Good-bye to Nemea, a pilgrimage to the Acropolis, inventorying 5,000 artifacts

NEMEA, GREECE — My time in Greece has come to an end. At least for this year. Last weekend, the remaining members of the staff made a pilgrimage to Athens to see the Acropolis and the site of the Classical Agora. Despite the heat and the crowds of people huffing and puffing their way up to the Parthenon, the Acropolis is just as elegant and impressive as described in books. What boggled my mind was the amount of inventorying done. Both the Agora and the Acropolis have about 6 to 10 times more artifacts to classify and inventory than the 5,000 or so pieces at Nemea.

My last week at Nemea, I typed up inventory sheets for each shelf of artifacts there. This system effectively makes the storage room into more of a library. Hopefully, my efforts will help the museum and the research there run more smoothly in the future.

My summer in Nemea, working in the museum, helped me to appreciate other museums much more. I don't presume to imply that the small museum of Nemea is comparable to huge, well known ones such as the Louvre or the British museum, but in my own small way, I feel I've been a contributor to the increase of knowledge and understanding of past civilizations. I will never forget the small town of Nemea, nor Greece.

And I hope I never forget this feeling of touching a piece of the past — and of the future — at the same time.

—Kathy Chou