The BSA’s activities in generalFootnote 1
It has been an exciting year for the British School at Athens and a thrilling time to start as a new director. I would like to thank John Bennet for all his outstanding work during his term as director and of course his wife Deborah Harlan, too, who worked tirelessly for the BSA.
Our wonderful news of course is that, thanks to the huge support of people who generously gave time and donations to the project, and the transformative gift by the Packard Humanities Institute, our fundraising target for Knossos 2025 has been met and the delivery phase of the new Stratigraphic Museum has begun (Fig. 2.1).
2.1. BSA Knossos Research Centre: plans for the new Stratigraphic Museum. © BSA.
At the BSA, we use our 137 years of learning and knowledge to shape our approach to new research challenges, asking and answering pertinent questions while focusing on knowledge exchange, outreach, and mentoring. In the next few years we will be focusing on the Fitch Laboratory as a beacon of our innovative approach in promoting STEM, and women in STEM through mentoring and engagement (Fig. 2.2). Together, the Fitch with the BSA are working at the intersection of arts and humanities and sciences in a way that not many institutions are able to do. So, as the Fitch approaches its 50-year anniversary in 2024, keep an eye out for the exciting research and knowledge exchange activities it has planned. In Athens, we have been expanding our outreach programme, something that Knossos already does so well. We have shared our knowledge with groups of school children and forced migrants and broadened the scope of how archaeology, history, and science can be used in everything from education to well-being – and, of course, fun (Fig. 2.3)!
2.2. Dr Carlotta Gardner teaching primary school children about stratigraphy … using cake! © BSA.
2.3. Dr Flavia Vanni helps with the Home Project teaching. © BSA.
In addition to their vital role in contributing to life at the BSA, the School Students make invaluable contributions to its research agenda in its broadest sense. Dr Marcella Giobbe (Oxford), Dr Rossana Valente (Newcastle), and Dr Dòmhnall Crystal (Cardiff) were the 2021–22 School Students and, as mentioned in the director’s last report, they worked, respectively, on Greek colonization as understood through ceramic production, Byzantine Sparta, and population identities in the north Aegean of the eighth to fourth centuries BC. The BSA’s 2022–23 students (Fig. 2.4 ) took advantage of the post-covid situation and threw themselves into a busy programme, reinstating the Finlay Forum (an informal work-in-progress presentation and discussion group) and the Finlay Social, which have both been met with equal enthusiasm albeit different types of stimulating discussion. Dr Elizabeth Foley (Trinity College Dublin), the Macmillan-Rodewald Student, has been expanding her research on the Cyclades in the Hellenistic period to include the numismatic evidence as well as using the wide range of library resources to begin creating the epigraphic dossier of decrees of the Cycladic islands. Rachel Phillips (Cambridge), a Bradford McConnell Student, examines the relationships between objects and bodies within early Mycenaean mortuary contexts, focusing on the processes of selection and deposition behind burial assemblages. During her time in Athens, she has worked on the Bronze Age collections held by various Athenian museums and is very grateful to all the staff for their support. The second Bradford McConnell Student, Dr Flavia Vanni (Birmingham), studies the manipulation of natural light in Byzantine churches and how this changed over time and between urban and rural churches. At the same time, she will look at the role of natural and artificial light in the Orthodox liturgy.
2.4. BSA School Students 2021–22: Rachel Phillips, Dr Elizabeth Foley, and Dr Flavia Vanni. © BSA.
Our A.G. Leventis Fellow in Hellenic Studies, Dr Tulsi Parikh (Fig. 2.5), continues her work on the human experience of sacred space. As such she has been undertaking fieldwork on the Cyclades evaluating spatial data, through e.g. viewshed analysis. We are very grateful to the A.G. Leventis Foundation for their on-going support of this fellowship. We are also grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, who have generously funded the project Unpublished Archives of British Philhellenism During the Greek Revolution of 1821, including a fellowship awarded to Dr Michalis Sotiropoulos. Michalis has been working in collaboration with the BSA archivist Amalia Kakissis and project archive assistant Felicity Crowe on the creation of a new digital archive that contains original items from the papers of Scottish volunteer and historian George Finlay (1799–1875) and the papers of Captain Frank Abney Hastings (1794–1828). The project mentor is the BSA’s chairman, Prof. Roderick Beaton. Not only will this publicly available material be a valuable resource, Michalis is also contextualizing these data to shed new light on Philhellenism and the Greek Revolution of 1821.
2.5. BSA Leventis Fellow in Hellenic Studies, Dr Tulsi Parikh. © Tulsi Parikh/BSA.
During the first part of the year, the informal early-career group for work-in-progress discussion and social activities, organized collaboratively with the American School of Classical Studies by Dr Simone Agrimonti (ASCSA) and Dr Michael Loy (BSA), met in person for the first time since the pandemic (Fig. 2.6). The group enjoyed a rich programme of talks and discussions led by Georgia Delli (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; EKPA), Sara Eriksson (SIA/Berkeley), Dr Tamara Saggini (ESAG/Lausanne), and Thomas Bull (BSA). In parallel, the group continued to meet online, connecting to a wider audience back in the UK: Zoom workshops were held on ‘networks’, co-organized by Dr Richard Phillips (Birkbeck) with response from Prof. Christy Constantakopoulou (National Hellenic Research Foundation), and on ‘mortuary data’, co-organized by Hannah Lee (Sheffield) with response from Dr Jane Rempel (Sheffield) and Dr Efthymia Nikita (Cyprus Institute).
2.6. Early-career group at dinner, following a seminar from Georgia Delli (EKPA) on Byzantine Samos, March 2022. © BSA.
Dr Jane Rempel (Sheffield) was BSA Visiting Fellow during January to April in 2022 (Fig. 2.7). During her time in Athens, she focused on contextualizing the Athenian evidence for Black Sea trade during the late Classical/early Hellenistic period. She had a particular focus on Athenian prestige goods that were exported to the Black Sea region, including grave stelai, ‘Kerch’, and plastic ceramic pots and metal vessels. During the course of her work, Jane identified 28 Attic or Atticising funerary stelai from the Black Sea region that stand out in comparison to the rather plainer non-sculptural local forms. As Jane concludes, this research has indicated that use of Attic/Atticising stelai in the Black Sea was likely ad hoc, but they were consumed with a clear understanding of the Athenian cultural context at a time when monumentality in the funerary realm was one outlet for elite display and competition in the Black Sea region. The Early Career Fellow 2020–21, Dr Mary Ikoniadou (University of Central Lancashire), was able to come to the BSA in 2022, where she progressed her project on visual and cultural politics particularly during the Cold War. She undertook a number of interviews with Greek magazine researchers and collectors as well as established international contacts on the role of illustrated periodicals during the Cold War. While at the BSA, she also co-organized, with a colleague from Marburg University, a two-day online workshop on the theme of ‘Politics of the Page: Visuality and Materiality in Illustrated Periodicals Across Cold War Borders’.
2.7. Dr Jane Rempel (Sheffield), BSA Visiting Fellow 2021–22. © Jane Rempel/BSA.
The BSA and University of the Arts London offer an annual residency and the Arts Bursary holder, and in 2022 Nell Lyhne (Chelsea College of Arts) spent the spring at the BSA (Fig. 2.8). She has wide-ranging practice, mainly focused on painting and drawing, but also including ceramics, sculpture, and film. Her residency at the British School gave her an opportunity to deepen her study on the half-human half-animal hybrid, which reached its apogee in Ancient Greece. We were delighted to be able to offer the BSA travel awards in 2022 to the following: Eleni Christina Tzoka (Durham, The Hector and Elizabeth Catling Doctoral Award); Alexia Burrows Charalambidou (Nottingham, Vronwy Hankey Memorial Travel Award for Pre-Doctoral Students) and Ross Head (University College London (UCL), Travel Award for Artists).
2.8. Nell Lynne (University of the Arts London), BSA Arts Bursary Award holder 2021–22. © Nell Lynne/BSA.
Dr Eleni Gkadolou, our British Academy-funded digital assets manager, is collaborating closely with all departments to harmonize digital data and in the development of the BSA Digital Humanities infrastructure that will support information and knowledge sharing and a wider public engagement. With the Fitch Laboratory, she has been working on finalization of the map server and web map development for cataloguing and geolocating the Fitch geological samples. In addition to the on-going production of new digital products, Eleni is working on the BSA spatial data (places and sites) on top of which the digital resources will be eventually organized and visualized. For Knossos, a more detailed hierarchy is now being created to present the complexity/multi-levels of Knossos sites and context (Fig. 2.9). This model is being developed as a test-case for documenting BSA research projects. Nathan Meyer has been a huge help in these projects, and we are very grateful to him for his on-going support.
2.9. Digital Assets Management Project: on-going work on the Knossos conceptual data structure. © BSA.
Eleni’s work builds on the work of ARIADNE+ data manager Anastasia Vassiliou (Harokopio), whose term came to an end in May. We are grateful to the Athena Research and Innovation Centre for facilitating and hosting this collaboration with ARIADNE+. As well as helping to clean various digital data of the BSA systems, Anastasia, along with a team of volunteers, principal among them the BSA’s own Debi Harlan, worked to produce a database of BSA fieldwork (https://digital.bsa.ac.uk/fieldwork.php?results=5000&map=on). This interactive catalogue, hosted on the BSA Digital Collections website and launched in November, tells the rich and fascinating story of BSA fieldwork in Greece from the 1880s through to the present day.
We were delighted to throw open the BSA’s doors to undergraduate students, postgraduate students, and school teachers once again for our taught courses (Fig. 2.10 ). These included the in-person Undergraduate Summer School, Linear B course, Knossos Pottery course, and Fitch Petrography course. The teachers’ course was once again held in a virtual format, allowing over 100 teachers from across the UK and Greece to tune in for sessions on ‘Myth and Religion’: recordings of the course lectures and associated teaching resources are now archived and permanently available through the Classics Library (https://www.theclassicslibrary.com/).
2.10. BSA courses clockwise: Linear B, Undergraduate Summer School, Fitch Petrography course, Knossos Pottery course. © BSA.
It has been a treat to welcome our community of colleagues and friends back to in-person BSA events, which have been varied: from Alicia Stallings and Natalie Haynes, from Bronze Age Keros to the Impact of Climate Change on Archaeological sites. The library’s Michael Frede Memorial lecture took place on 31 May 2022, an event organized in partnership with the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Prof. Lesley Brown gave a talk titled ‘Self-sufficiency in Aristotle and others: what’s so good about “Autarkeia”?’ (Fig. 2.11). The library also worked to produce a new catalogue of maps (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/BSA-Map-Collection-List-1-Final.pdf).
2.11. Frede Lecture 2022: Katerina Ierodiakonou and Prof. Lesley Brown. © BSA.
In 2022 we continued to inventory the museum papers down to item-level, with great work undertaken by volunteers Jessica Scott (Newcastle) and Phoebe Brereton (UCL). They continued to catalogue letters, permits, and study requests, mainly from the 1960s through to the 1990s. As part of his Digital Humanities internship, Sam Matthews (UCL) worked with the museum collection, strategizing ways to display the spatial data associated with the coins and lithics collections. We are grateful to Georgios Michalopoulos, Sophia Simitzi, and their colleagues from the Ephorate of Private Collections, who are overseeing the process of checking our museum inventory and the relevant paperwork. This process is now well underway, and we hope that by completing the audit we will be able to open up our collection online to a broader audience, and to facilitate a greater number of researchers in accessing and using our research collections.
Much of the time of our archivist, Amalia Kakissis, has been spent on the 1821 project, and she continues to accept and catalogue donations and has undertaken a huge programme of training of interns and volunteers. Thomas R. Bull (Oxford, Fig. 2.12) joined the BSA in October 2021 as the first holder of the full-time library/archive internship. With the assistance of the IT officer and data manager, he transformed three finding aids to a format for upload into our collection management system, EMu (the personal papers of Humfry Payne, Vincent Desborough, and Winifred Lamb). We welcomed Kira Hollebon to the role of library/archive intern in October 2022. She hit the ground running, but sadly had to end her term early for family reasons. Tereza Ward and Kate Wilson (Fig. 2.13), from our long-running collaboration with the Liverpool MA programme, spent two weeks cataloguing the personal papers of Helen Waterhouse and Mervyn Popham. Additionally, we had volunteer interns: Henry Bishop-Wright (Exeter) worked on the Thermi excavation records and Katerina Argyraki (UOP) inventoried the Emborio excavation records as well as new Emborio material that arrived with Sinclair Hood’s archive. The BSA is, as always, grateful to individuals and families who have donated material to the archive (Fig. 2.14 ). 2022 also saw the completion of the first phase of the project Digital Thessaly (https://digital.bsa.ac.uk/collections.php?collection=2807), a project which reunites on BSA’s Digital Collections the Alan Wace research notebooks that formed the basis of his and Maurice Thompson’s Reference Wace and Thompson1912 publication Prehistoric Thessaly. Bringing together disparate parts of the story from Wace’s excavations between 1908 and 1910 at five Neolithic tell sites, five notebooks held in Athens and 14 held in Cambridge at the Faculty of Classics and Pembroke College have now been reunited, a key research resource in the story of the development of prehistoric archaeology in northern Greece (Fig. 2.15 ). We are grateful to the Friends of the British School at Athens and to Cambridge Digital Humanities for funding this initiative.
2.12. Thomas Bull (Oxford). © Thomas R. Bull/BSA.
2.13. Tereza Ward and Kate Wilson (Liverpool). © BSA.
2.14. A sample of some of the donations to the BSA archive in 2022. © BSA.
2.15. Notebooks of Alan Wace’s explorations in Thessaly, digitized as part of the Digital Thessaly project. © BSA.
BSA publications
Thanks to the hard work of our behind-the-scenes editors (Peter Liddel, Yannis Galanakis, Tulsi Parikh, Olga Krzyszkowska, and Rayna Andrews), collaborators (Hellenic Society and the EfA), and the many wonderful contributors, there were several BSA publications in 2022. Volumes 117 of the Annual of the BSA and 68 of Archaeological Reports (the latter in collaboration with the Hellenic Society) were published. Our collaboration with the EfA, Archaeology in Greece Online, continued with 16,800 publicly available entries. A new BSA Supplementary Volume written by Emilia Oddo with Vasso Fotou, The House of the Frescoes at Knossos, was published in May 2022.
The Knossos Research Centre (KRC)
Our curator, Kostis Christakis, reported that life has returned to its usual active and varied form at Knossos post-covid. The academic programme was very busy with British, Greek, and international research projects working on publication of material, including a strong focus on legacy data (including the Knossos Urban Landscape Project, Myrtos Pyrgos, Galatas, Dia Survey, and the Koulores project).
For the next few years, the curator will focus on the new Stratigraphic Museum, but he has been able to keep some study space available for on-going projects (Fig. 2.16). The curatorial project for the holdings of the Stratigraphic Museum was completed. While producing a brilliant resource, many young scholars benefited from valuable work experience and study of a diversity of material culture from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity. Our digital assets manager is also working with this resource to make it easily accessible for future work.
2.16. Knossos Research Centre: plans for the new Stratigraphic Museum. Image taken from promotional film on the British School at Athens, produced by Long Run Productions. © Long Run Productions.
A new project with the University of the Mountains is focusing on tractional weaving practices. Cotton has been sowed in the KRC garden to produce handmade yarn. In addition to reconstructing the techniques, the project will document the ethical values and the centuries-old wealth of Cretan weaving, hopefully encouraging others to take up the thread (no pun intended!) of the ancient art of weaving. Knossos was busy throughout the year with training and outreach activities. In addition to a one-day training seminar on research approaches to material culture and education for primary school teachers, students from the 48th Elementary School of Heraklion participated in a programme on archaeology and Minoan Crete. Knossos’ renowned summer cultural programme was also rekindled (Fig. 2.17). In addition to lectures, two concerts were held, the first with the Heraklion Municipality Philharmonic Orchestra and the second with the Heraklion Municipal Youth Symphony Orchestra. The photography exhibition by the PhotoSapiens art group was inspired by Knossos and the work of the BSA (Fig. 2.18). The main theme of the photographs is the human connection to and interaction with the archaeological site and the finds. The exhibition was combined with a display of books by 18th-century travellers held in the KRC Library.
2.17. Knossos curator, Dr Kostis Christakis, teaching primary school children. © BSA.
2.18. Photography exhibition by PhotoSapiens. © BSA.
The Marc and Ismene Fitch Laboratory
The Fitch Laboratory, founded in 1974, will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary (Fig. 2.19). To promote and communicate the laboratory’s achievements and future development, the BSA is implementing a series of events and publications for the wider public and the scientific community. The BSA is delighted to welcome back Dr Carlotta Gardner, former Williams Fellow in Ceramic Petrology, as our new Fitch 2024 Research and Outreach Officer.
2.19. The Fitch is going to be celebrating 50 years in 2024. Special issue of Aρχαιλογία και Tέχνες on the British School at Athens, 2022, pp 86–87. © Aρχαιολογία & Tέχνες.
Fitch Lab Director Dr Vangelio Kiriatzi reports: Dr Sergios Menelaou is the new Williams Fellow in Ceramic Petrology. He will expand his work in the eastern Aegean investigating the ceramic traditions of the main Early Bronze Age sites on the islands of Lemnos, Lesbos, and Chios focusing on understanding the transformations in the interaction networks between these islands and the nearby Anatolian lands.
Work in more than 30 projects has been undertaken in the last year by the Fitch staff, associate researchers, and collaborators, the latter based in a number of institutions across Europe and north America. The Fitch’s research concerns Neolithic to Medieval periods and geographically has expanded beyond its main Aegean focus to include areas from Cornwall to the Iberian coast, from the Balkans to northern Mesopotamia. The Fitch Lab is hugely grateful for all the collaborative work in Greece and beyond and here we highlight just a few examples of our projects.
While the study of black-figured and red-figured vases has dominated the field of Attic pottery in the fifth century, a new collaboration between the Fitch, Ann Steiner (Franklin & Marshall College; ASCSA), and Gudrun Klebinder-Gauss (AAIA) aims to redress this bias by investigating everyday ceramic vessels, addressing issues such as pottery production organization, location and specialization of workshops, as well as technological transfer and potters’ mobility. Petrographic and elemental analysis of representative samples based on the stylistic and technological study is being undertaken on an assemblage of late fifth century BC material from the Tholos in the Athenian agora. The technological study and analysis of this pottery has revealed at least eight distinct chaînes opératoires, each associated with raw materials of different types and source, as well as different technologies. These results reflect the co-existence of distinct potting traditions and workshop organizations throughout Attica, with potters of diverse origin and potentially social identity. The above research was funded through a Wenner Gren Foundation grant and has been presented in a chapter recently submitted for publication (Kiriatzi et al. Reference Kiriatzi, Klebinder-Gauss, Müller, Marzec and Steinerforthcoming).
Prof. Vasif Şahoğlu (Ankara University) and his team at Çeşme have published significant new evidence for the devastation of the coastal settlement at Çeşme by a series of tsunamis associated with the Late Bronze Age Thera eruption (Şahoğlu et al. Reference Şahoğlu, Sterba, Katz, Çayır, Gündoğane, Tyulenevaf, Tuğcug, Bichlerb, Erkanal and Goodman-Tchernov2022), changing the current historical but also chronological understanding of the impact of this natural catastrophe (Fig. 2.20). As part of this project, the Fitch collaborators began the study of deposits of the tsunami-destroyed settlement to reconstruct its pre- and post-eruption history. The stylistic and technological study of the pottery, in combination with the petrographic and elemental analysis, has already highlighted this community’s diverse connections. While, at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, local Anatolian potting traditions were still strong, Cretan connections are manifested in a new, partly Minoanized pottery tradition. The completion of this study will shed more light on the role of Çeşme-Bağlararası 1 in the regional networks and will help to reassess the broader impact of the Thera eruption on other regions and societies of the Aegean with which the community at Çeşme seems to have been closely connected, such as Crete, Miletus, and the Cyclades.
2.20. Çeşme excavations, © Vasif Şahoğlu.
The BSA has a strong tradition of research and collaborations in northern Greece through a number of fieldwork projects since its early history, and the Fitch continues and further develops this trend. This is reflected in the study of pottery traditions in central Macedonia during the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, with Toumba Thessaloniki as its main focus, in collaboration with Prof. Stelios Andreou and Dr Sevi Triantafyllou (both Aristotle University, Thessaloniki). During 2022, the Toumba Thessaloniki excavations and the Aristotle University hosted and supported a research collaboration focusing on the technological and functional study of cooking pots. This study was undertaken in the context of a Marie Curie Initial Training Network, which aims to apply innovative techniques and approaches to understand the transformations of potting and cooking practices. This relates to important work recently undertaken also by the Aristotle University to promote understanding of a crucial phase in the region’s history, marked by increased mobility and connectivity mainly with areas in the south.
The Fitch bursary holders are invaluable members of the team and the work of three is highlighted here. In two cases, the Fitch supported new interdisciplinary studies of pottery in regions outside the Aegean, where such studies had been rather rare or non-existent in the past, while in the third case the laboratory’s support concerned archaeometallurgy research on Geometric Greece. Dr Petra Tušlová (Charles University, Prague) came to the Fitch on sabbatical to undertake combined petrographic and elemental analysis of pottery samples from two sites in southeastern Bulgaria: the settlement of Yurta-Stroyno and the hillfort of Dodoparon. This, in collaboration with colleagues in the Fitch Lab, as well as with Silvia Amicone (University of Tübingen), comprises one of the first interdisciplinary studies on pottery from Bulgaria and promises not just to enhance understanding of local pottery production but also to shed new light on the cultural and economic landscapes of Roman Thrace and its connections with other parts of the Roman empire mainly to the south. Kyra Kaercher (Cambridge) worked at the Fitch on WD-XRF analysis, in combination with her previous petrography studies. She was investigating the locations of manufacture and the nature of craft organization at a number of rural sites in northern Iraq, focusing on the unglazed ceramics. Kyra’s work illustrates the differences in material resource management and the possible existence of various workshops in the region of northern Iraq. This is the first such study in the area and it seeks to understand the changing nature of ceramic production at rural sites during a long period of political and economic transformations. While at the Fitch, Dr Vana Orfanou (Heidelberg) revisited the material she originally analysed for her PhD at UCL, namely copper-based votive offerings from the temple of Thavlios Zeus at ancient Pherae in Thessaly. New metallographic analysis of these samples provided additional insights on the decision-making processes during their manufacture, the gestures involved in their shaping, their mechanical properties, and their functionality. The results are being prepared for a publication that will discuss them in the context of making metals to satisfy the religious needs of the community in Geometric Greece.
In the Fitch Laboratory, the BSA this year hosted Turing internships for Zion Lashua and Tom Hillness (Fig. 2.21), from the University of Exeter, and a volunteer position for Genevieve Lascombes, who worked between the Fitch and the BSA archive on the Peter Ucko papers.
2.21. Fitch Interns 2022: Genevieve Lascombes (BSA), Zion Lashua (Exeter), and Tom Hillness (Exeter). © BSA.
Archaeological fieldwork (Map 2.1)
Map 2.1. Sites of BSA study and fieldwork in 2022. Fieldwork: 1. Toumba Serron; 2. Western Samos; 3. Kato Choria; 4. Palaikastro. Study: 5. Chios-Emporio; 6. Keros/Dhaskalio; 7. Lefkandi; 8. Mycenae; 9. Olynthos; 10. Prosilio.
This year was the first full season of fieldwork at the site of Toumba Serron ( ID18597 ) under the direction of Dimitra Malamidou (Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres), Nicolas Zorzin (National Cheng Kung University-Taiwan), and James Taylor (University of York). The research project is a five-year collaboration between the Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres and the BSA, centred upon the investigation of the Late Neolithic site of Toumba within its context of the Strymon valley of northern Greece.
Work began with a five-day drilling project with a team from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, France, to collect 15 auger samples to build on the non-intrusive data obtained through fieldwalking and geophysics in 2021 and to begin modelling the deposits across the site (Fig. 2.22 ). Preliminary analysis of the of auger cores confirmed the presence of Late Neolithic activity at a depth of between 1.6m and 2m below ground surface and indicated that there are probably two main phases of archaeological activity in the area sampled.
2.22. Toumba Serron: taking cores in the field. © BSA/Hellenic Ministry of Culture: Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres.
The first excavations took place in 2022 and four trenches were opened in areas of interest identified in the 2019–21 magnetometry work (Fig. 2.23 ). Altogether the excavation data confirm the presence of potential structures at the site across two probable phases of LNI and LNII activity. The site itself is perhaps chronologically simpler than anticipated, lacking any clear depth of occupation. It might tentatively be characterized as a Neolithic village situated on high ground within the lacustrine environment that would have characterized this portion of the Strymon Valley.
2.23. Toumba Serron: view of the excavation area from above. © BSA/Hellenic Ministry of Culture: Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres.
A field lab was set up in a recently renovated former primary school, which was also used as a base for sharing data. Throughout the field season, Ioanna Antoniadou initiated an archaeological ethnography in the village of Toumba, where the residents have welcomed the project.
The second season of the West Area of Samos Archaeological Project ( ID18598 ) five-year research programme involved intensive pedestrian field survey in the Marathokampos basin of the island’s southwest. The project is directed by Anastasia Christophilopoulou (Cambridge), Michael Loy (Cambridge), and Naoíse Mac Sweeney (Vienna). Four and a half weeks were devoted to fieldwalking, with an aim of fully documenting the spatial extent of two known sites and locating any smaller sites in their hinterland: the first ‘Agios Ioannis’ catalogued by Graham Shipley in the 1980s (Reference Shipley1987: 254) and the second ‘Velanidia’, known through local tradition.
Total coverage for the season was 3.04km2, walked in 760 walker tracts comprising 50 × 50m grids and designated ‘unwalkable’ areas. In total, 26,306 sherds of pottery were counted by fieldwalkers, of which 2,106 diagnostic sherds were collected. These diagnostic pieces were studied following the end of the field season by Dr Sabine Huy (Hamburg) in the Archaeological Museum of Pythagoreio, assisted by Francesca Zandonai (Berlin). Density of pottery scatters was used to identify 14 discrete areas of interest (AOIs; Fig. 2.24 ), of which six (Vel-1–Vel-6) were located on the Velanidia plain (Fig. 2.25 ), and two (AI-1 and AI-2) on the slopes beneath Agios Ioannis church. In addition, four AOIs were defined between Agios Ioannis and Velanidia (in an area designated ‘East Kampos’, EK-1–EK-4), and one to the west of Agios Ioannis at ‘West Kampos’ (WK-1). All walkable areas of the coastal zones east of the settlement of Kampos in the periphery of the modern-day village Limnionas were walked, yielding two further AOIs (Lim-1 and Lim-2). Through extensive survey, 113 points of interest were recorded in the landscape, variously associated with AOIs or in the wider hinterland.
2.24. West area of Samos Archaeological Project: location of AOIs (yellow) superimposed on walkable area (blue). © BSA.
2.25. West area of Samos Archaeological Project: view across Velanidia. © BSA.
Velanidia provided the densest ceramic pattern, yielding nearly 20,000 sherds and 1,461 diagnostics from this area alone. Two AOIs from this site yielded predominantly first millennium BC pottery (Vel-1: Archaic/Classical Ionian and Attic tablewares; Vel-2: Archaic/Classical/Hellenistic transport amphoras), while the lion’s share of the remaining pottery was Early Byzantine, principally transport amphoras. Across the whole landscape of the Marathokampos basin, all periods between the Bronze Age through to modern are represented, mainly locally or regionally made in southern Ionia in the Archaic and Classical periods, and thereafter including also pottery manufactured in the south Aegean, north Africa, and east Mediterranean. Funding was received for the project this year from the British School at Athens, the British Academy (BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant), and the University of Vienna.
The excavation project at Kato Choria (ID18600) is a collaboration between the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades and the BSA, carried out by staff and students from the Universities of Edinburgh and Newcastle. Following several seasons of regional field survey and documentation of field structures in the vicinity of Apalirou Kastro in south Naxos (Fig. 2.26), the aim of the 2022 season was to initiate excavation of selected structures in the lower settlement of Kato Choria. To this end, a team of 10 under the direction of Jim Crow (Edinburgh) and Mark Jackson (Newcastle) undertook limited cleaning and detailed recording of five areas for potential excavation in 2023. Recording was by terrestrial photography, sketch plan and notes, a drone (UAV), GPS, and a laser scanner (Fig. 2.27). This recording is able to complement the previous survey undertaken by Prof. Crow and Dr Veloudaki of the Kato Choria settlement. Area F (225), for example, revealed a well-defined structure, part of a group of buildings just below the boundary wall, set above the lower terraces and structures of the settlement. It set to the northwest of the site where a dispersed hoard of 14th-century Venetian coins was found in 2017 in the debris above the demolition of structure (229). Cleaning of weeds and dry grasses revealed a very well-constructed northeast corner with four visible courses of masonry. Overall, this is one of best built and preserved structures outwith the Olive Church across the site. As with other areas, it was recorded with drone photographs, GPS, laser scanning, sketch drawings, and features described on context sheets. Although fieldwork was limited in 2022, it gave us the opportunity to assess in detail areas for excavation, as well as presenting us with the opportunity to make a detailed record of the surface layers and structural features. Cleaning of all four of the preferred areas A, D, E, and F shows the enormous potential for excavation on the site in future seasons as well as the effective application of state-of-the-art recording methods.
2.26. Kato Choria: map of Kato Choria/Paleoglisies (after Crow and Veludaki). © Jim Crow/Hellenic Ministry of Culture: Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades.
2.27. Kato Choria: topographic survey during fieldwork. © BSA/Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades.
The second year of a three-year collaboration at Palaikastro ( ID18599 ) was chiefly dedicated to excavations on the shoreline, directed by Carl Knappett (University of Toronto), Andrew Shapland (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford), Chrysa Sofianou (director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi), and Theotokis Theodoulou (EUA). The team investigated both the Chiona promontory, which forms the southern breakwater of Chiona beach, and the coastline just to its southeast, East Beach (Bodalaki; Fig. 2.28 ). Trenches were dug in two adjacent zones on the promontory (Zones 1 and 2), and two on East Beach (Zones 3 and 4). Trench location was guided by visible wall remains – some of which are subject to coastal erosion (Fig. 2.29 ).
2.28. Palaikastro: Zones 1 and 2, aerial image. © BSA/Hellenic Ministry of Culture: Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi.
2.29. Palaikastro: aerial view and photomosaics of trenches excavated. © BSA/Hellenic Ministry of Culture:Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi.
The promontory remains were noted by Bosanquet (Reference Bosanquet1901/02: 306), describing a large house ‘built of huge undressed limestone blocks’. Below a Hellenistic building, remains of an LMIII construction with steps indicating an entrance were discovered in Zone 1. A deposit of LMIB ogival and conical cups was also uncovered, indicating Neopalatial occupation in this area too.
Below the Hellenistic levels of Zone 2, two LMIII storerooms containing collapsed levels, including an intact floor deposit and an upper storey, were excavated. Both the basement and upper storey had numerous large storage jars and other finds. The lower floor deposit, comprising 0.3–0.5m of silted soil, included a large lead vessel and a stone lamp. As well as the many pithoi and jars, some smaller jugs, a basket-handled pyxis, a champagne cup, and other cups and bowls point to collapsed shelving. There was also a remarkable number of large lumps of pumice – several in the fill and at least two inside storage vessels. To the east, a room containing a deposit of LMIB cups and a doorway with an ashlar jamb was revealed. Stratigraphic tests were conducted, too, revealing successive layers of material dating to LMIB, LMIA, MMIII, and MMII. This showed that some walls date to MMIII and all of the deposits continued up to the walls, demonstrating that they were exposed during these periods. We await further study and micromorphology reports on these tests, but they should provide useful evidence contributing to the debate concerning a possible tsunami associated with the Thera eruption.
Turning to East Beach, the team opened trenches in two zones. Zone 3 was placed between the beach road and the cliff to investigate the ‘rectangular building’ identified in the 1980s survey (MacGillivray et al. Reference MacGillivray, Sackett, Smyth, Driessen, Lyness, Hobbs and Peatfield1984). The outer walls of this LMII building (in its last phase) were identified. In Zone 4, two buildings were identified, with a street between. Building 1 revealed evidence of occupation in LMIII, with a substantial fill deposit, as well as both the Neopalatial and Protopalatial periods. A foundation deposit in a wall here consisted of a miniature pyxis with tortoiseshell ripple decoration, providing dating evidence for construction in MMIII. An interesting feature in the LMI occupation was a seemingly in situ stela or baetyl, perhaps associated with a square block that was lying against it. The Protopalatial levels were below the building’s walls, and so may belong to an earlier structure.
Cleaning along the beach revealed the heavily eroded deposits of Building 2. There is limited evidence that the building was remodelled in LMIII, having been constructed in the Neopalatial period.
Some underwater survey was also conducted, carrying on from that carried out last year. The strong winds limited what was possible; however, the team was able to study areas at depths between 6m and 15m in the bays of Chiona and Kouremenos, with few archaeological finds. The area between Itanos and Maridati was also investigated; in this wider area, there were finds of pottery, a possible anchor, and building material. Dives in the area south of Cavo Plako were successful in observing fragments of Classical and Roman amphorae, Byzantine anchors, and a more recent anchor type (probably British admiralty) – pointing to the use of the location as an anchorage. This last discovery is of particular interest, showing the use of the area for safe anchorage in the difficult waters of east Crete even in periods when there was minimal nearby habitation.
People of the BSA
Sadly, we lost some of the BSA greats this year. George Huxley (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2022/12/08/prof-george-leonard-huxley-1932-2022/) (1932–2022) was assistant director for the 1956–57 and 1957–58 academic years (Fig. 2.30 ). Huxley directed excavations at Kastri for three seasons (Coldstream and Huxley Reference Coldstream and Huxley1972), developing a close connection with Kythera that he maintained throughout his life. Huxley taught in Queens Belfast, was director of the Gennadius Library from 1986 to 1989, and, throughout his career, Huxley was a prolific writer of impressive range and depth.
2.30. George Huxley on Kythera. © BSA.
Myrto Georgakopoulou (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2022/12/16/myrto-georgakopoulou-1976-2022/) (Fig. 2.31 ) joined the Fitch Laboratory first as Archaeological Chemistry Fellow (2005–2009) then as its first scientific research officer (2009–2013). Even after she took up a post in UCL-Qatar, she remained a close collaborator in a number of Fitch projects. Through her long-running partnership with Vangelio Kiriatzi, she was instrumental in the establishment of the WD-XRF analytical unit at the Fitch and in the integration of elemental and petrographic analysis of ceramics in a series of emblematic projects such as the diachronic study of pottery ceramic landscapes on Aegina and Kythera. Myrto was not just a brilliant archaeologist, she was one of the most wonderful caring people to have lived. She is hugely missed by all.
2.31. Myrto Georgakopoulou. © Vangelio Kiriatzi.
The BSA has incredible encouragement and collaboration from all its supporters, members, and donors. We are very grateful to them for all their support and consideration throughout the year. I would like to say a huge thanks to all the staff at the BSA in Athens, London, and Knossos, BSA council and subcommittee members, publications team, BSA Friends in Greece and the UK, and everyone who works behind the scenes in supporting the work of the BSA (Fig. 2.32 ).
2.32. BSA Council members and staff pictured together at Away Day, September 2022. © BSA.
Competing interests
Rebecca Sweetman compiled her contribution while director at the British School at Athens.
