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Confessions of a garden archaeologist
Until recently, vanished gardens at archaeological sites were viewed
as useless patches of earth from which little information could be
harvested. Now, they are the object of intense scrutiny worldwide. One
vocal practitioner is Kathryn Gleason, professor of landscape
architecture at Cornell University and creator of a website (www.gardenarchaeology.org)
aimed at supporting the Society for Garden Archaeology, a resource for
this emerging community of scholars devoted to the investigation of
gardens. Gleason talked to ARCHAEOLOGY about why gardens are the most
complex type of "artifact."
So what is garden archaeology?
I consider it a subfield of landscape archaeology, which is a very
broad discipline that looks at landscape change and issues of
settlement over time.
How long have archaeologists been trying to recover evidence of ancient gardens and man-made landscapes?
Individual efforts have been going on since the nineteenth century,
but, by and large, gardens were not thought to be knowable
archaeologically and were not explored systematically until recently.
Romanist Wilhelmina Jashemski has devoted the past three decades of her
career to inspiring archaeologists to excavate garden areas. At 96, she
is still working on her epic Gardens of the Roman Empire.
What sort of evidence do you look for when excavating an ancient garden?
I look for the design of the garden--the paths, garden beds, tree pits, fountains, statuary, niches, trellis supports.
No plants?
Many people are disappointed to learn that you can't excavate the
plants of a garden. With luck, we can learn about some of the plants
from preserved remains or literary sources; we can judge the size of
plants from the planting holes and pots; and we can reconstruct some of
the three-dimensional character of trellises, tree canopies (from the
size of the pits), and, where land snails or insects are preserved, the
overall degree of shade or sun the plantings provided.
What are some of the greatest surprises you've encountered?
Some
of my greatest surprises are a bit specialized, like finding tree pits
after I had begun to doubt that they could be detected at a site. You
really have to love dirt, and not just the artifacts you find in it, to
get that sort of rush. That said, the artifacts and environmental
remains are always delightful--flowerpots with holes in the bottom just
like today's, pig bones in a garden of Herod the Great, or curse
tablets in the well of a courtyard.
What does knowing what someone planted in front of their house
2,000 years ago contribute toward our understanding of the bigger
picture of the past?
Gardens in most times and cultures are the most complex type of
"artifact" that we can study. They are both "things" and environments
that have been carefully designed to establish the owner's--or in the
case of public gardens, the patron's--position in political, religious,
and social life. Gardens were important to an illiterate audience in
telling a visual story, often on many levels, and so were closely
connected to ideas of theater. And, of course, gardens tell us a
variety of things about people's relationship to an idea about
nature--from a king proving that he can control nature's forces (often
with the help of a specific god) to an individual creating gardens to
interact with the natural forces in terms of religious ritual and daily
life--the "spirit of a place" as we still say today.
Are there particular plants that turn up over and over again, whether you're in Rome, Caesarea, or Jericho?
The
plant that keeps appearing in the texts, and on sites as a possible
garden plant in ceramic pots, is the ancient balsam, which is not known
today. Jericho was the center of its production, and it may have been
one of the aromatic plants, like frankincense and myrrh, that
interested the Romans. The balsam was featured in their triumphal
processions and the plant may have been prominent in the imperial
gardens on the Palatine.
Are you a gardener yourself? If so, have any of your landscapes been inspired by a site you've excavated?
Yes, I have 2.5 acres that I either garden or dream of gardening.
Unfortunately, here in western New York, my planting and
experimentation is most immediately appreciated by the deer population.
The Romans and the Anglo-Saxons dug nice banks and ditches to control
deer, but I think my neighbors would be horrified if I came around the
edge of my property with a backhoe.
© 2006 by the Archaeological Institute of America
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