Andante Travels

We are really delighted that, for the third year running, one of Andante's Travels has been nominated as a "Tour of a Lifetime" by the National Geographic Traveler.

This year one of our most popular tours '' Pompeii, Herculaneum & Classical Campania  was chosen by the editors of the National Geographic as one of the most important and unforgettable of archaeological vacations.

“You don’t have to be an archaeology buff to be fascinated by the stories of Pompeii. In the most popular of this specialty operator’s offerings, archaeologist guides provide access to the ruins away from the crowds and frame them in the context of the year A.D. 79, when Vesuvius erupted and all life in the area came to an abrupt halt. The trip culminates with an ascent of the volcano itself. Andante Travels: “Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Classical Campania,” 8 days, $2,090.”

Click here for more information or to book Pompeii, Herculaneum & Classical Campania

Click here to see the National Geographic Traveler article in full

The 2010 Winner:

Lamanai Pottery Conservation and Training Feasibility Study

Artefact Library, Lamanai Belize
Elizabeth Graham, Director, Lamanai Archaeological Project
Institute of Archaeology, University College London

The funds are to kick-start a programme geared to increase the benefits arising from archaeology in local contexts.  It is part of a much larger scheme entitled "Sharing Material, Sharing Heritage:  Facilitating Access to Archaeological Resources at Lamanai."  Funding was received originally from the Canadian International Development Agency and the British High Commission for training locals in metalsmithing, building an artisans' centre, and working on ways in which access to the artefacts from the excavations at Lamanai would be facilitated.  We envisage what could be called the sharing of the intellectual property that derives from archaeology.  The larger-scale scheme incorporates both training and education initiatives, but one important part in increasing access to resources is improving the conditions of the artefacts which are presently in the Artefact Library.

There is a Visitors' Centre at Lamanai in which a number of pottery vessels and other artefacts are displayed in cases.  In the Artefact Library (former temporary site museum), all the ceramics that are potentially reconstructable are stored on shelves, whereas small finds are in drawers.  At one time this collection was open to visitors and especially to school children.  Once the Visitors' Centre opened, however, the funds simply did not exist to allow the Belize Institute of Archaeology to keep the Artefact Centre open because they would have needed one of the park rangers to work full-time with Artefact Centre visitors.   In recent talks with Dr. Jaime Awe, the Director of the Institute, he agreed that if we could raise money to stabilise the reconstructable pottery and conserve the small finds, a small entrance fee could be charged which would support a caretaker/park ranger who would be assigned specifically to the visitors and collections in the Centre.

The funds will bring a recently trained pottery conservator from INAH in Merida to Lamanai to review the collections in the AL, meet with a local trainee and begin work on the collections and on structuring a training programme.  The funds are not sufficient to carry through with conservation of the entire collection now on display in the Artefact Library, nor would they cover the complete period of training, but they would allow creation of a section of the Artefact Library --probably the vessels that represent continuity through the Maya collapse--that would act as a prototype of what could be done.  We already have trained several individuals in the village in aspects of pottery analysis and care,  and this would provide an the opportunity for a trainee to advance to pottery reconstruction.  We can almost certainly raise the remaining funds based on this pilot project.

Other entrants included:

A Welsh hillfort, an important archaeological area being assessed and recorded as a community project in Hampshire, an examination of an insula at Pompeii, the completion of a Ph.D into the Hypogeum of Tell Ahrmar in Syria, osteological research (C14 and stable isotope analysis), a survey of a coastal fortified city founded by Ramesses II, a dissertation on the sources of the stone used in mosaic tesserae at Fishbourne, study of the diet of pre-Byzantine population of the Crimea, and a local community project on the Romans in Hambledon Valley, Buckinghamshire.

All these projects are in need of funds.  All are deserving – some extremely so.  If any visitor to this site feels they would like to know more, and may be able to help with financial assistance, please get in touch with us and we will put you in touch.

Here is some further information about the application made by Dr Jill Eyers on behalf of the project: 

Romans in the Hambleden Valley.

“This Buckinghamshire project started at the end of 2007 when local people began to notice damage being done to a site they suspected was a Roman villa, but none of the local community knew exactly what was in the field at the edge of the village. I was called in as a local expert and confirmed that it was a Roman site and agreed to undertake a small project with the local community to investigate and record the site. I was aware of a Roman villa known as Yewden, which was excavated during 1912, resulting in an enormous collection of artefacts. However, what I had not expected was not just one building, but several. I also had not expected that the many hundreds of boxes of artefacts generated in 1912 have mostly never been sorted or researched. Indeed, most of the boxes have never been opened! The group of volunteers is assessing the collection and this is yielding some very exciting results.

In addition, we wanted to enhance our field knowledge and this has resulted in a very enthusiastic team using a combination of geophysics, field walking and metal detecting. There emerged not just one villa at Yewden, but a villa and workshop complex, with masses of adjoining fields and enclosures, then another villa half a mile away, plus an Iron Age village! It is hoped the project will go on to discover why there are two villas so close together and what they were doing. We are already turning up industrial residues, a number of bodies and other intriguing artefacts.

So what were the Romans doing in the valley? There was clearly agriculture associated with the villas, but why did they need 14 furnaces? Other unusual features are the large number of styli found on site – in an illiterate society it is unusual to have a large quantity of writing implements! What was going on in the workshops? Why are two very lavish villas lying so closely to each other? Then there are the 97 infants that appear to have died as newborns – was infanticide being practised on site? These are just some of the many questions this work has posed, and that we are solving this year.

The problem this hugely enlarged project has given us is that we will now need to publish these exciting finds in a monograph. Although we have sufficient funds to complete the field work and complete finds identifications, we have no budget for a monograph. To enable us to undertake the photography, artwork and printing costs we need to generate funds. This will be a prestigious two volume work and I hope that you may be able to help us with funding this aspect of our project.”

2010 Archaeology Award
- £2000

Past winners:

• Volubilis in Morocco – money towards improved signage and website development
• Kerkenes Dag in Turkey – geophysical survey equipment
• Stonehenge Riverside Project – payment of a site supervisor and excavations on the Avenue.
• Pompeii – Via Consolare project – international team exploring one major routeway in detail.

Smaller donations have been made to:

• Nola Bronze Age site in Italy (victim of an ealier eruption of Vesuvius, with similar effects in terms of conservation)
• Roman Glass-making project near Salisbury

We invite future applications for the 2011 award:

Invitation for Applications for

THE ANDANTE TRAVELS
ARCHAEOLOGY AWARD 2011

Applications are invited for the annual award of £2000 for an archaeological project of any professional nature anywhere in the world.

Andante Travels is a company owned and run by people who have trained and worked in archaeology, and the mission of our company is to provide programmes of the highest academic integrity which are also relaxed and enjoyable holidays.  We want everyone to discover what an exciting interest archaeology can be, whether pursued half way round the world, or in one’s own back garden.

The purpose of this award is to give something back from our own archaeologically-based business, and to heighten awareness of individual projects of very different natures. 

Applications should be on one side of A4 only, sent as an attachment to:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 31st January 2011.

Winners will be notified by 5th February 2011.

Much of my doctoral dissertation was written on this subject - not something many travel company directors can claim, perhaps…  I’ve always loved this period, when the well-known machinery of the early Roman Empire and its great armies take over Europe, and the hitherto unknown names of the prehistoric societies and their leaders enter the history books.  It is the period of overlap between history and archaeology and the best time to enjoy both of them as subjects.