I mentioned a couple of posts ago that we had been to the Costa Brava before, three or four fleeting visits spread across the past two decades. The Graeco-Roman ruins at Empuries, where we headed today, is somewhere we had visited previously on our first visit in 1998. We recalled fond memories of a family picnic one chilly day in early April on the beach beside the ruined quay of the ancient Greek port.
What our return visit today revealed is how idiosyncratic and unreliable memories are. We both recalled the jumble of low ruined walls, a small patch of rectilinear mosaic floor and the impressive remains of the port on the shore. Gill had memorised the details of the picnic on the beach and recognised the raised wooden walkways over the low dunes, I recalled the beautiful, tall maritime pines which lined the shore; but in truth when we arrived at the site today, most of it was not how we remembered it all all, for the most part it was utterly unrecognisable.
The most striking dissonance concerned Empuries' setting - a beautiful prospect across the Bay of Roses to the Pyrenees to the north, and turning around, an equally pleasing view of the L' Estartit old town and the cone of white houses beyond it at Cala Montgró. We had no recollection of any of this whatsoever.
Entrance to the archaeological site is through a strikingly modern concrete bunker-like structure containing the ticket office, visitor toilets and an a small cinema with a looping audiovisual presentation about the ruins. So convinced were we that these were recent additions that we mentioned this as we bought our tickets. However, we learned that these facilities had been added as part of the investment in the region which accompanied the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. So, these strikingly modern facilities were something that we had encountered before, but consigned to our inner shredder.
Entrance to the archaeological site is through a strikingly modern concrete bunker-like structure containing the ticket office, visitor toilets and an a small cinema with a looping audiovisual presentation about the ruins. So convinced were we that these were recent additions that we mentioned this as we bought our tickets. However, we learned that these facilities had been added as part of the investment in the region which accompanied the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. So, these strikingly modern facilities were something that we had encountered before, but consigned to our inner shredder.
The site is extensive consisting of a small Greek trading city established in the 6th Century BC by colonists from Marseilles, a nearby port area, and above, on higher ground, a larger settlement established by the Romans after the region passed from Carthage's sphere of influence to Rome's during the second Punic War.
A French family wandered through the ruins at the same time as us, parents, grandparents and a crotchety toddler. Clasped tightly by her mother, the child was stiff with rage. Furious shrieks resounded across the site. Finally tranquillity returned, toddlers can be astonishingly determined at being cross . We bumped into the group a little later among the ruins of the forum. Father and grandparents were talking excitedly about some aspect of the monument, standing a couple of metres distant, looking morose and exhausted, mother was still clutching the child, now comatose, flopped in Mama's arms like a lead-weight rag doll. With three kids in tow, aged 11, 9 and 3, no wonder our memories of our first visit are somewhat sketchy. One of us probably spent most of the time discouraging the youngest from falling into one the many historically significant pits scattered among the ruins, while the other played a peace-keeping role attempting to prevent full scale hostilities breaking out between the elder two. Really, the UN should present all parents with honorary blue helmets.
We decided that what we remember of our first visit has more to do with the holiday video we took a the time. All memories are like this l think; we recall previous narrations of our past, each freshly edited by our present circumstances. Our future memory of today will be shaped in part by the words chosen now and the photographs we have taken. Only fragments of this moment will persist into the future, each of us will recall it differently, and every reiteration will redefine it..
Perhaps a nagging sense of impermanence is the most powerful thing we take from visiting an extensive archaeological site like Empuries. It is difficult not to be struck, as you gaze towards gleaming white L' Estartit across the blue bay, with the reconstructed chequerboard walls of the more ancient settlement right in front of you, that even the loveliest places we build now are destined to be the ruins of tomorrow.
As we followed the waymarked trail around the ruins, stopping at each numbered sign to listen dutifully to the a commentary supplied on aa 'audio stick' by the ticket office, I thought of Barthes' distinction. Though he was insistent that his observations concerned only the 'noeme of photography' it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to apply the way he distinguished 'studium' from 'puntum' to cultural history in general. The careful reconstructions of the archaeologists, the numbered artefact's in the museum, each dated and categorised, the audio commentary's attempt to place it all in a broader context or bring it to life through imaginary little 'skits' - all of this belongs to Barthes' 'studium' - agreed historical 'facts' verified through scholarship. History may captivate our interest and broaden our horizons - but the mere accretion of data is rarely uplifting or inspirational. It is odd detail which unexpectedly catches your eye that 'pricks' you; the 'punctum' of the past sings to us, quietly and sadly, from hidden corners.
The museum's star attraction is a well preserved statue of the Greek god of healing, Asklepios. It is a fine example, dating from the Hellenistic period, larger than life-size - the sole artefact in a darkened room, lit spectacularly, presumably to recreate the impression it may have made in the inner sanctuary of a temple. It is striking. However, other than noting the fact that it was modelled in two different types of marble, a technique similar to the statue of Demeter we saw last year in Sicily, at the museum in Aidone, the statue did not really inspire me.
It was the smaller objects that 'pricked, me - tiny painted jars for essential oils and perfume; small figurines from a child's grave; items of jewellery. These speak to us more powerfully because they have an intimacy, they are loved personal possessions of a long dead person. The jewellery I find particular touching, because the absent body is inherent, a slender neck once occupied the string of beads, a wrist wore that bracelet, a ring requires a finger.
Nowhere is this sense of absence more powerful than in the small cemetery at the southwest corner of the site. The Roman city was abandoned some time in the 2nd century AD, not through some natural disaster, like Pompeii. The development of Narbonne to the west and Tarragona to the east rendered the smaller port at Empuries redundant.
The impressive forum, large temples, fish processing factories, amphitheatre and lavish mansions with their beautiful mosaic floors, everything was left to fall into ruin. Only towards the end of antiquity was the area re-populated when a small walled village was constucted on a rocky promontory about 500m west of Empuries. St Marti d'Empuries is still inhabited. Its simple church is built on the foundations of earlier Roman and Visigothic Christian basilicas; some claim it is the earliest Christian place of worship on the Iberian peninsula.
The impressive forum, large temples, fish processing factories, amphitheatre and lavish mansions with their beautiful mosaic floors, everything was left to fall into ruin. Only towards the end of antiquity was the area re-populated when a small walled village was constucted on a rocky promontory about 500m west of Empuries. St Marti d'Empuries is still inhabited. Its simple church is built on the foundations of earlier Roman and Visigothic Christian basilicas; some claim it is the earliest Christian place of worship on the Iberian peninsula.
It was these early Christians who decided to use part of the ruins of the Roman city as a cemetery, and half a dozen roughly hewn sarcophagi lie in situ where archaeologists excavated them, each pointing east towards the Holy Land. Abandoned, Empuries had become a city of the dead. When compared to the magnificence of the Roman city, there is something saddening about these coffins, not only the contrast of the primitive carving compared to the intricacy of the Roman mosaics nearby, but also there is a question of numbers.
Empuries was occupied for about seven hundred years or for about 20 generations. It was a significant settlement. Let's say, for the sake of argument the average population was 25,000 - a conservative estimate. This would mean about half a million people lived out their lives here, yet aside from their artefacts, the only evidence of the human population are a few sarcophagi from a later era. The name Empuries means trading place - as in our word emporium - what is more human than doing business? Yet now all that remains is absence.
Empuries was occupied for about seven hundred years or for about 20 generations. It was a significant settlement. Let's say, for the sake of argument the average population was 25,000 - a conservative estimate. This would mean about half a million people lived out their lives here, yet aside from their artefacts, the only evidence of the human population are a few sarcophagi from a later era. The name Empuries means trading place - as in our word emporium - what is more human than doing business? Yet now all that remains is absence.
It has been another beautiful day, perfectly clear - a stunning light. The combination of beauty and absence gives a sites like this an 'air' of uncanny melancholy - like you get in a painting by di Chirico, I sensed the same feeling at Mycenaea, Segunta and Epidaurus.
In the museum, crouched down, trying to photograph a red figure vase that had been tucked away on the lowest shelf, my eye was caught by the half-turned pose of one the female figures. A fragment of Keats occurred to me:
"She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu."
In 'Camera Lucida' Roland Barthes persuade us, I think, that photography's essence is that it records, without mediation, 'what-has-been'; that all photos are a kind of memento mori. However, for me, Keats is the writer who writes most powerfully about how artefacts can work a similar magic. It took Barthes, in my edition, 119 pages of intense, at times gnomic, prose to assert his point. Yet Keats unravels how Time is encoded into ancient artefacts in just 50 lines. His reflection on a simple Greek vase, asserts the 'persistence of memory.' When we got back from Empuries I re-read the famous ode, basically, because I don't require much an excuse to re-read it for the umpteenth time.
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