Presented By: Museum of Anthropological Archaeology
Gilded Towns in a Dead Land: Water, Warfare, and the Natural World on Kalymnos
Drosos Kardulias, PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan's Department of Anthropology
In the dry eastern Aegean, control of water often corresponds with control of entire economies and
populations. Across millennia, imperial powers have leveraged such control to their advantage, often
dramatically transforming landscapes and social relations as a result. On Kalymnos, fieldwork
continues to find indications of these processes in action. This deforested, dry island has been
subject to many empires, and, it appears, many episodes of ecological devastation. I suggest that
Early Medieval Kalymnos can be understood as a ‘post-apocalyptic’ landscape, in which new
resources, new landscapes, and new social organizations were shaped from a dry and dying earth.
populations. Across millennia, imperial powers have leveraged such control to their advantage, often
dramatically transforming landscapes and social relations as a result. On Kalymnos, fieldwork
continues to find indications of these processes in action. This deforested, dry island has been
subject to many empires, and, it appears, many episodes of ecological devastation. I suggest that
Early Medieval Kalymnos can be understood as a ‘post-apocalyptic’ landscape, in which new
resources, new landscapes, and new social organizations were shaped from a dry and dying earth.
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