Assistant Professor of Classics Marilyn Evans and four Kalamazoo College students worked on a project overseas last summer that they could really dig.
For about a month, the group participated in the Gabii Project, an ongoing archaeological excavation launched in 2007 by the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, which is studying the early history and growth of Gabii, an ancient Latin city that once was Rome’s nearest neighbor and rival.
Evans, a K faculty member since fall 2020, is a Roman archaeologist who reconstructs the city’s earliest days and those of the cities that surrounded it. She has worked with the Gabii Project since she was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, when she was looking for a venture she could connect with for multiple years.
“Up until that point, I had been excavating, but I changed sites each year,” Evans said. “I think that was mainly because I was catching the projects at the end of their campaigns. I wanted to go to the Gabii Project because it was run by a good school and a good group of scholars, and they were just starting out. That same summer I did another study abroad program in Rome, so I had connections to the project. That was in 2009, and I just kept going basically through a Ph.D. and through the early stages of my career.”
Now, as an established tenure-track professor, she can guide students such as Garrett Hanson ’23, Clara Szakas ’23, Eliana Orozco ’24 and Brooklyn Moore ’24 toward archaeological digs in general—in Rome and Greece—and to her project specifically through connections and teaching.
“I’m developing a roster of courses that’s building off of the good work of my colleagues like (Professor of Classics) Elizabeth Manwell and (Emerita Senior Instructor) Anne Haeckl and generating some excitement for archaeology and Roman and Greek culture as well,” Evans said. “I try to bring into the classroom my work on the Gabii Project or get students using stuff that the project has excavated in their own assignments. That’s a good way to get students acquainted with it and figure out who’s interested in archaeology.”
Gabii is located at the Lago di Castiglione, an extinct volcanic crater that was a lake in ancient times and today is filled with earth. The city through legend was said to be the place where Rome’s mythical founder, Romulus, and his brother, Remus, were educated. Its most prominent ruin is the Temple of Juno, dedicated to the goddess who was believed to be a protector of the Roman people.
During the Archaic period, from about 753 to 510 BCE, Rome and Gabii were at war. Rome prevailed in the fight, leading to a treaty consisting of text written on the skin of a bullock stretched over a wooden shield, and displayed in the Semo Sancus, a temple in Rome. Gabii later became a renowned city during the Republic period from about 509 BCE to 27 BCE and Gabine influences are plainly evident in Rome’s history.
That backstory and Evans’ lessons intrigued the four students who jumped at opportunities to join the Gabii Project in 2022. Through pickaxes, shovels, wheelbarrows, plenty of water and camaraderie, they endured sweltering heat in a physically challenging environment to touch history and learn from a once-in-lifetime experience.
‘It struck me profoundly’
Despite being a classics major, Hanson has always considered himself to be more of a linguist than an archaeologist.
“I very much like the literary side of things, so archaeology was a bit removed from my field of interest, but it was still close enough that I figured I would at least give it a try,” he said. “It has definitely become something that I’m interested in continuing to study and be a part of.”
The Gabii Project was especially valuable for him because it yielded so much more than digging.
“With everything that happened during the pandemic, this was my study abroad experience,” Hanson said. “We were living in Rome, so it was definitely immersive in that way. I was a big fan of the work, but there was lots of free time as well to see monuments, the Forum, the Colosseum and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the whole experience of living and working in Italy.”
During the experience, he and the other students worked with groups to classify and understand the objects they found in Gabii, analyze the culture behind the materials, build ideas of the environment of Gabii by examining organic material, and collaborate with a topography team on landscaping, photography, surveying and developing 3-D models. He also was thrilled when he pulled up a stone that had some writing on it.
“Again, I’m sort of a linguist, so to see something come out of the ground with writing on it was very cool,” Hanson said. “It was very fragmentary, and I spent a long time cleaning it. It also had plaster on the face of it, so it was hard to tell what it was saying. I spent a long time with several people on site who also work with inscriptions to figure out what this stone was. I remember that vividly because it was exciting for me to see this tangible piece of language and then to work with it even if there was no concrete answer for what it said. It was amazing and it struck me profoundly.”
Gabii ‘an archaeological sandbox’
For Szakas, a classics and psychology double major, an opportunity to participate in an archaeological dig, especially in a place like Gabii, was a lifelong dream come true.
“Gabii went into decline and got left behind with no modern development built on top of it,” Szakas said. “It became an archaeological sandbox, so we were able to do so much. We didn’t have to worry about houses or businesses. We could just take away the dirt and see what was there.”
Szakas said she never would have expected to participate in work like the Gabii Project as an undergraduate.
“I knew coming into K that it was known for its study abroad programs, but I had no expectations of actually getting to put my hands in the dirt overseas,” she said.
Szakas said her ultimate career path probably will follow psychology more than classics, yet while pulling up dirt, she found an object that inspired her to learn, discover and pursue more research.
“I was shoveling up some dirt we had loosened, and I found a big chunk of plaster,” Szakas said. “I looked at it and wondered whether it was just painted or if there was something cool on it, and there was a face. I had to spend some time convincing others it was a face, but it was a profile of a man wearing a laurel wreath. Normally, someone like this would probably be Bacchus or Dionysus, but I don’t exactly know what kind of room we found it in or some of that context. I think he’d probably be a deity. It’s interesting to think about it.”
‘It felt like the universe was telling me to do it’
The experience of being abroad in Italy helped Orozco prepare to study abroad in France. Plus, archaeology has been a subject that fascinated her since she was young.
“I’ve always had my sights set on being an archaeologist since I was in middle school,” Orozco said. “When I found this opportunity, it felt like the universe was telling me to do it. I was blown away because I had Dr. Evans when I was a first-year student, and she was teaching my Greek and Roman slavery class. She was so amazing, and I wanted to take every class I could with her.”
By the time she left Italy, Orozco realized she was doing something most people never will get to do because Gabii is a newer site that is still being explored.
“The fact that I got to be a part of a team that was digging up a new area of a site that is thousands of years old is amazing to me,” Orozco said. “We definitely learned aspects of archaeology with experts who could show us what archaeology is really like. They’re some of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”
She made a find of her own when she pulled a stone out of the ground that had an inscription on it. Orozco said every discovery made during her time there was thrilling.
“Even when others made finds, holding them and seeing them was incredible,” Orozco said. “It pushed me to keep going because sometimes it was difficult. The heat was intense. We were constantly squatting or sitting on our knees. It was physically intense, but the prospect of finding something new was tantalizing for us.”
‘I could talk about the experience for years’
Moore, an English and theatre major, isn’t considering archaeology as a career path. Therefore, she feels fortunate to have pursued it as an interest through the Gabii Project.
“I grew up in Kalamazoo, and I never ever thought I would go to K because I wanted to leave the house and all that,” Moore said. “But this is one of the things that makes K uniquely K. There were students from other schools there, but it’s an experience that I think I never would’ve had if I hadn’t gone to K. It was so surreal because it was my first time out of the country and it was unbelievable to be learning firsthand about so many things that I’d only read about previously.”
The opportunity was especially beneficial for Moore because of how much she respects Evans as a professor.
“She’s the best,” Moore said. “I asked her so many questions that I can’t believe she didn’t ask me to please stop asking her questions. She just always had an answer and was always willing to converse on any topic.”
Moore is in Scotland now on study abroad, but the experience in Gabii was so enlightening that she would like to go back there.
“I like finishing things I’ve started, so I’d love to get to know more about what I’ve already started to learn,” Moore said. “I kept calling it nerd summer camp, because that’s what it felt like. Everyone had the same interests, and we would go from having silly conversations to deep intellectual ones. I think we all complemented each other a lot. I could talk about the experience for years.”
Defining success
An archaeologist might consider success finding certain artifacts or completing a dig at a particular site. Evans appreciates that, too; however, her students made this season especially rewarding.
“I really like archaeological work, and I love it when students are enthusiastic about it, even if they discover that it really isn’t for them,” Evans said. “Last year was a particularly good year—students showed up to do the work, they did the work, and they were happy to be there. For me, that’s a successful season.”