An international peer-reviewed English-language journal specializing in synthetic articles and in long reviews, the Journal of Greek Archaeology appears annually each Autumn. The scope of the journal is Greek archaeology both in the Aegean and throughout the wider Greek-inhabited world, from earliest Prehistory to the Modern Era. Thus we include contributions not just from traditional periods such as Greek Prehistory and the Classical Greek to Hellenistic eras, but also from Roman through Byzantine, Crusader and Ottoman Greece and into the Early Modern period. Outside of the Aegean contributions are welcome covering the Archaeology of the Greeks overseas, likewise from Prehistory into the Modern World. Greek Archaeology for the purposes of the JGA thus includes the Archaeology of the Hellenistic World, Roman Greece, Byzantine Archaeology, Frankish and Ottoman Archaeology, and the Postmedieval Archaeology of Greece and of the Greek Diaspora.
Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood and Christina Papoulia (eds) Archaeology of the Ionian Sea.
The Ionian Sea is a somewhat nebulous concept, difficult to divide from the Adriatic on the north and uncertain in its extent to the south; the group of islands usually called Ionian is certainly at its centre, but for a long time the name was extended to incorporate not only Kerkyra (modern Corfu) well to the north of these but Kythera off the south-eastern peninsula of the Peloponnese. The administrative arrangements have now been changed to exclude Kythera, but Corfu remains part of the group and is the home of the Ionian University. However, it is rarely mentioned in this volume, which focusses much more on the central group of islands, particularly Kefalonia, Ithaka and Zakynthos, and is almost entirely concerned with their prehistoric archaeology. These islands have attracted attention since the beginning of Greek prehistoric archaeology, with a marked focus on attempts to identify the home of the legendary Odysseus, clearly set on an island called Ithake in the Odyssey and associated with the island called Ithaka in Classical times and now again having that name (after a long period as Thiaki). But this island has proved less productive of prehistoric remains than the much larger Kefalonia and Zakynthos, and the search for links to famous legends has tended to obscure the islands’ real significance as likely staging points on the natural sea-routes from western Greece up the Adriatic and across it to southern Italy and the central Mediterranean.
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Judith Weingarten, Colin F. Macdonald, Joan Aruz, Lara Fabian and Nisha Kumar (eds) Processions: Studies of Bronze Age Ritual and Ceremony Presented to Robert B. Koehl.
Robert (Bobby) Koehl, well-known for his interests in ritual artefacts and representations, will be honoured to have a Festschrift incorporating this quality and diversity of scholarship, which has been so excellently edited and includes so many warm and heartfelt acknowledgements of his collegiality, throughout the text as well as in an editors’ Introduction and a separate ‘Tributes’ section. More than many Festschriften, the book is a useful up-to-date resource and pointer, with extensive bibliographies, for students of ancient iconography and ritual – primarily in the Bronze Age Aegean, Koehl’s core interest area.
Judith Muñoz-Sogas, Thirsty Seafarers at Temple B of Kommos: Commercial Districts and the Role of Crete in Phoenician Trading Networks in the Aegean.
What are the essential differences between a colony and an entrepot or trading centre, and how are they manifested, and how variably according to setting, history and recovery circumstances, in the archaeological record? Many eminent scholars have attacked these questions with regard to the rich history of Mediterranean interaction during the first millennium BC.
Metaxia Tsipopoulou, with a contribution by Eleni Nodarou. Petras, Siteia II. A Minoan Palatial Settlement in Eastern Crete. Late Bronze Age Pottery from Houses 1.1 and 1.2. Prehistory Monographs 67.
Systematic publication of Petras, a large multiperiod Cretan coastal site with the earliest material found dating to the Final Neolithic, is aided by the straightforward format and layout of the Prehistory Monograph volumes. Here, pottery of the Neopalatial period mainly from one building; House I.1, forms the excavator’s focus (the architecture, deposits and other finds having been published in 2016: M. Tsipopoulou, Petras, Siteia I: a Minoan palatial settlement in eastern Crete. Prehistory Monographs 53. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press). The building, lying north of and below a palace or administrative building on the hill summit, includes the earliest complex stone olive pressing installation discovered in the Aegean but is likely residential in character like its less-excavated neighbour I.2, with two floors reconstructed.
Honors to Eileithyia at ancient Inatos: the sacred cave at Tsoutsoros, Crete: highlights of the collection and The shrine of Eileithyia: Minoan goddess of childbirth and motherhood at the Inatos cave in southern Crete. Vol. 1. The Egyptian-type artefacts.
These two works in a planned series are rooted in an initiative by Museum of Heraklion staff and a local Cretan organisation interested in reclaiming local heritage assets. With funding from INSTAP, these groups sponsored study of ancient objects found in the Inatos/Tsoutsouros cave on the south coast of central Crete. These objects have never been previously studied as a group and derive from looting returns/confiscations/identifications and finds from emergency excavations in response to looting: the latter were conducted by Nikolaos Platon and Costis Davaras in 1962.
Teresa Bürge and Peter M. Fischer (eds),The Decline of Bronze Age Civilisations in the Mediterranean: Cyprus and Beyond. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 154.
The rise-and-fall of civilisations paradigm is intellectually sexy, as it makes that provocative and emotional claim that flourishing societies can, or appear to, ‘abruptly’ take new directions, and it is without any doubt that a volume titled The Decline of Bronze Age Civilisations in the Mediterranean: Cyprus and Beyond would be approached with excitement by anyone interested in the historical change of human conditions, although especially within academic circles. Product of a 2020 meeting held in Gothenburg, Sweden, organised within the framework of a larger research project (2016–2021) led by Peter M. Fischer on The Collapse of Bronze Age Societies in the Eastern Mediterranean, this imposing and beautifully edited volume of nineteen chapters, edited by Peter M. Fischer and Teresa Bürge, brings together fifteen papers delivered at this workshop, alongside three additional contributions from external scholars. Collectively, nineteen chapters invite a broad reconsideration of the transformation, weakening or utter collapse and its aftermath of Bronze Age cultures throughout the Aegean, Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, and Egypt, around the twelfth century BCE. Each chapter is consistently and generously illustrated, with a well-curated selection of colour maps, photographs and line drawings enhancing the visual and scholarly appeal.
A. Bernard Knapp, Late Bronze Age Cyprus: A Reassessment of Settlement Structure and Society. SIMAL Pocket- Book 192.
The work under review here is effectively an extended essay on the Cypriot Late Bronze Age attractively packaged as a small monograph (so complete with hardcovers, excellent illustrations and an index) and dedicated to two titans of modern Cypriot archaeology, Vassos Karageorghis and Eddie Peltenburg. The explanation in the Preface that the book was published in this format because it was in this series that the author produced their first single-authored book in 1986 seems rather slight, and from what follows it will be clear – to this reviewer at least – that the overall project should have been allowed to mature for longer and certainly make use of a bigger barrel. The preface also nods at how the focus has shifted away from the Late Bronze Age as the most studied period of Cypriot prehistory.
Toby Wilkinson and Susan Sherratt, (eds) Circuits of Metal Value. Changing Roles of Metals in the Early Aegean and Nearby Lands. Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology, 14.
In April 2016 a Round Table was held at the University of Sheffield, almost a decade after the seminal 1997 conference Metals Make the World Go Round, organised by Christopher Pare, which was a landmark survey of Bronze Age metallurgy, already highlighting the scope and importance of metals in influencing social and political dynamics. This new volume emerging from these discussions brings together seven of the twelve papers presented, coherently reunited around discussions concerning the movement of raw metal materials, the transmission of technical knowledge, and the evolving composition of metal alloys, overall presenting a fresh re-evaluation of archaeological research on metal technology. A key theme running through the contributions is the idea that the adoption of new methods is contingent upon the presence of interactive factors and a conducive social context, such as changing needs, or reconfigurations of the existing relationships within certain segments of the community. The result is a well-structured and accessible 214- page volume illustrated with monochrome images throughout, offering a stimulating reassessment of the role of metallurgy in shaping ancient economies and societies while engaging with broader debates on technological and cultural transmission in the wider Mediterranean as well as the Near East.
Michael Loy, Connecting communities in archaic Greece: exploring economic and political networks through data modelling. British School at Athens studies in Greek antiquity.
Michael Loy’s monograph is an innovative and intriguing contribution to the growing body of work using computational methods in archaeology. It takes advantage of the vast – and often unwieldy – datasets produced by more than a century of excavations in Greece, especially by the foreign schools, analysed by Loy through Social Network Analysis and spatial modelling to make sense of economic and political interactions across the Aegean in the seventh and sixth centuries BC.
John Ma, Polis. A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity.
John Ma’s new magnum opus is over a decade in the making. Originally delivered as the Stanford University 2011 Eitner Lecture on the Greek city-state (pg xv), Ma’s Polis is a tour de force that seeks to undertake a penetrating new analysis of the eponymous ancient political community. Assembling an encyclopaedic quantity of evidence for ancient poleis dating between the Early Iron Age and the End of Antiquity, and weaving a new narrative about the rise and success of early Greek institutional mechanisms, Ma aims to radically shift our understanding of how, when and where the ancient polis was so defined.
Robin Rönnlund, The Cities of the Plain: Urbanism in Ancient Western Thessaly.
Besides his contributions to several fieldwork projects in Thessaly, Robin Rönnlund has produced a series of publications about sites, inscriptions and other finds from the region, also revisiting legacy data. The book reviewed here can be seen as a culmination of that work, at least for now. Soon after it came out it already made some headlines, after parts of its content and some of the more remarkable conclusions, and additional hypotheses based on them, were highlighted in an article in Antiquity.
Matthew Haysom, Maria Mili, and Jenny Wallensten (eds) The stuff of the gods. The material aspects of religion in ancient Greece. Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Athen, 4°, 59.
The volume under review originates from an international conference held on 7–9 July 2015 and organised by the Swedish Institute at Athens in collaboration with the British School at Athens. Despite the quite long time elapsed from the conference to the publication of the proceedings, the seventeen papers collected in the volume, preceded by an Introduction by the editors, duly take into account literature appeared since and are therefore up-to-date. The intellectual premises of the conference and volume are those of the material turn in the humanities and social sciences. The papers seek to apply its methodologies and research questions to the realm of Greek religion.
Sebastian Scharff, Hellenistic athletes: agonistic cultures and self-presentation.
In his introduction, Scharff starts with a brief overview of previous scholarship. He deals with how scholars have moved on from the traditional view that the Hellenistic period saw a decline in agonistic life to a new outlook resting on new evidence and fresh thought that draws on sociological, political, historical, archaeological and linguistic perspectives. In contrast to previous studies, Scharff’s focus is upon the victorious competitors (in both athletic and equestrian contests) and on their self-representation. Having analysed the broader context and listing the factors that inform his study, Scharff gives an account of his methodology, stressing in particular that he focusses on victor epigrams as a key element in the representation of athletic glory. This approach will reveal, he believes, the existence of a direct or indirect ‘agonistic discourse’ among athletes, cities, regions, kings, courtiers and prominent citizens. Such a discourse, says Scharff, is naturally influenced by current circumstances and how athletes wish their victory to be perceived.
Dean Peeters, Shaping Regionality in Socioeconomic Systems: Late Hellenistic – Late Roman Ceramic Production, Circulation, and Consumption in Boeotia, Central Greece (c. 150 BC-AD 700). Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 18.
The publication of Dean Peeters’ ambitious monograph is timely, seeing that regions and ‘micro-regions’ in antiquity are attracting increasing scholarly interest. It is based on the author’s recent Ph.D. thesis from the University of Cologne, and he explains in the introduction that its aim is ‘to highlight and explain the shaping of socioeconomic diversity in Boeotia (Central Greece) from c. 150 BC to AD 700’, defining two central research questions: 1) How did local and regional economies look, work from within, and link into larger socioeconomic networks and systems? And 2) How were differences in the workings and development of economies and communities shaped in space and time? To come up with answers, Peeters looks to new data provided by archaeology, and in particular to pottery studies, which are in his view capable of throwing ‘interesting lights on locally-anchored and socially-embedded economies, socioeconomic networks, and agency by extension’. This is the central premise of the volume, which builds on the author’s meticulous evaluation of ceramic evidence from the Boeotia Project, which is – somewhat curiously – only introduced to the reader later.
Elizabeth Rees, Archaeology and the Early Church in Southern Greece.
The main value of the book is the inclusion of selected textual, topographic and archaeological information, organized by geographic region. Thus, the reader can easily follow an itinerary around the most important archaeological sites of the Northeastern Peloponnese, and Athens. While the aim of the book is to be lauded, the archaeological evidence included has been presented very selectively, and through a rather uncritical lens. The significant and on-going academic discussions around regional chronology, archaeological methodology, and factors which may have influenced the spread of early Christianity in Greece are absent in this work.
Yannis Stouraitis (ed.) Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World.
Identity and ideology are currently attracting a fast-growing enthusiasm in academic research and debate, and Byzantine studies are benefitting especially strongly from this trend. That is why Yannis Stouraitis’ new edited book will be a welcome and advantageous addition to the Byzantinist’s library. With great diligence and creativity, Stouraitis brings together seventeen scholars to expose the multifaceted and conflicting constructions of ideology and identity in Byzantium and her peripheries.
Lisa Nevett has established herself as perhaps the foremost current expert in ancient Greek housing, both in the homeland and the Greek colonial world, since the publication of her thesis on this topic in the 1990’s (Nevett 1999). She has taken her scholarship further with the significant reopening of excavations at a key ancient planned city at Olynthus in Northern Greece.
Alastair Small and Carola Small (eds) Archaeology on the Apulian-Lucanian Border.
This substantial monograph of almost 900 pages presents the results of the intensive Basentello Valley Field Survey, led by the authors between 1996 and 2008 in the Fossa Bradanica region on the border of the Basilicata (Lucania) and Puglia (Apulia) regions in South Italy (roughly between the present-day cities of Bari on the coast and Potenza inland).
Washingtonia 1829: an American refugee colony in Greece
The founding of the colony of Washingtonia at Ano Examilia on the Isthmus of Corinth represents a unique, forgotten episode of collaborative humanitarianism at the birth of the Greek nation-state. Established in 1829 by Samuel Gridley Howe and his colleagues, funded by American citizens, and chartered by Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias, the settlement housed several dozen migrant families displaced during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829). Within a few years, refugees successfully cultivated an agricultural district of the Isthmus and built or rebuilt houses, hospital, school, church, and port facilities. Although the memory of the original colonists soon disappeared and the settlement’s name ‘Washingtonia’ returned to its earlier name of Examilia, the colony served to revitalize an important Corinthian village after the war. The establishment of Washingtonia was significant as a pioneering transnational intervention in which utopian experiments of cooperative farming in the U.S. could be put into action by Greek refugees halfway around the world.
Pottery production and communication networks in late Roman/early Byzantine Messenia: evidence from ancient Koroni
Information about the history and material culture of Messenia in late Roman/early Byzantine times (4th-7th century CE) remains astonishingly limited. This is mainly because scholars focused on monuments, buildings and settlement patterns of the Bronze Age. Messenia, located on the south-western edge of the Peloponnese and delimited by natural borders, boasts a rich archaeological heritage and a long history. Its privileged position and ‘favourable environment’ have supported numerous settlements since prehistoric times. There is no doubt that in late Antiquity it occupied a strategic location, along key sea routes connecting the eastern and western Mediterranean. Paradoxically, the textual sources provide little or no information on how the major historical and political events of the period affected the region and its inhabitants. The archaeological data also fail to fill this gap, as systematic excavations revealing late Roman and early Byzantine remnants are scarce, and relevant publications remain limited. Thus, we still lack substantial information about the topography of the region, the density and organisation of the settlements, the route networks, the demographic profile and the activities of its population.
Lingering mysteries in ritual enactments in Sparta and Laconia c.700-450 BC: lead figurines as protection against fear
This paper re-examines the use of lead figurines as symbolic objects in a variety of ritual enactments particular to individual sites. Irrespective of the details of each case, it is argued that the lead itself – its accessibility and the qualities attributed to it – defines the ritual power of these objects. The few scholars to discuss them see them as mundane items made of an accessible and cheap raw material. Thus, it is claimed, lead figurines were deposited en masse exclusively by Spartan citizens (and women) during some ritual or festival probably related to Spartan military identity. Lead figurines circulated from the 7th century until c.450 BC. Explanations for their abandonment have been sought in the growing use of lead from Laurion and the predominance of Attic pottery at sites across the Mediterranean. However, I prefer to focus on the rise and decline of a specific Laconian ritual habitus which employed ideological and material instruments related to their region, and endured for as long as it served local ritual needs. Furthermore, previous publications have left unaddressed the role of nocturnal rituals which were equally if not more frequent, depending upon the character of the divinity worshipped.
Local special findings in domestic contexts of a frontier post in the Egyptian delta. The small finds of Tell El-Ghaba (north Sinai, Egypt) between the 10th and 7th centuries BC
Between 1995 and 2010, the Argentine Archaeological Mission carried out systematic excavations at the archaeological site of Tell el-Ghaba (northern Sinai, Egypt). It recovered numerous small finds whose study and review seek to contribute to the understanding of the functions that these objects may have had, to the types of activities they may have been involved in, to the understanding of the plastic-compositional repertoire as a whole, and to the interpretation of the themes, meanings and symbolism they may have had.
Perception and features of luxury clothing in Classical and Hellenistic Greece
The present paper aims to assess literary sources and temple inventories to give an overview of what made a cloth luxurious. Since the prices for all kinds of clothes and fabrics in ancient Greece are unknown, iconographic and written sources, as well as textile fibres, colours, and decorations, will be considered to determine the types of garments whose manufacturing was costly. Different factors contributed to the expense of clothing production in antiquity, including the type of textile fibres, the complexity of weaving techniques, the dyes, and the level of decoration and embellishment. The temple inventories, alongside literary and iconographic sources, represent an essential corpus for studying luxury clothing in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Temple inventories record, among others, garment dedications made to various deities. The temple inventories serve as tangible evidence of the types of clothing considered valuable and worthy of dedication to the gods. The iconographic sources, such as vase paintings, sculptures, and reliefs, depict individuals wearing various garments, ranging from simple to elaborate attire. These visual representations offer a rich and diverse view of the styles, colours, and adornments favoured by wealthy people and trends in ancient Greek clothing.
Cyprus and Cyrene, two sides of the same coin: an examination of the role of the gymnasion in two Ptolemaic possessions
During the Hellenistic period, the gymnasion became a principal civic institution of the polis, integral to the Greek way of life. In the gymnasia citizens and free young men received athletic, intellectual and military training.1 They participated in athletic and religious activities and festivals, thereby reinforcing their civic identity and social unity. During the period of the Successors, the gymnasion spread through the newly-conquered territories of the East, mainly as an answer to the particular needs of Greco-Macedonian settlers and soldiers of royal armies. Thus the institution lost its original narrow civic character and now appeared outside the confines of the polis in urban and rural territories, in cities, villages and military settlements. The diffusion of the gymnasion in the East, where the Greek element was in the minority, changed its role, function and impact.
Journal of Greek Archaeology opening pages
Journal of Greek Archaeology Volume 10: Editorial
Lidar and Landscapes in the Archaeology of Greece
Over the last decade, several projects in Greece have integrated lidar into their research programs in a variety of ways. The technology and its applications are still new enough, however, that there has been little opportunity for disciplinary dialogue on the subject. The conference, Lidar and Landscapes in the Archaeology of Greece: An International Workshop, which we co-organized at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in March of 2024, aimed to open a forum for lidar-based archaeological research in Greece. The number and range of presentations and the robust in-person and online attendance confirmed the depth of interest in the technology, the broad scope of its application, and the types of research questions it might help to illuminate.
Archaeological lidar in Greece: a summary of recent work
of whole cities or previously unknown regional systems of settlement in the Maya Lowlands, the Amazon, and the jungles of southeast Asia have made headlines and gripped the popular imagination, as in well-known examples from Caracol in Belize or Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Mediterranean applications have received less acclaim, but are no less significant for understanding past landscapes. High-resolution elevation models and the unique ability of lidar to ‘see’ beneath vegetation offer archaeologists the opportunity to detect and map subtle variations in the landscape and features that may otherwise go unnoticed, often over large areas. In what follows, I provide some introduction to lidar-based archaeological research, a summary of published and ongoing work in Greece, and some key considerations for how this work may fit into wider dialogues concerning archaeological remote sensing as we move forward. Many of these topics are relevant for survey archaeologists working elsewhere as well. I argue that lidar holds tremendous potential for archaeological research in Greece, especially at a regional scale. Several innovative projects are well underway, but collective research agendas remain nascent. Archaeologists now have a crucial opportunity to work toward certain shared goals and deploy a common set of standards for good practice, related to methodological transparency and the generation of accessible and comparable datasets, both in publication and in archival practices.
Lidar-based research in the Phokian Kephissos Valley
In 2018, an interdisciplinary German-Greek collaborative project was launched in the central Kephissos Valley in ancient Phokis, under the direction of Petros Kounouklas from the Ephorate of Phthiotida and Evrytania and Katja Sporn, Director of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens (DAI Athens). The aim of the Kephissos Valley Project (KEP) is to reconstruct the settlement development and respective sanctuaries, necropoleis, and infrastructure throughout Antiquity within its natural environmental context. In addition to researching the impact of specific historical events (e.g., destructions, re-settlements, etc.), particularly the question of how natural and/or human-induced phenomena (i.e., possible changes in the river course and water ways, ramifications of floods and earthquakes, etc.) affected the use of the fertile fields on both sides of the Kephissos river and the re-location of settlements, is of great importance. The chronological range of the project spans from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity but mainly focuses on the periods from the foundation of the Greek city-states to Late Antiquity.
Lidar-led fieldwork in the Eretria-Amarynthos Survey Project (Euboea, Greece)
This paper provides a brief overview of lidar research developed in the framework of the Eretria-Amarynthos Survey Project (EASP). Over the course of four field seasons, the implementation of lidar-based remote sensing and ground-truthing has become an integral part of the examination of archaeological landscapes, resulting in significant advances in fieldwork practices, survey methodology, and data recording. We argue here that lidar holds great potential for archaeological survey in Greece, particularly in rugged and sloped terrain, which represents up to 80% of landforms in Central Greece, thus opening new ways of inquiry and dramatically increasing archaeological survey potential outside of agricultural and flat terrain.
Comparing lidar analysis and field documentation in archaeological surveys: feature recognition, quantification, and land-use modeling with the Small Cycladic Islands Project
Over six field seasons (2019–2024), the Small Cycladic Islands Project (SCIP) has conducted systematic pedestrian surveys of 87 uninhabited islands across the Cycladic archipelago. In 2022 and 2023, SCIP acquired lidar data over 97 currently uninhabited islands in the Cyclades, working with the Thessaloniki-based company Aerophoto. The goals of this work were several: (1) to supplement and expand our knowledge of areas already surveyed by SCIP (2019–2021), many of which are heavily obscured by vegetation cover; (2) as a precursor and guide to our own pedestrian survey work in 2022–2024, especially in large islands that could not be surveyed at the same level of intensity as smaller ones; (3) to supplement investigations of other islands that are well known and have been surveyed by other projects using other methods (Delos, Rheneia, and Despotiko); and (4) to cover areas where it is not possible for the project to carry out pedestrian survey work, due to issues of accessibility, size, or other constraints (Gyaros and Antimilos).
Developing reproducible lidar classifications for Greek archaeology: assessing an area-based verification strategy for lidar-based archaeological prospection in the Cyclades, Greece
Over the last decade, archaeologists around the world have increasingly added lidar data from aerial and terrestrial platforms to their project toolkit. As lidar-based archaeology has proliferated, experience with the technology has not been evenly distributed. The technology garnered recognition for its ability to precisely map ground surfaces under dense canopy in the heavily forested regions of Mesoamerica, Southeast Asia, and parts of Europe.1 In the Maya Lowlands, researchers acknowledged the revolutionary nature of the technology early on.2 Subsequent years of use have allowed its applications to mature, as seen in studies analyzing patterns of social inequality and redefining ancient Maya rural land use.3 Importantly, this maturation has allowed for the refinement of survey methods as archaeologists have confronted the mistakes of early applications, for example issues of mismatching verification procedures and representational issues in classified datasets.
This article reports on the Samothrace Lidar Project (SaLiP), a research collaboration in conjunction with the American Excavations Samothrace and as part of the Samothrace Exploration Project. SaLiP seeks to shed light on occupation and land use on the forested, mountainous island of Samothrace in the northeastern Aegean from just before its earliest human inhabitation to the present. As a wholeisland investigation, our research collaboration has four primary aims: (1) to investigate the seeming void of the Late Bronze Age, a period of complex and varied patterns of transformation and transition across the regions of the northern Aegean, eastern Balkan Peninsula, and northwestern Anatolia; (2) to document the agricultural landscape which is rich in agrarian ruins, distinctive water management networks, and water-driven pre-and proto-industrial installations; (3) to locate anthropogenic features currently obscured by vegetation in wooded understories across the island; and, (4) to gain a better understanding of the landscape generally, given its rapidly changing geomorphology. During the summer of 2023 we commissioned AeroPhoto Co Ltd of Thessaloniki to undertake the airborne laser scanning of the three most important zones of diachronic human activity on Samothrace.
The lidar survey at Akraiphia (Boeotia): methodology and first results
In May 2021, a lidar survey was conducted in Boeotia by the French School at Athens. The aim was to collect lidar data from two sites investigated by the School since the nineteenth century: the sanctuary of the Valley of the Muses near Thespiai, and the urban center of Akraiphia. Both sites were surveyed in a single flight operated by Aerophoto.
Melitaia in Achaia Phthiotis: some first glances of an ancient city through a recent lidar survey
The archaeological site of Melitaia is located in the administrative region of Sterea Ellada, approximately 16km north of the regional capital of Lamia and just east of the eponymous village (formerly Avaritsa). The site occupies a scenic spot overlooking the eastern half of the large plateau of Domokos – a fertile and well-watered hill-land separating the vast Thessalian plain to the north and the Valley of Spercheios to the south.
Seeing the trees through the forest: lidar data and the identification of ancient sites in southeastern Rheneia
Rheneia, or ‘Megales Diles’ for the Mykonians, was a place with a special history in antiquity. Part of it belonged to the territory of Delos and functioned, after the two Athenian purifications, as a cemetery and birthplace for the Delians. At the same time, in Rheneia there were ten farmsteads that belonged to the Delian sanctuary of Apollo, along with two sanctuaries, one dedicated to Artemis and one to Dionysos. The ancient city of Rheneia was in the northwestern part of the island, with its sanctuaries, cemeteries, farmsteads, and various sources of wealth. Limited but important excavations in Rheneia were carried out in the late 19th and 20th century, including at the pit of the purification of Delos, while investigations in the Delian necropolis were also carried out by the French School of Athens and the Hellenic Archaeological Service.
A UAS lidar case study in the archaeological landscape of ancient Halos, Greece
This paper presents the technical, methodological, and preliminary archaeological results of the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) lidar experiments at the archaeological landscape of ancient Halos, executed as part of the Halos Archaeological Project of the Amsterdam Center for Ancient Studies and Archaeology, in cooperation with the Ephorate of Magnesia, the University of Groningen (till 2023) and the University of Thessaly. The main elements of this archaeological landscape consist of various archaeological remains related to human burial, habitation, fortification, and related infrastructure, spanning all periods from the Neolithic onwards.
High-resolution drone lidar for Mediterranean archaeology: point classification, feature detection, and the potential for cultural heritage management
The introduction of airborne laser scanning (ALS) or lidar into the archaeologist’s ever-expanding toolkit has profoundly impacted our understanding of premodern landscapes. Most notably used for the detection of archaeological sites in densely vegetated environments, airborne lidar has been an effective tool for recording the surface topography of a landscape beneath the upper canopies of forests or jungles. While the collection of aerial lidar data for archaeology has traditionally required significant funding and collaboration with specialist firms, recent developments in lightweight and affordable sensors mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones have increased access to lidar data collection. With drone lidar, archaeologists can now capture smaller areas of interest at much higher resolutions than traditional airborne lidar, enabling precise and efficient documentation of landscapes with complex topography or ephemeral archaeological features. With readily available lidar sensors and medium-payload consumer drones, archaeologists are now able to bring lidar data from new regions into dialogue with more established zones of lidar-based research. Additionally, the higher resolution afforded by low-altitude flights and direct control over data collection enables archaeologists to explore innovative applications of aerial lidar and pose new questions about premodern landscapes.
UAV-based survey of ancient white marble quarries on Mt Pentelikon: successes and challenges of a lidar and photogrammetric survey in a high-relief environment
Of the marble producing regions in the eastern Mediterranean, Mt Pentelikon was among the most exploited in antiquity. Large-scale ancient quarrying on Mt Pentelikon began in the 5th century BC with the construction of the Older Parthenon and continued throughout the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The quarries have been the source for many monumental works of art and architecture of the ancient world, most notably, the monuments on the Athenian Acropolis, including the Parthenon. Extensive quarrying activity on Mt Pentelikon ended after the Roman/ Early Byzantine period and did not start up again until the mid-19th century AD when large-scale organized extraction activities resumed during the construction boom of the modern Greek state. Work further intensified following the Second World War. In 1974, a moratorium on all quarrying on the south slope was enacted to protect the ancient quarries as the resurgence of activity was leading to the destruction of ancient artifacts, quarries, slip-tracks, and roads.
Drone and airborne lidar in Greece: a Mediterranean perspective on processing techniques and cultural landscapes
Landscape research in the Mediterranean basin has evolved constantly with new research questions and theoretical approaches from the beginning of the discipline. The impact of Annales and New Archaeology on the study of political and economic landscapes in the 1970s and 1980s has been followed by postcolonial theory and other post-processual approaches to the manifold aspects of social life in ancient societies that were previously ignored or not considered, allowing for nuanced narratives of the past. An exponential increase in technological development has accompanied this improvement in renewed approaches to Mediterranean landscapes. Initially, technology was primarily used to manage the information gathered from traditional projects in the field, i.e. GIS and computer applications, and more recently, we contemplate how the datasets produced by technological approaches became the source of archaeological inquiry and historical research. Thus, geospatial data should be positioned at the same level as field data. We could call both archaeological data regardless of their digital or analogical origin. The most obvious example is aerial photography, a source of extensive information about sites and landscapes, which has provided valuable proxies for historical interpretations of landscapes from the early 20th century. Nowadays, lidar technology has taken the lead in landscape research.
What you see is what you get: lidar applications in the northern Adriatic coastal regions
Airborne lidar has played a distinctive role in remote sensing case studies in the Mediterranean context for the last decade. The new possibilities offered by lidar methodology have made it a valuable tool in a number of Mediterranean countries, including Greece and Croatia. The coastal landscapes of both countries share similarities due to the influence of common factors like relief, climate, and vegetation. Furthermore, the numerous islands in both countries have played a significant role in long-distance maritime trade and communication throughout history. While the historical development of land use on the islands of the two countries may have differed, the lidar data indicate comparable remains of land use resulting from the Mediterranean agricultural practices of agro-pastoral societies. The challenges of preserving archaeological heritage in coastal areas are also similar. They can be attributed mainly to the effects of extensive (tourist) construction and development, or to the impact of sea-level rise and the associated risks of flooding and erosion. Given these similarities, it seems beneficial to present an overview of Croatian case studies in a volume dedicated to lidar studies in Greece, as airborne lidar represents an effective approach for the documentation and interpretation of the archaeological heritage in both countries.
Space, transformation and the negotiation of Neopalatial society: the mutability of the pier-and-door partition in its social context
The pier-and-door partition was a Minoan architectural invention, a wall consisting of a series of openings (or doorways) that could be opened or closed in different combinations by the use of the wooden door leaves of the structure. The doorways of the structure were closable by double door leaves, which were attached to the door jambs of the structure. Pier-and-door partitions were most frequently used in polythyron (pl. polythyra) halls in Minoan buildings. Polythyron halls usually had two or three walls (sometimes only one, but this is rather rare) consisting of pier-anddoor partitions, with the rest of the walls solid without openings. The hall could be transformed from an open hall (with all doors open), to a room with access to other rooms (with an open door in some or each of the walls), and to a completely closed space (with all doors closed). The pier-anddoor partitions were most commonly used in Minoan Halls, a hall system consisting of a polythyron, a forehall and a light well. Whereas the terms pier-and-door partition hall, polythyron hall and Minoan Hall have been used somewhat interchangeably, actual Minoan Halls would have consisted of these aforementioned elements; for the sake of clarity, in this paper the term Minoan Hall is reserved for these halls commonly assigned as ones, while other pier-and-door partition halls without these elements are termed simply as pier-and-door partition halls, or polythyron halls. The terms pier-and-door partition hall and polythyron hall are thus used to denote all spaces with pier-and- door partitions, regardless whether they were Minoan Halls or other types of polythyron halls.
Artistic narratives of death: funerary vessels in Attica’s cultural landscape
The excavation of an ancient cemetery in Voula, Attica, dating to the Late Geometric period, unveiled a remarkable funerary assemblage – a kantharos and amphora pair adorned with symbolic imagery of horses and birds. These vessels, while reflecting the intricate craftsmanship and artistic tendencies of the era, also embody the ideological and symbolic frameworks of the community they served. Central to this study is the dual function of these artifacts, bridging rituals of life and death and highlighting the deceased’s role within both earthly and celestial spheres.