How much are researchers' interpretations of tantalising ancient remains affected by their own prejudices? It has certainly been a significant factor in studies of the Antikythera mechanism. Several scholars from naval backgrounds, who studied the fragments soon after they were retrieved from a shipwreck in 1901, were convinced it must have been a navigational instrument. Later, Erich von Daniken, the Swiss author who thinks ancient civilisations got much of their technology from visiting extraterrestrials, concluded that the clockwork machine was used in alien spaceships. Even today, experts disagree over whether the device was primarily a planetarium or an eclipse predictor, depending partly on which part of the mechanism they discovered.
A story reported in the Guardian today suggests that archaeologists working on sites across ancient Greece may be suffering from a similar problem. They often find the remains of homes that contain hundreds of drinking cups, and it is generally assumed that these must have belonged to wealthy families who threw lavish parties. But Clare Kelly Blazeby of Leeds University, who is due to speak at the Archaeological Institute of America meeting in Philadelphia on Saturday, reckons a more plausible explanation is that the buildings were owned by working class residents, who earned extra money by turning their houses into drinking dens. This would also solve the mystery of why so little physical evidence has been found of Greek tavernas, even though they are so often mentioned in classical literature. Kelly Blazeby thinks that archaeologists may not have recognised the bars when they found them because the sites didn't fit with their ideas of how domestic houses should be used. "It's amazing how entrenched people in the field are," she told the Guardian. "We are trying to change archaeologists' minds by pointing out that houses could be used economically as well as being residences."
Kelly Blazeby probably has a good point. But then her specialist field is the anthropology of working class drinking, so just maybe she too is finding what she's looking for.
[Picture credit: Gorivero]