Professor Emeritus Hector Williams, “From the Stone Age to the Cistercians: Arcadian Stymphalos Through the Ages”
Professor Emeritus Hector Williams, “From the Stone Age to the Cistercians: Arcadian Stymphalos Through the Ages”
Professor Williams, who leads the excavations at Stymphalos, in a small mountainous lake valley in Arcadia, Greece, a site famous for Herakles and the Stymphalian birds, guides us through the site’s fascinating history across many periods. Finds at the site date from the Middle Palaeolithic, continue through the Bronze Age. We will hear about the late Classical-Hellenistic city currently under excavation, and how habitation continued through the Roman and Early Byzantine periods and also about the site’s unique Cistercian abbey of Zaraka with its Gothic church. Professor Williams will give us insights into a range of elements throughout the city’s life including the city’s defences, streets and houses, its theatre and sanctuaries. We will also hear about pioneering geophysical work which revealed the city’s street plan and other scientific research analysing finds and human remains.
