 Dear fellows, dear guests, I'm delighted to contribute to the 2015-16 series of the Society with a lecture on the archaeology of the ignatia. I'm Jurit Sidior Cantelli, Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow, and my work in the past two years is on a very significant European cultural route, which is very much understanding. Today we are going to explore the rediscovery of this route by some early modern pioneers who ventured off the beaten track and recorded antiquities and remarked on the connection between people and monuments. But first things first, the story of the Ignatian route began in the 4th century BC when King Philip II of Macedon embarked on an ambitious project to unite independent Greek city-states under his name and to conquer new and important north-lands, north-eastern-west of the heartland of his kingdom. The Vasilikio dos, the royal route, was a necessary route to lead his expansionary policy. The route extended from roughly the area of Philippi in eastern Macedonia, which is the modern-day Republic of Macedonia. The route united important centres of mineral and land resources that carried huge economic and military potential. On the side of Grinides, on the foot of Mount Pangaeon, Philip founded Philippi, a city which became synonymous with silver and golden mines that fuelled his military campaigns. Neapolis, and this is one of his status, which was made possible because of the golden mines of Pangaeon, Neapolis, a Thessian colony and member of the Delian League was taken over by Philip in 350 BC and was used as the harbour of the city of Philippi. In 42 BC Neapolis became the base of the navy of the republican leaders Brutus and Cassius and in 49 AD it was the first city in Europe visited by St Paul. Amphipolis, a prosperous Athenian colony on the Strimon estuary, contested very often by Athens and Sparta, was taken over by Philip in 357 BC and was to become the power base for his navy. Here you can see the latest archaeological discovery in Amphipolis which also became very controversial in Greece. This is a major barrier, we don't know who commissioned this tool, LNA is trying to fix it, but this is the most important and expensive tool created for a personality someone probably from the royal court or from the entourage of Alexander. So further to the west, we're going to see eventually Thessaloniki on the plain of the thermite gulf, Cassander, son in law Philip II, founded Thessaloniki which was to become one of the most important Mediterranean harbours. And further to the west we have Pella which was a seat of government and birthplace of Philip, so Philip was of course very much interested in connecting Pella with the east and west, so here is Amphipolis with a melee of different architectural styles and you can see the sphinx, you can see the chorus guarding the tomb and the identity of a person we don't know who he is or she is. In Thessaloniki recent archaeological discoveries have made life for subsequent Greek governments and nightmares because five metres below the modern egnatia of those, my fellow archaeologists have uncovered this amazing hub of commercial activity from the Roman all the way to the middle Byzantine period. In Pella, the birthplace of Philip, this stunning mosaic floor records the life and habits and pastimes of the Macedonian courts. And further to the west Edessa, a city not often visited, preserves these amazing fortifications, the Agora and its life stretches from the Hellenistic all the way to the Ottoman period. Now Edessa controlled the area of Upper Macedonia and through the royal route it led to Heraklia Lingistis, now in the Republic of Macedonia and here two kilometres south of modern-day Bitola, a visitor, if you are up to this, can come across these incredible sites next to a cemetery, next to a dumping place, you come across a city with an amphitheater, lots of administrative buildings, basilicas and the most stunning mosaics in the Balkans. And further to the west we come across the Hellenistic and Roman city of Ohrid of Lichnidos and here it's part of the amphitheater of a look in the lake, this was the border of the Macedonian kingdom, this was the end of the royal route. What happens next is that in the 1st century BC the Romans expanded on what Philip had created and this was a major feat of civil engineering. So the V.A. Ignacia connected Dairachium on the Adriatic Sea, all the way to Thessaloniki, all the way to Philippi, then Kipsela and then Byzantium and Constantinople. The milestone of Ignacia preserved this one in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, preserves even the name of the person who commissioned the work or who was responsible for the construction of Ignacia. In the 1st century AD Ignacia becomes interwined with the travels of St. Paul and from 330 AD with a political and cultural trajectory of Byzantium. Today the V.A. Ignacia and its connecting routes are being shared by Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia and Turkey, which makes things very complicated for the preservation of cultural heritage. Three sites along Ignacia, Thessaloniki, Pela, Vergina, Ochrit, sorry Vergina and Ochrit are UNESCO sites and Philippi has just entered UNESCO's provisionalist. The name of the ancient route resurfaced in 1994, thanks to the construction of the Ignatia Odos, another mammoth construction project, which aimed to connect the Ionian Sea with the Evers River that is the Greek-Turkish border. The construction of this route has inevitably prompted rescue excavations that have resulted in very important new finds, but has failed to address issues regarding preservation of heritage and unification of the archaeological sites. This is a challenge my project tries to address, providing the first study of the route in its entirety and using this study as a platform for regional collaboration so that players in the Balkans can put forward a credible portfolio for the route's accreditation as a European cultural route. I just wanted to go backward to explain what I mean by cultural route. You can see here that it commones definition of a cultural route is a land, water, mixed or other type of route, which has its own specific and historic dynamics and functionality. In contrast to the tourist routes, cultural routes are neither invented nor designed. And the Via Ignatia meets all these criteria. This is one of Europe's oldest artes, covers a distance of 696 miles and links Constantinople Istanbul in the eastern volcals to Dairachium du Rez on the Adriatic Sea. The connection the route has been providing over time and space to communities, ideas, languages and religious practices have resulted in a wealth of tangible and intangible heritage. Today we are exploring aspects of this heritage with the help of a group of pioneers who from the mid 15th all the way to the 18th century chose to venture in defiance or often impossible travel logistics in order to observe, record and decipher Ignatia's archaeology. In 1430, 23 years before the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, Siriaco of Ancona traveled along parts of the route by then unsafe and contested by Turks, Byzantines and Serbs. And he recorded antiquities and inscriptions. In 1461, the Venetian Giovanni Maria Angiolelo followed the stretch of Ignatia from Thessaloniki to Silinfria as prisoner of war. In the 16th century, Lorenzo Bernardo appears to have traveled along the entire course of Ignatia and later Pierre Belon, a naturalist and antiquarian, describes the section of the road between Thessaloniki and the Evros River. In the 17th century, Father de Dres, the chaplain of the French ambassador in Constantinople, covered parts of the route and in 1704, Paul Lucas, also a naturalist and antiquarian, managed to travel along the eastern part of the road. In their exploration and rediscovery of Ignatia, our travelers came across an inhabited space where multiple layers of habitation, destruction, spoliation, reuse and reconfiguration of space and building material could be found in just one spot. Of course, this was not a phenomenon pertinent for the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th century. Byzantines, Serbs, Bulgarians, they lived among ruins and were able to understand what was the heritage of the area. The problem is that although Ignatia's Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine legacy informed the everyday life of medieval people there, that legacy was rarely graced with a reference in official Byzantine, Western or Eastern medieval sources. So the writings related to the life and travels of Syriac of Ancona, humanist antiquarian, imagined and occasional spy, are the first to break that rule, offering us priceless insight into Ignatia's fast-disappearing antique and medieval landscape. So let me start with Syriac. In 1430, Syriac of Ancona set out on a journey to the Levant armed with his appreciation for antiquity, his keen eye for observation, and loaded with lots of ancient Greek and Roman literary works, he carried with him and he purchased along the way. The landscape of Ignatia's were very, very difficult to navigate. Throughout his travels he recorded activities and conveyed his view on the connection or disconnection between Ignatia's inhabitants and their heritage. The purchases he was making, for instance, from an orthodox monk on the island of Rhodes, of three recently excavated antiquities, illustrate the profusion of Greco-Roman works of art, effectively turning up in people's backyard, and being used in this case as a source of income. Other purchases, such as the one Syriac homemade of a number of Greek manuscripts planted by the Turks from Salonica, document the pivotal moment in the story of Ignatia when Byzantine heritage became itself part of Ignatia's antiquities. These most recent antiquities, dispersable as poise of war and collectible for their value, in this case literary value, offered their new owner multiple associations with Christendom's fabled Easter Roman Empire and its classical tradition. Syriacos comments on the monuments and sites of Philippi, Thessaloniki, and Enos, to mention a few, further conveyed the importance he placed on interacting with the physical remains of antiquity rather than reading about them in books, a quality that has justifiably associated him with the birth of archeology. In Philippi, Syriaco encountered an archeological site strung with fine monuments, a theater, inscriptions, tombs of illustrious men, and the remains of one's mighty fortification. But he was particularly drawn to an imposing monolithic structure outside the eastern city walls. And this is the structure. And we had to circle the modern village of Crinides last summer, and I have excavated in Philippi for five years, so same on me. But this is just a great example of how we don't use great signage to point to people to these monuments. So this first century monument of some four meters high once marked the stretch of the ignatia between Neapolis and Philippi and can still be seen two kilometers from the archeological site. The name of the location known among the locals with the Turkish name Dikilitas, and the Greek name is Orthopetra, which means upright stone, obviously refers to the imposing structure. Two of the four sides of the monument bear an inscription partly surviving that details the career of a certain Caius Vibius Quartus from the fifth legion of Macedonia and commander of the third regiment of Syriaca in the service of Emperor Augustus. As the end of the inscription has been destroyed, there is no indication as to whether a grave lies underneath or whether it was something erected in honor of this guy. He was clearly a megalomaniac or the city was trying to impress him. Either way, the size of the structure and related expenditure encapsulates the importance and visibility of the Roman military in the civic life of first century Philippi. At the time of Syriaco's visit, the Greek-speaking population referred to it as the major of Alexander's horse Busephalus and revered this stone for its association with the life of Alexander. As in the case of other sites along Ignatia, the story behind Caius Vibius monuments was retold by generations of locals to express the pre-Roman face of Philippi. The name major of Alexander's horse used in this case says a lot about the way its colors process the history of the landscape they inhabited and evaluate its multiple face of human activity. In the second half of the 19th century, the French archaeologist Leon Euse and Honoré Dome recorded Caius Vibius monument, and this is a drawing from their book, and this monument was still standing now next to an Ottoman inn for travelers. They came these guys face to face with a locus persisting reverence of what effectively had become a sacred landscape linked in all probability to the memory of Alexander, and they noted, a superstition attaches to the white powder that is obtained by scratching the marble of Dikili Tams, so they were scratching it. The locals think that the marble has the ability to give milk to nursing mothers. It has been devoured by the knives of villages. Over half of the inscription has been destroyed in this way. Syriacos, second exploration, took him in the eastern part of Egnatia, and it's amazing that he couldn't actually travel over land, but he was hopping from place to place by sailing. So it shows that the road was very, very dangerous by that time. From Silivria, he managed to go to Iraclia perinthos aboard a fishing boat, and there he wandered and looked at the town's fortifications, most of them in a state of collapse. He identified the remains of the ancient walls and of numerous relatively modern defensive walls and towers, and he understood that the Byzantine emperor Heraclius was behind this construction. Scattered stones, some of them in second use as part of the Byzantine walls and churches, charted the historical and cultural trajectory of perinthos, especially the period following the extension of Egnatia by Emperor Trajan, and the subsequent rise in importance of urban centers along the stretch of the route Neapolis that is Cavalla to Constantinople. Inscriptions mentioned in Greeks and Latins, Pagans and Christians, cities and areas stretching from North Africa, Asia Minor, and Lesbos to Pannonia, spoke to Syriacos of a long gone cosmopolitan community. Melancholy and a sense of loss for the once splendid city sum up Syriacos feeling for the places and communities along Egnatia on the eve of the Ottoman conquest. Perinthos' beautiful ruins in a way stand for the ruins of every city he came across. All those places were experiencing increased disconnection caused by the breakdown of communications and great uncertainty in the face of the Ottoman advance. Syriacos' apprehension about what might become of those ancient and glorious places mirrors contemporary disquiet in Western Europe for what people perceived as the impending end of times. In Syriacos' channels that excite in a high symbolic gesture he made to his good friend and fellow spy Rafaela Castiglione. So what he does, he gives a coin to Rafaela and this coin comes from his private collection. The coin I made it up that is this coin of a Spacian but to give you an idea how it might have looked like. So we don't know whether Syriacos found it, purchased it or he just carried it. I think he must have found close to Perinthos. And the Spacian of course is an emperor who holds a very special place in Christian rhetoric and the story of the early church. What is interesting is that Syriacos creates this inflated and highly favorable picture about the Spacian trying to luring Rafaela Castiglione and saying by looking at the ancient coin he really hoped that his friend would reverence and recall again and again undoubtedly the mortal danger not only Byzantium but also western Christendom was facing as a whole. Following Ignatius' fall to the Ottomans, libraries and works of art made their journey to the west. Their displacement was to become Western Europe's gain familiarizing the 16th century scholarly communities in France, Italy and Germany with the wealth of ancient Byzantine culture and allowing for a more nuanced understanding of Byzantium now as a past empire and focus itself on antiquarian interest. Here you can see the leitmotif Macedonia. This is let's say at the center of the Egnatia the country that once rules the word is unfortunately subject to the vile Turks to whom it has become tributary as observant and this is an idolized improbable picture of a landscape of Macedonia and in this atmosphere we have two very interesting personalities we have André Tevé who writes the Cosmographie du Levant and we have Le Singularité a book by Pierre Belon both were composed in the creative atmosphere of rediscovery of the East literary traditions. Yet the interest of those early modern travelers in ancient and Byzantine monuments and sites and their distaste for their Ottomans came hand in hand with feelings of mistrust, religious prejudice and ambivalence as to what Byzantium represented. Those travelers mostly Frenchmen their presence was linked to their country's political and cultural agenda in the east. They were favorable conditions created by the capitulations France had signed and renewed with the Ottoman port and if André Tevé was making highly wildly and you know surprising comments about the sites he never visited Montagne comments about our guy Pierre Belon that he was a true topographer. He sense experience evident in the meticulous description of roots he took, fauna and flora he saw and skillfully drew in his travel journals and the towns and people he encountered. Among his itineraries the eastern section of Egnatia from Thessaloniki to Constantinople is one of the most memorable ones for the wealth of information it offers on travel logistics land resources, archaeology and the built environment. What becomes apparent is that the past informs every single page of Pierre Belon work helping him to understand the landscapes he encountered. This past was dominated by antique Greece and Rome and illustrated by ancient historians, poets, doctors and philosophers to whom Belon makes regular reference with the occasional sleep. The ancient kings of Macedon and in particular Alexander the Great and Philip II provide an overarching platform for his narrative and are credited for most of the important works along Egnatia. It doesn't matter if these works were executed by the Byzantines or the Serbs or the Vargarians everything has to do with Philip and Alexander. So what about Balkans Byzantine or otherwise referred to as Christian past? This appears elusive and blurring inhabiting the fringes of Belon's narrative and open to misattributions. But what he gets right is of course the things about the mineral resources of Egnatia and if you want to write a book about the mines and mines along the Egnatian route it's very important that you read Pierre Belon who makes a very detailed account of what is found in Thassos of the Egnatia and Mount Wangheon. Three successive editions of his book in just three years demonstrate its immense popularity. The book was dedicated to cardinal François de Tournault from the Abbey of Saint-Germain in Paris, patron of scholars and this is the audience Belon wanted to impress and you can see in this edition the Paris edition he chooses not to have this kind of premier in Latin but in Greek and it's a very wonderful prose and it looks like the premier of Ulysses Ithaca and this description gives way to the another edition to an elaborate sonnet in French by Aubert which was originally written for TV and tweaked to suit Belon's profile. I prefer this one because it's so funny and says a lot about Belon. In the course of the 17th century a new wave of western travelers ventured along Egnatia. Their journeys were made possible thanks to effort by François de Tournault to renegotiate capitulations with the Ottoman port in the hope to regain some of its economic power which has seriously been compromised by the opening of new trade routes and the flooding of silver from Mexico and Bolivia to the coffers of the Spanish crown. In the context of those early modern French Ottoman encounters travelers such as father Robert de Dreux, a monk of the Abbey of Saint-Jacques in Paris visited part of Egnatia as members of French embassies others such as de Lacroix and Paul Lucas ventured into Ottoman territories to collect works of art for the king of France precisely because these new favorable conditions were in place. From those early modern encounters travel narratives became in France a very popular literary genre resulting in the publication by 1690 of some 1300 titles. Those narratives called interchangeably and relation de voyage truly change literary taste eclipsing even novency in popularity. Travel accounts of the east familiarize the large body of readership with distant lands increasingly within western Europe's reach and in the context of diplomacy commerce, religious missionaries, antiquarian interest, aesthetics and quest for learning. But exactly where did the orient start in European perception and what kind of travel accounts did the récit and relation de voyage constitute? There has been, I'm sure you know, most of it a large body of literature debating the idea of the orient, the oriental other and orientalism as a trend. But for the purpose of this lecture I would like just to borrow 17th century French voices that describe the orient. The term could mean vast expanses of land egnatia is one of them in one of the four corners of the world where the sun rises and groups of people inhabiting those lands united by geography, ethnicity, religion and cultural behaviors markedly different from those in western Europe. The orient could also refer to the levan a geographical term defined as the countries and places east of France from smirna to Aleppo and the eastern Mediterranean otherwise known as la mer de levon. The ancient via egnatia admired by those 17th century travelers as the great route that people used in the past when traveling from Rome to Constantinople was part of an oriental landscape replete with excitement peppered with a certain frisson of potential danger and there were plenty of dangers and with promises for important observations and discoveries relevant to botany, zoology and archaeology. In this landscape the past served as a looking glass through which the Ottoman dominated Balkans scored a most unfavorable reflection. Cultural norms and adjectives such as the totally bastardized people of Greece unworthy inhabitants of an ancient and glorious country now in ruins. I think this reminds me you know 21st century rhetoric right which they displayed ignorance became the subject of early socio-cultural anthropological observations. Some travelants linked the destruction and absence of books and manuscripts in Greece to what they described as ignorance and militant hostility displayed by high orthodox church officials and patriarchs to any non-theological literature. That approach which conveniently ignored Byzantium's role in the transmission of classical tradition and knowledge through the preservation and copy of ancient manuscripts legitimized if not encouraged the collection of antiquities for Western European cabinet curiosity and collections. Greece's antiquities had to be saved from their ignorant and unworthy custodians be it Christians or Muslims. And the Western travelers approached the Muslim population along Egnatia is equally illuminating of the often conflicting political agendas of early modern Europe vis-a-vis the Ottoman Empire. The 1571 Battle of Lepanto the 1683 Battle of Vienna were reminders of just how close for comfort the Islamic Orient was at Western Europe's doorstep. That Orient was both menacing and alluring. Menace was related to the vast religious gap but that same attribute rendered the Ottomans rather alluring. Those inhabitants represented the exotic other vastly different and difficult to understand. One of the travelers who was able to comment on this relation between the the Ottomans and their landscape is of course the reverend Robert de Dre. He had the chance to immerse himself during his travel in a word as far removed from Paris as possible. From Constantinople to Smyrna and from Edirne to Thessaloniki, Larissa and Athens. The monuments, sites and their inhabitants he encountered are vignettes of archaeological interest. His discoveries along via Egnatia started shortly after leaving Constantinople's gate and after crossing the Evros or Merritt River Robert de Dre's companions arrived at Vera, Vera on the western bank of the Evros River. If you visit Vera these days you will see this is a hamlet at the Greek-Turkish border completely forgotten by the Greek administration but it preserves one of the most stunning examples of Byzantine architecture and interior decoration. Vera studied as a monastery founded by the black sheep of the imperial family, Isaacios Kominos and eventually he created a monastery and then a fortress and from there a small town. Now what you see in the in 2014 during our visit is also what Robert de Dre saw in the 17th century in the middle of the 17th century. The landscape is completely unchanged. So he couldn't sleep during his day so he wandered around and he observed the remains of what he describes as ancient fortifications and the Pretty Mosque. Of course the Pretty Mosque is no other than the Catholicon of the Virgin Cosmosotia. What is exciting is that the Mosque's Imam became de Dre's eager guide. She wanted to point to de Dre the tombs with epitaphs that reflected the former identity of the place as a church and de Dre was able to take in the remains of the Byzantine fortifications and the expansive use over the vast Euras Valley. He also saw the converted religious space and tombstones all from a distant past. They only voked a 17th century landscape both changed and timeless. So the 17th century Imam features in the RSI of de Dre as the new guardian of a sacred landscape where memories of Byzantium were preserved in the funerary inscriptions and the shape of the church and the mosque even if the splendid frescoes of its interior lay beneath layers of whitewash. Memories of Byzantium and this permissive climate of religious tolerance I'll go to this one, yes. Permade also the travel accounts by Evliya Celebi. This is our Ottoman 17th century traveler, administrator and tireless storyteller who crisscrossed the Balkans on official business always. Celebi's encounter with Egnatia's heritage is quite different from de Dre's viewpoint. Filtered through the Ottoman perspectives, spiced with outrageous stories about Alexander, Philip and Prophet and the Prophet Muhammad. But despite his often fanciful historical associations, Celebi is not a fool and even though he doesn't get everything right, his reading of inscriptions and architectural remains are of great value. From his account I would like to share with you his view of Ochrit. The city called the Jerusalem of the Balkans because of the sheer number of its churches was at the time of Celebi's visit a very well-established independent St. Jack in the administrative unit of Rumelia. Its income was something like 235,000 silver coins an astounding sum that reflects the breadth of economic activities that took place in the city and the importance of Lake Ochrit as a major revenue source. So Celebi describes the Acropolis as a pentagonal fortress, correct, solidly built, correct. Of course he exaggerates about the height of the citadel. He says it's something like 30 meters high, this is not true. But exaggeration aside, Ochrit Acropolis remains, especially after its restoration in 2003, an imposing monument of civil engineering with layers from the type of Philip of the Romans of Byzantium and of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel. Excavations led by the Institute and Museum in Ochrit in 2004 uncovered the remains of what is believed to be the first fortification built by Philip II. Now the churches, we have many, many churches in Ochrit and several of them were at the time of Celebi's visit in Christian hands, but the largest and most important one the Cathedral of Saint Sophia was not. So what happened is that this church became a congregational mosque and it was a political movement. They didn't need the space but they wanted to make a point to the inhabitants. So he mentions that this church, the congregational mosque, was bigger and more important than the ones in Thessaloniki Trepizond and even the Church of Saint Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. But there was a problem. This congregational mosque was stuck in a Christian neighborhood. So there were no people coming for the Friday prayers and a handful of guards performed the prayers as the soul worshippers and guardians of the mosque. So the most touching indication of the affection and devotion of the Christian population recorded by Celebi was their effort to pay secret visits to their former church and now a forbidden and crumbling Muslim prayer hall by bribing the Muslim doorkeepers. This light motif of religious accommodation and tolerance along Ignatius landscapes comes again and again also in the 18th century travel accounts. What also becomes obvious in those later accounts are the systematic efforts by Western European agents to collect and ship large numbers of works of art away from Ottoman Ignatia to Western Europe. And with this I come to a last traveler that is Paul Lucas. In his Prohibion of his 1712 book Paul Lucas makes an effort to say that I dedicate this book to the King of France and I want to write about the priceless antiquities I have collected for you, my king, in order to contextualize these purchases. Those antiquities, coins, reliefs and manuscripts, whereby 1712 part of the bibliothèque du Roi and its cabinet, renamed in 1795 the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the cabinet de Medaille et des Antiquités, that's both Dr Benet and myself have visited lots of times. Paul Lucas exploration of Ignatius antiquities began in the summer when he left Constantinople and covers the section of the route between Philippi and Thessaloniki. When he approached the city of drama, his strained eye recognized the splendor and size of the ancient sites through the many architectural remains. He refers to the castle, to the castle and the inscriptions and here you can see the transcription of some of drama's inscriptions. But also he describes an encounter, he had a very peculiar one, with a very difficult fellow. So he comes across superstitious, what he calls superstitious and ignorant Turk, who had barricaded himself in a tower. I mean the tower was his residence and this was an old Roman and Byzantine tower. The Turk harbored the hope that the tower contained an ancient treasure and that the keys to the treasure were the inscriptions he could not read. Needless to say he refused Lucas access to the building for fear that Lucas could decipher the inscription and discover the treasure. Despite all the grief that very unwelcoming fellow gave to Lucas, the Frenchman had the chance to buy ancient coins from the locals and admire structures that he describes in his book as an amphitheater, gymnasium and basins. And if you visit now the city of drama you will see that not very much has remained. We have the remains of some Byzantine fortifications and everything is a model. So these very early modern accounts allow us to understand there is more than what we encounter now in the 21st century. Lucas de Contrama also offered glimpses of the complex relation between an Ottoman townscape, its people and its ruins. Muslims and Christians offer inhabited spaces whose use and building material would go back hundreds if not thousands of years. They regularly came across pieces from a distant past such as inscriptions they couldn't not read or comprehend and portable antiquities they could sell to passing collectors and antiquarians. Illiteracy meant that inscriptions were revered for their undecipherable messages and sees the collective imagination about ancient treasures and the elusive in the case of drama philosopher stone. Despite the rather model sense of the past those same people were able to alert Lucas that he was not far away from the remains of the ancient city of Philippi. When he arrives in Thessaloniki the picture is very different. People not only know their monuments but also know their monuments with their Christian names despite the fact that many of them were by then converted into mosques. Among the stunning examples of Byzantine architecture Lucas admired I would like to focus on Rotunda. So Lucas when he talks about Rotunda talks of an almost spiritual experience he had in a building he deems equal in splendor to Roman pantheon and of course this is a Roman structure which was converted into a Christian place of worship and then in the Ottoman period it was converted into a mosque. His experience in Rotunda was facilitated by the presence of a steep staircase sculpted on the thick walls of the building and almost invisible to the viewers underneath. This staircase allowed him to walk the perimeter of the dome and to come face to face with stunning mosaics of the first zone which were not covered. His close encounter with life-size figures of martyrs and saints standing in front of these monuments comes at stark contrast to a modern viewer's experience of the Rotunda which following if you have ever visited Thessaloniki we had an earthquake in 1978 and until now they're still scaffolding and it's impossible to visit the dome so he was luckier than us. The same close-up viewing of the mosaics of the first zone was still possible during Cousinerie and Louis-François-Sébastien Favel visit of the monument in 1781-82. From the number of sketches Favel has left us and there's an incredible number of sketches in pies. We assume that Favel was also able to climb the same steep stairwell and adopt the same viewpoint as Lucas. The mosaics of the vault were still pretty much in view in 1856 when the American novelist and poet Herman Melvin visited Thessalonica in his grand tour of the Near East. From that visit he carried not only fond memories of the city but he managed to carry also some fallen tesser from Rotunda's mosaic decoration. Back to 1707 Lucas referenced to several subterranean structures whose entrances at the time of his visit had become blocked with rubble and rubbish reflects an interesting pattern in the use of religious base along Ottoman Ignatia. We are talking about a great Christian monument formerly a Roman mausoleum converted into a mosque which had retained its Christian figural decoration and appears underused. Was the Rotunda space used as a mosque after all or was its conversion, as in the case of Saint Sophia in Ohrid was more of a political statement by the Ottoman authorities devoid of religious zeal and purpose. All those accounts are particularly important for understanding of the reception of Ignatia's ancient medieval heritage in particular Byzantine in the early modern east and west. The period during which those travelers composed their work was comfortably removed from the immediate trauma of Ignatia's fall to the Ottomans. Some of the sites they traveled and they visited were in ruinous states. Others such as Thessaloniki and Kavala had recovered and were bestowed with new buildings commissioned by the Ottoman administration. A recurrent phenomenon is unsurprisingly the conversion of important place of Christian worship into mosques. An equally important site not altogether expected by western travelers was the religious tolerance displayed by the Ottoman administration in many aspects of public life. Igor Imams showed their western visitors around. They pointed to pieces from the places Christian and ancient past and in the case of Saint Demetrius in Thessaloniki they even offered Agiasma, holy water. From the attitude displayed by Ottomans officials and their Ottoman subjects, the picture that emerges about Ignatia's ancient and Byzantine past is fascinating. Between ignorance vis-a-vis the past and reverence towards select sites and monuments, in particular those connected to the memory of Alexander and Philip, the inhabitants of Ottoman Ignatia display an array of feelings and understanding of their heritage. What is obvious is that the past was never a foreign land removed from people's daily practices and rituals. The silent understanding between Saint Sophia's doorkeepers in Ohrid and the Christian inhabitants that the ancient church was accessible in exchange for a few coins. The appellation of former Christian monuments in Thessaloniki with their Christian rather than Islamic name more than two centuries after their conversion are just snapshots of the landscape where religious tolerance and coexistence were a reality. In that landscape of beautiful ruins, glorious and painful memories and fables, the ancient word and Byzantium were always within reach inhabiting people's consciousness and space, both private and public ones. The ignorant Turk, even, that Paul Lucas, encountering drama, lived after all in a Byzantine tower whose value was not prepared to share with his literate stranger. As for the stranger, indeed the strangers we talked about this evening, their travels and accounts paved the way in the 19th century for Esprit Cousinerie, Leon Euseuil and Edward Lear. And here I would like to end with this beautiful view of Thessaloniki from the Monastery of La Tadon by Edward Lear, now in the Hoddon Library. And of course it led to the rediscovery of Ignatius heritage in a more systematic way. In the early 20th century, the presence of the Entente Cordial in Macedonia led to the first excavations by soldiers of the Allied armies in Thessaloniki and Afipolis and to the first systematic excavation at Philippi, conducted by the French School of Athens. The finds, related publications and exhibitions have seen shaped and continue to shape the archaeological map of Ignatius. Thank you.