Adea, I finally had the opportunity to read your post on the excavations in Macedon (Pella, Vergina, and others) and I see we've got a bona fide expert in archeology among us - thank you so much, that was fascinating! You noted,

Kalliste, I have good news for you: Pella's excavation of the cemetery under the agora revealed a wonderful linguistic artifact! (And we all know how few and far removed such artifacts are!) It is a curse tablet found in one of the tombs. It was written by (or for) a lay-person (I believe a woman), it has been looked at for any clues on the Macedonian dialect. Now, it is in Greek, but it contains phrasing that is peculiar. It has received attention in Greek archaeological journals, but my Classicist friends had never heard of it (leading me to believe that all publication is limited to Greek). Let me know if you are interested in more, and I'll write up a little synopsis of the work. (It is really fun; If I remember correctly, the woman is trying to bind her husband to keep him loyal to her!)

I, for one, would love to read such a synopsis. Will you share with us?

One thing that blows my mind about even my primitive understanding of the tomb excavations in the past 30 years - that the whole understanding of primitive, arts-deprived Macedon has just been blown away by discovering tombs, art, architecture, and sculpture that shows that they were importing the very BEST of Greek art into Macedon for at least 50 years prior to Alexander. And since there's nothing quite like this near Athens, in an odd way, the Macedonians come out of this looking far more cultured than what remains to us in some areas of Greece! That must have required a certain amount of rewriting from scholars who fell for the Athenian opinion of Macedonia's wealth and culture . . .