Unsettled Settlements: Documenting Site Abandonment and Transformation in Modern Greece

Abstract

The Deserted Villages Project is a multidisciplinary study of 19th- and 20th-century settlements in Greece. The short period of inhabitation in these settlements presents opportunities to document evidence of site formation, decline, and transition using a variety of methodologies. Two case studies will be presented. In the mountains of Phocis, villages founded in the mid-19th century and burned by the Germans during World War II are documented through traditional and GPS survey, UAV based aerial photography, close range photogrammetry, and the collection of oral histories. On the coast of Macedonia, a Cold War settlement for the Voice of America radio station near Kavala is documented through terrestrial photography, GIS, and video. The settlement, occupied from 1972 to 2006, presents a short-lived example of American domestic architecture transplanted into the landscape of rural Greece.