Malakasa fence, Amjad complained about the lack of phones to communicate with their relatives.

Another Syrian survivor, who asked not to be named, also complained about the lack of phones. Still, “we were able to contact our families through the phones of the other migrants here in the camp, via Facebook,” he said.

Migration authorities told Syria Direct on Saturday they would provide SIM cards to survivors the following day. Syrian survivors confirmed the center had doctors and psychologists. Since Sunday, “survivors have been contacted by lawyers and legal organizations,” Efi Latsoudi from RSA said.

Latsoudi explained Malaksa is a “closed controlled center,” meaning that camp authorities can control the movement of the people inside the camp, who can be in the center for up to 25 days until their asylum claim is processed.

“These people shouldn’t be detained, and shouldn’t be in the conditions of the camp because they are victims of a tragedy. They should be supported in humane conditions and according to their needs,” Latsoudi said, adding that survivors should have been provided access to phones quickly in order to inform their relatives and “not be treated as prisoners and deprived of talking about what happened.”

(...)

‘Is he alive or dead? We want to know’

Thaer al-Rahhal, 39, is among hundreds of people missing following the June 14 Pylos shipwreck. Al-Rahhal, originally from Daraa province, lived in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp and made the risky journey to Europe in the hopes of finding work to pay for his four-year-old son Khaled’s leukemia treatment. (Photos courtesy of the family)

(...)

Due to the “downward funding we’re witnessing in recent years, unfortunately, a number of partners have been forced to limit some of their services, or even worse, shut down some operations,” Meshal Elfayez, a Communications Officer at UNHCR Jordan, said. “More funding is needed to achieve solutions for the refugee response.”

After UNHCR informed the family they could not cover the medical costs, Khaled’s treatment at King Hussein Cancer Center was “continuously interrupted” due to lack of funds from private donors. Al-Zamal said the center informed her they could not cover the cost of a bone marrow transplant Khaled needed.

Thaer believed the only way to cover the medical costs was to try to reach Europe. His friends in Germany gathered money to pay the smuggler and two months ago, the 39-year-old flew to Alexandria and then traveled to Libya.

On Thursday, June 8 at 6:30pm, al-Rahhal called his wife from Tobruk. “He told me: ‘There are  a lot of people on the boat, I don’t know if the smuggler will let me in, but I will prepare myself just in case,’” she said.

That was his last call.

“His only reason to get on that boat was to pay for our son’s treatment,” al-Zamal said.

-

June 8 was also the last time the al-Dnifat family heard the voice of 17-year old Sufyan. The Syrian teenager fled Daraa for Libya last year to avoid conscription in the Syrian army. “Life in Syria is unbearable, there’s no work and no stability and people live in fear,” his uncle Muhammad al-Dnifat told Syria Direct from Jordan.

“He told me they might travel on Friday. He was scared, but he didn’t know the condition of the boat or that it would be that many people,” al-Dnifat said. “Until now, we have no news about his fate. Where is he? Is he alive or dead? We want to know.”

“He just wanted to go and live a normal life like any other human, his goal was to leave for a better life,” his uncle said.

-

A cemetery in the Mediterranean

Rescue operations continued on Sunday, five days after the wreck. With 80 confirmed deaths and more than 550 people estimated missing, the Pylos shipwreck is one of the deadliest migration tragedies in the Mediterranean since April 2015, when 1,072 people perished as an overcrowding fishing boat sank off the coast of Libya.

(...)

The fatality rate in this migration route can be explained—among many factors—by the European Union's attempts to reduce the number of arrivals at its shores.  The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) “and the European Union as a whole have pulled back vessels from the Mediterranean that could be used to do search and rescue, and have instead implemented Frontex aerial surveillance of the Mediterranean,” Sunderland said. She also pointed to obstruction and harassment of NGO rescue boats.  

Sunderland also criticized Frontex’s “flawed and dangerous” definition of “distress at sea,” an approach that doesn’t comply “with the consensus definition of distress even in EU regulations.” She explained that is a standard practice for Frontex to only alert coastal authorities, not all vessels or NGO rescue ships, unless there is an “absolute imminent risk of loss of life.”

The head of Frontex resigned in April 2022 after an anti-fraud investigation and reports by investigative media organization Lighthouse Reports documenting human rights violations and pushbacks.

...”

sick to my stomach reading about the capsized refugee boat, they killed those people on purpose

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Shireen’s education

@lappyc22​ asked:

Hi. I wanted to ask about these lines from the game of thrones wiki: “Most girls in noble families of the Seven Kingdoms are given an education that primarily focuses on being groomed to be a wife and mother to a major lord... Stannis, however, ordered Shireen’s instructors to focus on matters relating to good governance: geography, history, religion, and classical literature have been, and she is an avid reader. In many ways, Shireen is receiving a more thorough education than Catelyn Tully or Cersei Lannister did.” It is in “In the Books” section of the wiki page for Shireen Baratheon. Where is this alluded to in the books, can you tell me? Thanks.

I’m not sure where that wiki got all those details, because those details are not anywhere the books that I know of, and it doesn’t cite sources. Frankly, it looks like fanfic to me, sorry to say. It’s also not true. Noble girls in Westeros are generally educated with the idea of becoming a wife and mother, learning courtesies and embroidery and music and such from their septas, but they learn much more than mathematics as general studies; girls learn geography, history, heraldry, poetry, literature, languages, and many other subjects from the maester, alongside their brothers. We can see this breadth of education with Sansa, with Arya, with Catelyn, and with Cersei, among others. And you can read some excellent posts on the subject here and here, and under the education tag at @asoiafuniversity.

However, I can tell you what the books do say about Shireen’s education. Her first teacher was Maester Cressen, who always made time for her. (Partially because he felt guilty for failing to cure her greyscale without leaving her scarred.) If you check the prologue chapter of A Clash of Kings, you can see Cressen teaching Shireen various subjects of castle architecture, astronomy, meteorology (weather science), ravenry, and such -- although not in a formal way, just by answering her questions. It is probable she did have formal lessons with Maester Cressen, but they aren’t shown on page.

After Cressen died, Pylos became the maester at Dragonstone, and took over Shireen’s education. She learned alongside her cousin Edric Storm (once he was brought to Dragonstone from Storm’s End) and Stannis’s squire Devan Seaworth. There’s a lovely scene in A Storm of Swords where Davos comes to the maester’s tower for his own lessons:

He found the maester seated at his long wooden table covered with books and scrolls, across from the three children. Princess Shireen sat between the two boys. Even now Davos could take great pleasure in the sight of his own blood keeping company with a princess and a king’s bastard. [...] “I hope I have not disturbed your lesson.” “We had just finished, my lord,” Maester Pylos said. “We were reading about King Daeron the First.” Princess Shireen was a sad, sweet, gentle child, far from pretty. Stannis had given her his square jaw and Selyse her Florent ears, and the gods in their cruel wisdom had seen fit to compound her homeliness by afflicting her with greyscale in the cradle. The disease had left one cheek and half her neck grey and cracked and hard, though it had spared both her life and her sight. “He went to war and conquered Dorne. The Young Dragon, they called him.” “He worshiped false gods,” said Devan, “but he was a great king otherwise, and very brave in battle.” “He was,” agreed Edric Storm, “but my father was braver. The Young Dragon never won three battles in a day.” The princess looked at him wide-eyed. “Did Uncle Robert win three battles in a day?” The bastard nodded. “It was when he’d first come home to call his banners. Lords Grandison, Cafferen, and Fell planned to join their strength at Summerhall and march on Storm’s End, but he learned their plans from an informer and rode at once with all his knights and squires. As the plotters came up on Summerhall one by one, he defeated each of them in turn before they could join up with the others. He slew Lord Fell in single combat and captured his son Silveraxe.” Devan looked to Pylos. “Is that how it happened?” “I said so, didn’t I?” Edric Storm said before the maester could reply. “He smashed all three of them, and fought so bravely that Lord Grandison and Lord Cafferen became his men afterward, and Silveraxe too. No one ever beat my father.” “Edric, you ought not boast,” Maester Pylos said. “King Robert suffered defeats like any other man. Lord Tyrell bested him at Ashford, and he lost many a tourney tilt as well.” “He won more than he lost, though. And he killed Prince Rhaegar on the Trident.” “That he did,” the maester agreed. “But now I must give my attention to Lord Davos, who has waited so patiently. We will read more of King Daeron’s Conquest of Dorne on the morrow.”

--ASOS, Davos V

Here you can see Maester Pylos teaching Shireen history via one of the more famous books of Westeros literature. The Conquest of Dorne was slightly fictionalized by King Daeron I (and Stannis doesn’t care for it), but it’s still excellent for teaching children, especially boys who like the bloody battes related within. Edric (age 12) also tells Shireen a story from Robert’s Rebellion, with Pylos gently providing corrections. So, Shireen is learning history, geography (Dorne and the Reach), and classical literature (pretty much), albeit not exactly in a formal way for some of it. Still, one can assume Pylos is a good teacher (he’s very good with Davos), and educates his charges with all the standard lessons that nobleborn children generally receive from their maesters.

But after that scene... that’s literally it for any descriptions of Shireen’s education. (When Edric has a math lesson later, Shireen’s at the nightfire with her parents.) Maester Pylos was left behind on Dragonstone when Stannis’s army sailed for the Wall, and there’s no word that Shireen has any teacher while she’s in the North, not even a septa. (Well, I imagine septas wouldn’t like to hang around where they’re being told they worship “false gods”, but still.)

So, Shireen doesn’t have “instructors”, and there is absolutely no text saying that Stannis “sought to ensure that she be properly educated to rule in her own right someday”. Stannis does acknowledge Shireen as his heir, and has said that if he dies he wants his men to fight to put her on the throne, but there is no text whatsoever that says he’s having her educated in “good governance.” Also note that if Shireen is being taught anything about religion, that’s being provided by Melisandre and Selyse (who are informing her that the Faith and the Old Gods are all heresies and false gods), not by any other instructors. There is also no mention anywhere that Shireen is an “avid” reader, only that she reads “as natural as breathing” along with Edric, in comparison to the illiterate Davos and the not-as-well-educated Devan. She’s not the bookworm she was in the show, alas.

So I’m afraid I don’t know where the GOT wiki got that information, if it’s not in the books. (It’s not in the app nor in any GRRM interview that I’m aware of; if it’s in one of the RPG sourcebooks that I don’t have, please be aware that those are only semi-canon.) But it looks like that info was added by the wiki’s mod The Dragon Demands, who’s on tumblr as @knightsinquisitor​ IIRC, so you could ask him, maybe? Hope that helps!

[archaeologicalnews]

Pylos excavation findings make Greek archaeologists revise beliefs on Mycenaean Era civilization

“The results of the excavations carried out by the Archaeological Society at Iklaina in Messinia have led us to revise our knowledge about the Mycenean states, with truly unexpected findings,” the chief archaeologist in charge of the dig Prof. Michalis Kosmopoulos of Missouri-St. Louis University unveiled in an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) published on Saturday.

He revealed that digs at Iklaina have revealed one of the capitals of the Mycenean kingdom of Pylos but the finds have radically changed what archaeologists believed until that time.

“Cyclopean architecture, developed urban structures (paved roads and plazas, water supply systems, central sewage), linear B signs, exceptionally aesthetic murals. On the basis of what we knew until now about Mycenean Greece, such finds were confined to the big palaces (Mycenae, Tirynth, Thebes, Pylos). The finds at Iklaina force us to reexamine the existing evidence from a new angle,” he noted. Read more.

[imperium-romanum]

“A miniature masterpiece carved on an ancient seal stone is changing ideas about art history. Jack Davis helped discover the Pylos Combat Agate in Greece and tells Scott Simon why it's so important.”

Listen to the full interview or read the transcript here.

[revuedepresse30]

Disquaire Day : 10 rendez-vous incontournables à Paris

Ce samedi, outre la chasse aux collectors chez les disquaires, on peut aussi déambuler dans la capitale pour écouter de la musique ou chiller dans des lieux aménagés pour l'occasion. En voici quelques-uns à Paris :

Des Apaches au Badaboum

On commence, au hasard, avec le Badaboum, dans le XIe. De 16 heures à 23 h 30, on pourra y voir une bonne liste de groupes qui défileront sur la scène du club sous l’impulsion du collectif Apaches, qui vient de sortir sa compile : Fang The Great, Agape, Bumpy, Coco Bans, Einleit, Jon Son, La Hero, Omig Migo, Pylo, Matt Gueiredo…

Un salon indé au Point Ephémère

On continue avec le Point Ephémère, dans le Xe arrondissement, qui offre sans doute la programmation la plus sexy du jour. Dans la petite salle au bord du canal Saint-Martin, on verra des live de Grand Blanc, TH Da Freak, Nouvelle Frontière, Elbi, Baptiste W. Hamon, Lulu Van Trapp, Ed Mount, Délage, et Krivers. Et ça ne s’arrête pas là puisqu’on pourra compter sur des DJ-sets de Maestro, Lenparrot, Buddy Records et Gone With The Weed. A noter aussi dans la journée un salon des labels indés avec Entreprise, Microqlima, Pan European, Howlin Banana, Tigersushi et d’autres. Joli.

Rough Trade, Sonos, Les Inrocks & Nova

Le disquaire emblématique Rough Trade et Sonos s’associent pour célébrer l’écoute musicale sous toutes ses formes. Pendant un week-end, les amoureux de musique retrouveront à La Maison Sonos, un pop-up Rough Trade qui proposera sa sélection parmi les sorties du Disquaire Day et des enregistrements exclusifs. Les Inrocks et Nova, associés à cet évènement, proposent des interviews avec des artistes (Miossec, Disiz, Psychotic Monks, 10LEC6) ou encore une écoute immersive dans l'obscurité d'une playlist Nova et des écoutes des nouveautés du label Beggars. L'évènement se poursuit dimanche, avec notamment des podcasts Cheek produits par Nova Spot​ avec Owlle, Halo Maud, Barbara Carlotti & Sandra Nkaké.

À nous, Sainte-Marthe !

Pour la traditionnelle scène A nous Paris, sise place Sainte-Marthe, une carte blanche a été offerte à l’énergisant et défricheur Macki Music Festival pour une belle après-midi de live et de dédicaces dont on attend d’ores et déjà beaucoup.

Prendre des vacances à l’Aérosol

A l’Aérosol, nouveau lieu cool du XVIIIe arrondissement, Polybrid Production se donne des airs de vacances et propose de nombreuses activités gratuites en extérieur : espace détente, dance-floor, food-trucks, buvette, roller-dance et, bien sûr, un vinyle market. Côté live, on y verra Ark, Moms, Midweek SunSystem, Master Phil ou encore Ale X.

Vingt DJ à la Rotonde

A quelques blocs de là, à la Rotonde de Stalingrad, le collectif Phonographe Corp ambiance les amoureux de musiques electro avec ses sélections à base de dub, de soul, de funk, de disco, de hip-hop, de house, de broken-beat ou de techno… C’est ainsi la cinquième année consécutive que Phonographe Corp organise son Disquaire Day en long format avec plus de vingt DJ qui se relayeront de midi à 6 heures du matin. Les festivités auront lieu sur la terrasse dans l’après-midi puis dans les deux salles du club en soirée.

Du songwriting en bord de Seine

Suite et fin au Petit Bain, salle en bord de Seine, où le songwriter Josh Rouse viendra imposer son style, tout comme Field Division. Deux concerts et l’assurance d’une bonne soirée pour le Disquaire Day 2018.

Gainsbourg chez Gibert

Le magasin Gibert, l'un des mieux achalandés en collectors le jour du Disquaire Day, proposera également des évènements live, avec le retour de Jad Wio, le trio country-rock Danois Powersolo et même un Gainsbourg ! Pas Serge ni Charlotte mais Lulu. C'est déjà ça.

Une hippie chez Walrus

Autre disquaire, autre ambiance : Walrus, dans le Xe arrondissement, propose de sortir ses plus beaux habits hippy chic pour le concert de Lonny Montem. Lonny Montem, c’est le projet d’une fan de Joan Baez, Cat Power et Joni Mitchell. Elle joue en acoustique et si vous continuez comme ça, elle va vous briser le cœur.

Warren Ellis dans le Xe

Potemkine, encore lui, pour un live en journée de l’Australien, et membre éminent des Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, qui a notamment composé et interprété la BO du film Comancheria, avec Nick Cave. Le garçon fera même une séance de dédicaces pour les éventuelles groupies.

Tout le programme et les disquaires participants sont à retrouve ici

from Les Inrocks - musique https://ift.tt/2HzMr8t via IFTTT

[anamedblog]

The Archaeology of Lydia, From Gyges to Alexander

Güzin Eren, ANAMED PhD Fellow (2016–2017), and a PhD Candidate working on Lydian monumentality in the Department of Archaeology at Boston University, interviews ANAMED Director Chris Roosevelt following the recent translation of his book The Archaeology of Lydia, From Gyges to Alexander into Turkish…

ANAMED Director Chris Roosevelt’s book The Archaeology of Lydia, From Gyges To Alexander (2009) is now available In Turkish!

In his book The Archaeology of Lydia, From Gyges to Alexander (2009), Christopher H. Roosevelt, ANAMED Director, Associate Professor at ARHA and Co-Director of Gygaia Projects, weds the archaeological findings from Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia, with results of his systematic regional survey in wider Lydia to present a diachronic and more holistic view of Lydian society from the 7th to the 4th centuries BCE. Roosevelt’s combination of various research methods including regional survey, environmental studies, investigations of archaeological finds at excavated sites and in local museums, and historical texts reveals continuities and changes in settlement patterns and burial practices throughout Lydia and how the Lydians took advantage of their environment for subsistence, resource control, and building edifices. Roosevelt’s book has just been translated into Turkish and published by Koç University Press (2017). On the occasion of this event, Güzin Eren, ANAMED PhD Fellow (2016–2017), and a PhD Candidate working on Lydian monumentality in the Department of Archaeology at Boston University, made a short interview with him.

GE: We have both worked at Sardis, the capital of ancient Lydia, but we never overlapped because you decided to look beyond Sardis and search for the Lydians in their wider region before I began my fieldwork. Could you tell us a bit about how your research on Lydian archaeology, hence the story of your book, began?

CHR: First, let me take this opportunity to thank you for showing interest in the book! Its origins go back to my work at Sardis, of course, which began in the mid-1990s thanks to advisors at Cornell University, Andrew Ramage and Peter Kuniholm, and the director of excavations at Sardis, Crawford H. Greenewalt, jr., who took risks in agreeing to train a neophyte with experiences only in Classics and Geology. Those experiences, however, came together happily in Lydia, where I quickly became enamored with archaeology and specifically that of western Anatolian landscapes and peoples, set between Aegean and Anatolian / Near Eastern cultures. After working at Sardis for several years, these interests manifested in questions about what else we knew about Lydians aside from the evidence at Sardis. Where else did Lydians live? How did they get by? How much did they interact with Sardians, if at all, and with those outside Lydia? These questions led to a study of the distribution of Lydian tumuli, or burial mounds (as markers of cemeteries and, hence, settlements) and eventually to work with museum archives and material collections and regional surveys (with many thanks to my co-director Dr. Christina Luke and our annual participants), the results of all of which came together in the book.

GE: Walking on the path to becoming a specialist on Lydian archaeology, I use your book as one of my reference guides. I know that only a few books on Lydian archaeology present Lydia diachronically through its material remains, but almost none are in Turkish. As your student, I am proud that your book is among the very few Lydian archaeology-related books translated into Turkish, and I am happy that the Lydians will meet an even wider audience as a result. First, when your book was published in English, how well was it received by the wider academic world and the general audience, and have there been any changes or developments in your approach to the topic since then? Second, I am curious to know how you felt holding in your hands the Turkish version of your book.

CHR: The original version of the book has been generally well received (as far as I know!), with published reviews providing general praise as well as constructive criticisms, especially concerning arguments about the nature and intensity of the Persian presence in Lydia in the late fifth and fourth centuries BCE, well after the eclipse of Lydian hegemony. Ironically, it is in the opposite chronological direction that my approaches to Lydian archaeology have moved, now focusing on the study of what we believe to have been a regional capital of the Pre- or Proto-Lydians, in the Late Bronze Age around 3,500 years ago: Kaymakçı. The site and its tentative association with the independent kingdom known to the Hittites as the Seha River Land was mentioned only briefly in the book.

How do I feel about the appearance of the Turkish version? Proud and pleased, first for its general acceptance and now also for its availability to the active scholarly community in Turkey engaged with aspects of Lydian archaeology.

GE: Could you tell us a bit about the translation process?

CHR: Working with Koç University Press was a real pleasure. My contacts were knowledgeably helpful and patient throughout the process and drew from their broad experience in selecting an appropriate translator (Hilal Gültekin Çatak) who aptly handled some of the more technical vocabulary.

GE: I know that you have a good grasp of the Turkish language. I was wondering whether you had the chance to examine the Turkish translation of your work. If so, how did you find it?

CHR: (You’re too kind.) I have of course examined the Turkish in the book and am pleased with the translation. My first glance was to see how “landscape” was translated, as it is used frequently throughout the volume. Avoiding the French-derived “peysaj,” the translator adhered uniformly to “çevre,” which I hope can convey the same flexibility of meaning.

GE: I found your book instructive not only because you present a synthesis of the archaeology of the Lydian era from its beginning to end, but also you do this with the approach of combining the findings of the only known urban site, Sardis, with new data from its hinterland to enable a discussion regarding changes and continuities in various practices of Lydian society. In a world in which regional surveys still seem to be applied only for finding important sites to dig, you emphasize, on the contrary, that regional archaeology can do so much more to learn about past societies, the evidence being the results of your book. Do you think that your methodological approach can be a model for future projects in Turkey, especially when it meets a wider audience?

CHR: It is most scholars’ secret (or not so secret) hope that their work will become a model for others. In this case, however, I myself followed the good examples of previous works that had attempted to combine the results of excavation, regional survey, and museum study into synthetic volumes shedding new light on past societies. Jack L. Davis’ Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino (1998; University of Texas Press) is a particularly nice example of an edited volume that achieves this. Jeremy McInerney’s The Folds of Parnassos: Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis (1999; University of Texas Press) was a closer model to follow as it focuses primarily on the most prominent era of a region’s history and is neatly presented through a single author’s narrative voice. If the Turkish version of my book is at all well received, of course I hope that others may be able to benefit from its methodology such that we will continue to see the publication of up-to-date regional syntheses for the varied and rich archaeological landscapes of Turkey.

[amusicblogyea]

Gimme Your Answers: An Interview w/ Pylo

British guitar band Pylo recently spoke with A Music Blog, Yea? to discuss their personal music recommendations, evolving as a band, trading places with Slipknot, and their forthcoming release The Woman EP. With The Woman EP scheduled for release on March 31st, it’s the perfect time to get antiquated with Pylo’s uplifting and anthemic work.

AMBY:Hello Pylo, please introduce yourselves to the…