Argilus: Thirty years of archaeological digs and discoveries—and counting!

In 5 seconds More than 50 students are part of an archaeological mission led by Professor Jacques Perreault in the ancient Greek city of Argilus, where digs have been taking place since 1992.
Tania Groleau, Louis Paul Lellouche, Audrey Ouellet et Tommy Laniel

Dispensary or mini-hospital

Last year, the students searched the interior of a room in a new building, where they unearthed some unusual objects, including an ancient hot-water bottle made of clay.

“The Greeks called this object a thermofora,” said Perreault. “It would take the shape of the part of the body on which it was placed. At the time, it was generally found in hospitals. This discovery, combined with the other artifacts we’ve found, leads us to believe that this building must have housed some kind of dispensary or mini hospital.”

The budding archaeologists will also visit the site to study its architecture and structure and plan future digs.

Preparing the next generation

Jack Kohn, Sasha Greenhall, Justine Lefebvre, Daphné Sauvé, Regina Delgato and Olivia Spink

The summer internships cover a range of subjects—principles of archeological excavation, handling and identification of objects and artifacts, the history of the region and its significance—and use a variety of approaches to spark the students’ curiosity and get them excited about ancient history.

Perreault hopes they will become interested in careers in the field. For years, he has included Cégep students in his trips to Greece. This year, he is accompanied by students enrolled in the history and civilization program at Cégep de Rosemont and Cégep Lionel-Groulx. Under an agreement between these two Cégeps and UdeM’s Faculty of Arts and Science, the best students in the program can take Perreault’s Introduction to Archaeology course and receive credit for the course if they subsequently enroll in the Department of History.

Every year, between 1,000 and 1,500 objects are discovered at the site of the ancient city of Argilus, where archaeological digs have been led since 1992 by Jacques Perreault, a professor in the Department of History at Université de Montréal.

Argilus was a colony in northern Greece founded around 655-654 BCE.

This year, from June 3 to July 6, 40 university students and 12 Cégep students will be in Argilus to work on the artifacts unearthed last year.

“In our digs, we do a preliminary sorting, where we assess each piece and classify it according to its function,” Perreault explained. “Each object is photographed, sketched and numbered for reporting purposes, but they need to be analyzed in greater detail to better understand the environment as a whole, and that’s what we’re doing this year, to begin with.”

Greek-Canadian archaeological mission at Argilus

The Greek-Canadian archaeological mission at Argilus is a long-term collaboration between the Ephorate of Antiquities of Kavala-Thasos and UdeM. Under the direction of Zisis Bonias and Jacques Perreault, the mission welcomes about 40 Canadian and European students each year to conduct digs at the site of the ancient city of Argilus, assisted by skilled workers and researchers in various fields.

Argilus was the first Greek colony near the Struma and the Pangaion Hills on the Thracian coast. Literary accounts of the site describe some of the key events in its history and seem to indicate that it was a thriving city, at least until the founding of Amphipolis in 437 BCE. It is believed it was abandoned around the year 357, after being conquered by Philip II. It was rediscovered by French archaeologist Paul Perdrizet in 1883.

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