Image credit: Giulio Lucarini & Toby Wilkinson BSA Friends' lecture Professor Cyprian Broodbank (University of Cambridge), 'The Emergence of Civilisation', and the Maghreb Abstract: The ‘long’ third millennium BC is recognised as a crucial period of social change across much of the Mediterranean. In 1972 Colin Renfrew’s magisterial The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and […]

The translator of Athens Tales with the city in the background, photo credit: Andrew Spyrou Friends of the BSA Greece lecture Joshua Barley, ‘Athens Tales’ Book Presentation Recently published by Oxford University Press, Athens Tales is an anthology of Greek writing about the city, from the late nineteenth century to today. The book brings together […]

Delphi © Prof. Lin Foxhall. UK Friends' lecture Professor Lin Foxhall (University of Liverpool), "Re-imagining ancient Greek landscapes" Abstract: Ancient Greek landscapes were both like and unlike those we see today. Landscapes are dynamic and change over time, sometimes very rapidly. The human relationships within local communities linked together a variety of urban and rural spaces […]

Rhamnous, photo: E. Harris UK Friends' lecture Professor Edward Harris (Durham University), "A New Approach to the Attic Countryside: Markets in the Demes" Abstract: In Aristophanes’ Acharnians (33-36), Dikaiopolis expresses his nostalgia for the good old days in the Attic countryside when no one ever used the word ‘buy’ and the land produced everything he […]

The Portara Gate, Palatia islet, Naxos, photo: R Levitan UK Friends' lecture Dr Rebecca Levitan (King's College London), "The Naxos Quarry Project: New Insights on the Archaic Marble Quarries and Monuments of Naxos, Greece" Abstract: In the early history of marble working in the Mediterranean, few locations have been more influential than Naxos, an island […]

Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis, reconstruction © John Goodinson UK Friends' Lecture Professor David Gill (University of Kent), "Cleon’s Victory at Sphacteria and the Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis" Cleon’s dramatic victory at Sphacteria in 425 – with its unprecedented capture of 292 Spartan hoplites – was a transformative […]

Daskalio Cave, Kalymnos, Photograph © Stathis Klimis Online Friends' Lecture Dr Maria Mina (University of the Aegean), “Sacred caves outside Crete: Daskalio Cave on Kalymnos and its connections to Minoan ritual practices” Abstract: We know from archaeological studies that occupied caves diachronically held prominent positions as visible landmarks or as nodal points in exchange networks […]

image: The Mani Promontory in the Southern Peloponnese. CORONELLI, Vincenzo. Description géographique et historique de la Morée ... , Paris, Nicolas Langlois, MDCLXXXVII   Online Friends' lecture Elias Kolovos (National Hellenic Research Foundation), "How the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi set foot on the Mani Peninsula, but left in a hurry... Ottoman imperial administration in the […]

Elderly olive trees growing on the edge of an agricultural terrace, Kythera, photo: Dr Valasia Isaakidou PLEASE NOTE: new date - Mon 25th March 2025 Hybrid Friends' Lecture Professor Paul Halstead (Professor Emeritus, University of Sheffield), “The importance of olive growing and oil exports in Archaic-Classical Athens: the contribution of 'citizen science'” Abstract: Scholars have […]

  The remains of the two castles at Torone, photo by Teddy Catling Hybrid Friends' Lecture Dr Pamela Armstrong (University of Oxford), "The Two Castles of Torone" Abstract: Torone sits on a headland at the southern tip of the Sithonia peninsula in the Chalkidiki on the north coast of Greece. From the headland it is […]

BSA Friends' lecture Professor Nikos Daskalothanasis (Athens School of Fine Arts), "Το πρώτο ίδρυμα καλλιτεχνικής εκπαίδευσης στην Ελλάδα: η ιστορία της Ανωτάτης Σχολής Καλών Τεχνών της Αθήνας" Please note: the lecture will take place in Greek Abstract: The aim of the lecture is to reconstruct the history of the first educational artistic institution of the […]

BSA Friends' Lecture Stephen Duckworth, “Nineteenth century travellers in Crete - Edward Lear, Pashley and Spratt” Abstract: Whilst Western travellers to the newly independent Greece in the 19th century after independence were often critical of the performance and effectiveness of the new government, travel in Crete was very different. It was still under Ottoman rule after the […]

BSA Friends Greece lecture Christine Willis, "50 years a Potter" Event description: My Story: In the past year, I have been working with a group of Archaeologist and PhD students researching the different clays in the Anthemounta River Valley on the outskirts of Thessaloniki. Most of these archaeologist have been working on the site of […]

BSA Friends' Lecture Dr Conor Trainor (University of Warwick), “What Happened Under Roman Rule? A View From Two Greek Cities” Abstract: Traditionally, the Roman period of Greek history has been interpreted as a period of economic decline, or stagnation. In recent years, new research, especially from survey projects, has begun to challenge this picture. This […]

BSA Friends' Lecture Dr Flora Michelaki (BSA), “The tholos cemeteries in south-central Crete and their social implications during Pre- and Protopalatial periods” Abstract: This lecture presents a synopsis of my doctoral thesis that aimed to examine the architectural and depositional complexity of the best documented tholos cemeteries in south-central Crete during the Prepalatial and Protopalatial […]

BSA Supporter Exclusive Lecture Dr Sevi Triantaphyllou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), “Investigating the use of fire on human remains in the prehistoric Aegean” Abstract: Exposure of the body to fire causes various physical and chemical alterations which involve shrinkage, breakage, warping, complete deformation as well as removal of the organic component and the modification of […]

Lilian Chandler, Winifred Lamb, and Mary Herford, 1921, at the BSA (BSA Archive) Friends of the BSA in Greece lecture series Professor Rebecca Sweetman (BSA), "Women and archaeology at the BSA: the early years" A short history of women at the BSA in the early 20th century: challenges and successes. In-person only, 6pm (Greece) BSA […]

Image: composite of the Throne Room at Knossos (wikipedia) and the speaker's photo of a Knossos tablet (KN Lc(1) 525) BSA Friends' Lecture Prof John Bennet (University of Sheffield), "Never the twain shall meet: reflections on text and image in Minoan Crete" Abstract: The world of Neopalatial Crete was visually rich; it was also a literate […]

View towards Dispilio, Lake Orestias (photo: Amy Bogaard) Friends' Hybrid Lecture Prof. Amy Bogaard (University of Oxford), "Archaeology and ‘eco-cultural’ heritage: case studies from Greece and beyond" Abstract: The climate and biodiversity crises are prompting new conversations about the archive of human experience we can draw upon to address them. Archaeology in Greece offers a […]

  Axonometric drawing showing the construction of a Hellenistic stoa (drawing by Samuel Holzman) Friends of the BSA in Greece lecture series. Dr Samuel Holzman (Princeton University), "Archaeological drawing in (and out of) perspective" Archaeologists draw not just to show their discoveries to others. Archaeological drawing is a visual language, one for recording evidence and […]

  Photo: Giorgos Anastasakis / © Region of Crete Friends of the BSA in Greece lecture series Isabella Zampetaki, "How Far Would You Go for Real Food?"   Isabella has traveled Crete’s mountains and plains in search of unique culinary experiences. She's visited ancient Tsounati olive groves where the world’s first high phenolic olive oil to […]

Friends' Lecture series Dr Kostis Christakis (BSA Knossos Curator), "A land called Crete: European cartographers and the perception of the Cretan landscape, 16th – 17th c. AD"   This is an exclusive event for BSA Supporters only. If you would like to join us, please consider signing up as a Supporter for as little as £50 (£20 […]

BSA Friends' Hybrid lecture Dr Matthew Haysom, "Men, Women and Others in Minoan Iconography" Abstract: Throughout the history of Minoan studies scholars have felt that there was something distinctive about the way that Minoans depicted people. Arthur Evans and the first generation of scholars were struck by what seemed to them the dominant position of women […]

BSA Friends' Lecture (online only) Professor Paul Cartledge (University of Cambridge), "Sparta: how odd?” Abstract: For most non-Spartan ancient Greeks the community and polity of Sparta seemed decidedly odd: very military, exceptionally if not excessively pious, unusually liberal towards its women citizens, and unique in its compulsory educational cycle that included institutionalised homosexuality/pederasty. Against them […]

Image: Gold cross in San Vitale, Ravenna. Source: Judith Herrin   Abstract: This talk will explore the influence of Greek and Greek culture in Ravenna, where Latin was the language of everyday life in the sixth-eighth centuries, while Gothic and Greek left deep marks. The reconquest of the city by imperial troops in 540 brought […]

Abstract: There are always ‘New Discoveries and New Problems’ in Greek Religion, but the two discoveries to be presented in this lecture are exceptional. In 2013 a large new cache was published of the lead tablets on which enquirers at Zeus’ oracle at Dodona wrote their questions. They extend our knowledge of the very down-to-earth problems […]