By Dorothy King
I think some details in this story are translation issues, whilst others are added melodrama (the town of Drama is nearby, hence the many Drama Queens?).
My understanding is that the 1999 survey by Polymenakos et al, whose images are widely available on the internet, was not a project with the Ephoria. The images I have seen are confusing, since those sorts of geophysical surveys works well in fields but less well when it comes to differentiating stone that is bedrock from stone that is used for building – and the current work was not based on them.
The structural issues are very clear from every photo, and the archaeologists had been aware of them for well over a year, hence the slow progress. I am pretty sure the press has had Dr Peristeri mention that they did another survey, and there was one last year as is normally from a top class archaeological team.
I suspect that geologists have been brought in to help the team with the survey and to interpret the evidence, but the excavation has not been handed over to them. Katerina Peristeri has done a remarkable job, and will continue to make remarkable discoveries at Amphipolis.
