Lead Lab Intern Cole Himmelheber with some of the artifacts in the AMCA Lab.
By: Elijah Smith, Class of 2026
Since opening its doors, the Butler University Ancient Mediterranean Cultures and Archaeology (AMCA) Lab staff has handled, refurbished, interpreted, and cataloged various historical artifacts from the Ancient World. Located on the third floor of Jordan Hall, the Lab has employed many student interns to help AMCA Director, Archaeologist, and Classics Professor, Lynne Kvapil with the collection. Dr. Lynne Kvapil. Students earn credit or receive an hourly wage for their work. Recently, I spoke with two of the interns: junior History Major and Classics Minor, Cole Himmelheber, and junior Anthropology, and Criminology and Psychology majors and Sociology minor, Emma Podvorec.
The day-to-day activities of the lab vary based on what is needed. The Lead Intern, Cole, delegates and makes sure that everything is running smoothly and efficiently. The list of projects can be extensive but rewarding ranging from simply updating information in the in-house database to working directly with an artifact. Currently, Emma is working with an Egyptian funerary cone which she describes, as “my baby. So I’ve been like translating the hieroglyphic setter on that and then on any other artifact from different museums across the world to see how that works.” Cole is working with Boaty, an ancient Egyptian model boat, to refurbish it. The antiques are stored at a specific temperature range. The interns carefully avoid chipping the wood or paint and constantly check for mold. They are also working on display cases for the front of the Archeology Lab to present artifacts to the Butler Community. As Cole describes it, “Once that is completed, it might be just outside the door, but it is a mobile display case. So, there are many opportunities to integrate the wider Butler community to what we’re doing. We can see a lot of our little treasures in here.”
The Lab doesn’t just deal with artifacts, they also develop and cultivate a variety of research texts for students to utilize. While every college has a library students can pull from the HAC department has a unique one in the AMCA Lab. Previous students have used lab resources for final papers/projects, Butler Summer Institute research, and thesis work. Curious? Just stop by the Lab or email Dr. Kvapil.
Written by student Aiden Gregg as a part of his internship experience in Greece:
This semester, as part of my study abroad program, College Year in Athens (CYA), I have had the opportunity to intern with the Wiener Lab. The Wiener Lab is a research department of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens. The American School is a research institution dedicated to studying Greek archaeology, history, language, and other disciplines under the umbrella of Classical Studies. The lab is located on the main campus of the American School — at the foot of Mount Lycabettus — and is split between two buildings, colloquially referred to as the “old” and “new” labs. For this internship, I have spent most of my time in the old lab, assisting my supervisor, Anna Karligkioti, in processing materials for her research project.
Most of my work for this internship involves cleaning human bones and doing basic identification and grouping. Most bones can be cleaned with a toothbrush, some water, and a small wooden pick, though some thinner bones require more gentle treatment than others. Cleaning the skeletal elements allows my supervisor to identify pathologies on the surface of the bone, which is important to her research. Special care must be taken with some cranial bones, especially mandibles with teeth in place. The teeth can be used for DNA extraction and the cleaning process can make that difficult. Ironically, brushing the teeth can also cause the teeth to appear to have pathologies they did not have originally. As part of the cleaning process, I have become more familiar with human skeletal elements, and how they typically look. I am beginning to understand how to identify more obvious pathologies in the bone, specifically those associated with breakage during life. Additionally, my supervisor has shown me how to use cranial and pelvic morphology to estimate age and sex.
My work aids my supervisor in conducting bioarchaeological analyses of the material for her dissertation. The skeletal material for this part of the project comes from a cemetery near Thebes in Boeotia. She also plans to look at skeletal material from a cemetery in the Mesogeia Plain, in Attica. The cemetery near Thebes contained at least 843 burials from the Geometric to Early Roman periods, though all the remains I have worked with were from the Hellenistic period. My supervisor is currently focusing on using biodistance analysis to understand kinship patterns and mobility in this area of the Greek mainland.
Biodistance analysis uses skeletal morphological traits and analysis of phenotypic variation to understand how people are biologically related to one another. For this, teeth are especially important as they tend to exhibit normal morphological variation and some dental traits have higher heritability and are good for establishing a degree of relatedness. So far, this study has looked at 13 individuals from the Classical period and 24 from the Hellenistic. Following the assumption that people are buried with their kin group, the biodistance from one individual to another will theoretically help establish the extent to which biology influences kin groups. My supervisor has used cluster analysis comparing the spatial distance to biodistance within the cemetery. As of now, it seems that burials closest to each other do not necessarily have less biodistance, and are as such not necessarily as closely biologically related as they are with other individuals within the cemetery.
Additionally, preliminary biodistance analysis has shown that Hellenistic individuals are slightly more genetically diverse than the Classical. This discovery indicates a slightly higher degree of mobility outside of the main settlement in the Hellenistic period. With that said, it is evident that Thebans during these periods were generally endogamous, marrying within their communities and kin groups. In general, it seems that there was a relatively low degree of mobility during this period, but more skeletal analysis is essential to the project.
My work with the Wiener Lab has uncovered a part of archaeology that I did not have much experience with before this internship. It has required me to excavate — so to speak — some of my high school biology and chemistry. I think this will be particularly helpful if I have to dig through some more bioarchaeological analysis for my thesis. My study abroad program was an essential part of getting this opportunity. I reached out to my student affairs department about internship opportunities, and all I had to do was submit a cover letter to get in touch. I would highly encourage others, whether they attend CYA or any other program, to reach out early and see how you can get involved.
This past summer, Dr. Christopher Bungard took several students to the Italian Peninsula for a Rome in the Ruins trip. Fulfilling the Physical Well-Being requirement and the Texts and Ideas requirement or a 300-level classics course, the group took the adage “When in Rome…” to heart. They read ancient authors and toured multiple cities and ruins while visiting. Dr. Bungard wanted students to experience the reality of their readings. He notes, “You get a sense of scale and where things are in relation to each other. The stories become alive with a more personal connection.” Seeing the material culture firsthand is drastically different than seeing images of it in the classroom. Dr. Bungard wanted this trip to bridge the gap between the past and the present by being in that physical space. Besides learning about the Ancient Roman world, Dr. Bungard wanted students to learn about themselves while navigating a different place. He states the experience is “eye-opening for students.” While traveling the Italian Peninsula, the Rome in the Ruins trip achieved these goals and more.
On the three-week adventure, Dr. Bungard and his students briefly visited Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Naples, but spent most of their time in Rome. They walked around archaeological sites, toured many museums, and explored the Colosseum, multiple churches, and some catacombs. Not everything went as planned, as some sites were closed for renovations, but these shutdowns provided ample opportunities to explore different areas. One day, the group was supposed to visit Nero’s Golden House but ended up at the Domus Romana. While touring, Dr. Bungard and the students experienced the depth of Roman history. A more modern building sits on the ground level, while its basement houses an ancient Roman archaeological site. As a result of this tour, they also stood at the base of Trajan’s Column and experienced it like a Roman would in the past. It was an unexpected but welcomed experience.
Besides visiting the Domus Romana, another highlight was touring the cities Mount Vesuvius took out in 79 CE. Before walking around the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, students read the accounts of Pliny the Younger, who wrote about the rescue efforts of Pliny the Elder to save the people fleeing the eruption. After reading the primary sources, they experienced the cities themselves. They saw ancient graffiti in Pompeii and encountered a different side of the story in nearby Herculaneum. Both Via Sarjent and Elijah Smith, students on the trip, agreed that Herculaneum was one of the best parts, as it was interesting to see and learn about a different side of Vesuivus’ destruction. They said it was “ten times more gruesome” and wondered why it is not more well-known than its famous counterpart, Pompeii.
In the end, the Rome in the Ruins trip was a success. Students learned so much about the Roman Empire and how it functioned. According to Sarjent and Smith, each day was a different topic, and it was exciting to learn so much. At the same time, they were excited to learn about themselves and the other people on the trip. They lived and navigated a foreign country together for three weeks. It was a fun trip filled with history and constantly thinking about the Roman Empire. Fans of the Roman Empire couldn’t ask for anything more.
Archaeology of the Dead, taught by Dr. Lynne Kvapil, was offered for the Fall 2022 semester. It focuses on the archaeological approaches to understanding death and burial, and students explore the varieties of ways humans have responded to death and the dead over time and what we can learn about the dead and the living from funerary remains. The class meets once a week, and each week generally follows the same schedule: during the week, students are assigned readings relating to the subject of the week, then they contribute their thoughts on the readings to a “Hot Takes” discussion board before class, and in class, they discuss the readings, and lectures and group discussions build off of these ideas.
Final Project Presentations 12/08/2022 (Courtesy of Lynne Kvapil)
Dr. K said, “I teach Archaeology of the Dead, but I prefer what the class affectionately calls it—Dead People Class. I had the opportunity to teach an archaeology class, which is really awesome. I’m here as part of the Classics program, and I love it, there’s so much I love about it, but there isn’t always the opportunity for me to teach about the methods side of what I do. As an archaeologist, this is such a great opportunity.”
When choosing the topic for her archaeology class, Dr. K was inspired by one of the first things she started along with her academic job at Butler, which was an archaeological project at the site of Ionia, a prehistoric Greek cemetery with “these crazy, amazing burials.” The project focused on mortuary archaeology, so she developed the class on burials in archaeology to mirror her work with this during her time at Butler. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve had the opportunity to take students to work at Aidonia. We just finished our fieldwork, and we’re studying and thinking about how to understand the burials we excavated. It made sense to me to wrap my work processing that project and thinking about burials and the things we found with students, to think not just about prehistoric Greek burials, but more broadly about what burials are, what they do, and what they mean. The wider scholarship about how archaeologists approach mortuary situations was kind of my inspiration for what the class is about.”
“A lot of what I hope students take away from this class is the methods aspect—what we do with burials and their stuff and how we do it. I loved our class conversations about how we define burials. It seems like an obvious thing, but there aren’t archaeologically specific things you have to look for to distinguish between burials and some other kinds of archaeological context.”
“There are theoretical things we can take away from burials in terms of meaning, and sometimes that can be complicated, but I’m proud of the class because I feel like they have done a great job working through some of these really tough things, things that even some graduate students struggle with. For example, the idea of personhood as a concept is complicated, but they rolled with it. It’s fun for me to see that thinking.”
Students conducting field work in Crown Hill Cemetery (Courtesy of student Danny de la Vega)
I asked several students in the class why they chose to take this class. Multiple people noted they took the class because they love Dr. K, and expressed interest in archaeology and mortuary science, as well as death and the culture surrounding death. Everyone I interviewed was very taken with the class, remarking how much they loved it despite its challenging material. Kiara Somerville, a junior software engineering and economics major with a classics minor, said, “This quickly became my favorite class of the semester and possibly one of my favorites of college in general. The subject matter is so cool and nothing that I ever would have imagined that I would enjoy or learn about. Our class discussions are also very good and weird. I also really appreciate how passionate Dr. K is about this class, and it shines through in the creativity of our assignments, which make the multiple twenty-page readings each week at least slightly bearable.” Gansey Petroff, a senior classics and psychology major, said, “I really love this class; the vibes are immaculate. Everyone is super collaborative during discussions which makes projects and difficult readings much more fun. I’m really comfortable sharing my ideas with everyone and hearing their own.” Senior Lexi Harford, an art and design major with an emphasis in art history and an anthropology minor, remarked, “This class is definitely one of my favorite classes I’ve taken in my undergrad experience. I love that everyone in this class seems as interested in the class as I do and that we all have a bit of a morbid sense of humor that makes the conversations really meaningful, and most of the time, very entertaining.”
When I asked Dr. K what her favorite part about teaching the class is, she responded, “Reading the Hot Takes makes my day because they’re so passionate about what we read, even if it’s something we don’t like. I love it and having that preface to talking about things in class is part of why I’m so excited every Thursday—people are already coming out in full force. It’s really exciting to see what people write out, literally reading their first reactions and then sorting through those feelings in their ideas in class is super exciting and really cool and inspirational.”
When asked what their biggest takeaways from the class were, I received a variety of responses. Petroff remarked that archaeology is really difficult and that it’s destructive by nature, and Somerville answered, “That I know nothing, and that the world really needs to treat human beings with respect.” Sophomore history major Cassidy Paulk said, “My biggest takeaway from the class is that death does not have to be a scary thing. This class has given me a new perspective on death. Firstly, I now view death as another transition in a person’s life. It happens to everyone, yet many people around the world feel differently about it. I have enjoyed learning about the different ideas and practices surrounding death for different people. I think that taking this class is a great decision as it gives you so many ways to widen your perspective.”
Dr. K channeled her creativity and passion for the subject into the final project, which is a culmination of everything that has been covered over the semester. She described, “The final project comes in two parts. The first part is to design a burial and a funeral to go along with it. It’s freeform, you can make it anything you want. The second part is to fast forward in time and think about how an archaeologist would approach your burial. The goal is to think about methodology, how you’d encounter it, how you would sort out your findings, how you would create meaning out of that based on what survives, and how you would ethically approach what you do with your findings. It really incorporates the big underlying themes of the class and asks everyone to be an archaeologist for this thing that they’ve created. I think it’ll be really interesting and I’m excited to see what people come up with!”
A special visit to the class by “Boaty!” (Courtesy of student Gansey Petroff)
The creativity and thoughtfulness of the class comes through with all the unique ideas for final projects. Petroff is “planning on describing a tree pod burial, which is actually how I want to be buried. It sounds super cool because you get to pick what kind of tree you want, and it would represent you in a way. Plus, it would be really hard to excavate, so I’ll have fun with the archaeological description side of things.” Somerville said, “My first thought was a clown funeral, but then I remembered that I’m absolutely terrified of clowns, but I also keep thinking about the clown funeral from Modern Family and think that doing a funeral around some random, quirky profession would be fun. Or the burial of a diehard stan of something random, like Cats the movie because I can just imagine a group of future archaeologists staring at a grave and wondering why there are plastic cat ears and a Taylor Swift poster as grave gifts.” Paulk wanted the final project to connect to something about the differences in practices of funerary customs for people of different genders, and Harford said, “I’m thinking about doing some research on how ceramic glazes are made. I’m a studio art major but also love art history, so I’m imagining cremated remains being incorporated into a slip or glaze that is used to recreate black figure-style pottery with a scene representing the life of the deceased. I wanted to do something far outside of the box that if an anthropologist or an archaeologist found it way in the future, they’d be shocked by it!” There’s no doubt that every single final project is going to be incredibly unique, and a brilliant demonstration of the things learned in this class!
Finally, I asked Dr. K if she is planning on teaching another archaeology class in the future and what it would be on. “I hope so! I pitched a class on my specialty, the Mycenaean Greeks. I haven’t gotten a chance to focus on that because I’m working on another project on the Mycenaeans as a culture and about the archaeologists who have worked with them. It’s a little bit niche, so I don’t know if it’ll go, but I figured that since I have this project coming up, it’ll be important for me to focus on that. The idea of being able to bring students into the scholarly conversation that I’m involved in is really rewarding for me and hopefully, it would be rewarding for them too. I have a ton of ideas, so hopefully, I’ll have lots of opportunities to do something like a theory class or a straight-up methods class!” Be sure to look out for more classes taught by Dr. K in the coming semesters!
To wrap this up, in the words of Dr. K, “Classics rules!”
The Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and Classics (AMCA) lab is a collaborative space for students to interact with each other and artifacts. The lab strives to put the materials of the ancient world into the modern classroom. The lab offers a formal on campus experience for students with artifacts to develop practical skills that relate to archaeological, archival, and curatorial opportunities. There are a variety of ways to be involved in the lab based on individual interests.
These opportunities include:
Social media and Blog management
Organization and artifact management
Metadata cataloging and database building
Artifact research
Educational outreach within the local community
I have truly loved my experience as an AMCA Lab intern. Dr. K is one of my advisors and she has made me fall in love with archeology and artifacts all over again. I have always been interested in museums, but this internship has made me more interested in archival and collections work. My primary jobs as an intern have been artifact research as well as working with the librarians to update on our metadata catalog to digitize our collection. This internship has taught me skills that I wouldn’t learn in the classroom that will apply to my post graduate experience!
Here is what some of the other current interns have to say about their experience:
Sophie Graham, Sophomore History, Anthro, and Classics Majors, shared, “I wanted to be an intern mostly because my schedule gave me so much free time I didn’t know what to do with it and I absolutely love Dr. K and wanted to help out in the Classics Department in any way that I could. I think that I’ve enjoyed just getting to see all of the artifacts that we have stored. On my first day working, I got to see real ancient Egyptian artifacts that had been donated to us and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.”
Gansey Petroff, Junior Classics and Psychology Majors, shared, “I wanted to be an intern because I wanted to become more involved in the department as well as explore my general interest in artifacts! My main job this semester has been accessioning and archiving information, specifically about coins and books. Because of this experience, I have learned to be comfortable with things not always going as planned the first time, but it’s okay to step back and re-evaluate and try again. This internship has given me more interest in museum work and archival work.”
Lynne A. Kvapil (she/her), known by her students as Dr. K, is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Greece and Aegean Prehistory. Her research focuses on the Mycenaean Greeks, particularly farming, warfare, the manufacture of ceramics, and labor organization and management. As an active field archaeologist, Dr. K travels to Greece every summer, where she is the Assistant Director of the Nemea Center of Archaeology Excavations at the Mycenaean cemetery at Aidonia and the Petsas House Excavations at Mycenae. Dr. K has been awarded research funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust to support her ongoing research on the Mycenaean Greeks, and she has been a part of a successful grant-writing team that has been awarded funding from the Archaeological Institute of America and the Loeb Foundation to support the excavations at Aidonia.
Areas of Research and Scholarship
At Butler University, Dr. K teaches in all aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world, but most often she teaches about Ancient Greece, including Ancient Greek language courses, Ancient Greek Art and Myth, Ancient Greek Perspectives. She also teaches upper level courses in Ancient Greek and Roman Art and Architecture and Women in Antiquity. Dr. K is also a co-director of the Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and Classics (AMCA) lab, which won a 2015 Butler University Innovation Grant and which aims to help put the material culture of the ancient world into the modern classroom.
Upcoming and Current Butler Courses
PCA 262 CLA: Greek Art and Myth
TI 201 CLA: Ancient Greek Perspectives
CLA 322: Art & Architecture of Greece and Rome
CLA 323: Women and Antiquity
Topics: Archeology of the Dead
Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Ancient Greek
Independent Study Opportunities
Study Abroad and Archaeological Field School in Greece
Dr. Bungard (he/him) hails from the Buckeye State, having earned a BA from Denison University in Granville, Ohio before moving westwards down I-70 to Ohio State University where he earned both an MA and a PhD. He has continued his travel westwards down I-70, landing here at Butler University, where he has taught since 2008.
Areas of Research
Dr. Bungard’s research looks broadly at humor and theatre from the ancient world. He has published on laughter in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes as well as several articles in English and Italian on the role of clever slaves in the comedies of the 2nd century BCE playwright Plautus. He is also interested in the ways that ancient theatre continues to speak to the modern world whether in the classroom or the enduring themes of Medea’s story, connecting her experience with music in the modern world.
Dr. Bungard has also turned his hand to translating various plays of Plautus. His translation of Truculentus has been performed by an all-female cast at Butler as well as an international cast in Toronto.
In an effort to help expand the love of ancient Roman theatre, Dr. Bungard is currently working on a series of Latin novellae for Bolchazy-Carducci. The non-fiction pre-reader, Explore Latin: Ludi Scaenici, is currently out. These novellae will provide tiered readings in Latin about a working-class family on the Aventine Hill who love to go watch Plautus’ plays during the Ludi Megalenses.
Dr. Bungard’s interest in humor stems from humor’s ability to encourage us to think about gaps in a world that we may think is perfectly whole. Humor exposes our values and prejudices, and it allows us to find alternatives when discussions founder along the lines of beliefs that may seem ‘natural’ and ‘normal’.
Current and Upcoming Butler Courses
Dr. Bungard teaches intermediate and advanced Latin courses on authors as broad ranging as Caesar, Vergil, Seneca, and Plautus. He also teaches upper level courses in translation on Ancient Drama, Ancient Law, and Epic Poetry. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, led him to teach a First Year Seminar entitled “Why Is It Funny?”.
In addition, Dr. Bungard regularly takes students to Rome and the Bay of Naples for summer study courses on Roman literature, exploring the intersections of texts and physical sites. As part of this course, students develop short digital stories imagining what it would have been like to live near Mt. Vesuvius on the fateful day of the eruption in 79 CE.
Biography