Events Calendar – British School at Athens

Mercy Money-Coutts at Knossos, Crete, 1937, PEN/7/2/6/667, John Pendlebury Family Papers © British School at Athens.

4^th workshop on Women in the Archaeology of Greece

Call for papers – Women Archaeologists and War

When: 09 & 10 March 2026

Where: EFA conference room | Didotou 6, Athens &
British School at Athens | Upper House

Organised by the École française d’Athènes and the British School at Athens, with the support of the British Embassy in Athens

Contact & Information:
r.phillips@bsa.ac.uk & priscilla.ralli@gmail.com

Download the call for papers (EN)

The fourth workshop on Women in the Archaeology of Greece, jointly organised by the École française d’Athènes and the British School at Athens, will take place on 10 March 2026 following the launch of the proceedings from the 2023-2025 workshop on 9 March.

For its 2026 edition, the workshop focuses on the theme of Women Archaeologists and War. It examines the activities of women archaeologists in Greece in the period from 1910 to 1950, a time characterised by successive and related conflicts across Europe, from the Balkan Wars to World War One and World War Two. This period also includes the interwar years, the time after the end of World War Two, and the Greek Civil War. How did women archaeologists in Greece participate in these war efforts? Can archaeological archives help us to trace women’s roles in wartime?
Women archaeologists took on various tasks in wartime: as nurses, ambulance drivers, code breakers, and aid distributors. They worked in Greek hospitals, with local war charities, and in intelligence offices based in Athens. One example is Mercy Money-Coutts, pictured here, who worked with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Crete after World War Two. By looking at women’s wartime roles in detail, this workshop aims to explore the different ways that women contributed to war efforts in the early twentieth century, as well as the different aspects of social and cultural history that their actions illuminate. We are especially interested in the contested narratives around the topic of women in wartime, to understand the negative as well as the positive impact of their actions within the European political landscape. We also aim to highlight intersectional approaches that emphasise the interaction between social categories (such as gender, race, and class) and the broader structural conditions that influenced women’s work.

The programme for the workshop will be available shortly.

It will also be possible to participate in the workshop remotely as it will be hybrid.

The proceedings of the workshop will be published (in English only) in a publication venue to be determined.