Elizabeth Lee '02 Back in USA After Archaeological Dig in Ukraine

September 29, 2004

September 29, 2004, Greencastle, Ind. - "There was no lying on the beach or even working in an air-conditioned business this summer for college student Elizabeth Ann Commons Lee of Richmond," Indiana, notes her hometown newspaper, the Palladium-Item. Lee, the story states, "is a graduate student in archaeology at Florida State University [and] a 2002 graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana... [She] spent her summer in a remote region of the Ukraine working on a new archaeological site, eating cabbage soup, sleeping on a water raft and using a 'Turkish-style' bathroom."

The article continues, "Through the Florida State University program 'Digging with the Department of Classics' and cooperation from the National Institute of Archaeology of Ukraine, she was among those working on a dig in a Ukraine region called Dnepropetrowsk. The project focuses on two mounds on the site known as Kranokutzk and Alexandropol, which are ancient royal burial tombs of the Scythian people. The Russian archaeologist M. Zabelin first excavated these mounds in 1866 and 1872 but was not able to finish the project. The mounds were re-covered and their location documented for future work. Some 130 years later, Lee and other Florida State students were part of the team that began examining the mounds again."

While at DePauw, Lee participated in a summer project at Hacimusalar Mound at Elmali, Turkey (read more here). The newspaper points out that Lee "also has been on archaeological excursions in Greece and Turkey,"  and that she "is a member of Sigma Eta Phi, a classics honorary fraternity, and she was invited to present the results of her study in Turkey to the National Conference for Undergraduate Research in 2002. In addition to her own studies, she is a teaching assistant in Florida State's classics department."

Read the full story by clicking here.

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