Research Officer

Michael Boyd

British School at Athens
52 Souedias Street
Athens, 10676
+30 211 1022 801

m.boyd@bsa.ac.uk

Research

I am interested in pivotal moments of change in human society and have carried out research in the second and third millennia BCE in the eastern Mediterranean. My recent research has focused on issues of information, communication and identity and the ways in which people make and change societies in practice. I have co-directed excavations at Keros, a key third millennium site in the Cyclades, answering questions of proto-urbanisation and centralisation, and have designed a scalar interpretative approach including a series of connected island surveys. I am deeply interested in project design and I have integrated a series of methodologies in a new approach to maximising the potential of a research project, involving a large international team of researchers at all levels in a cohesive approach to research goals and a comprehensive publication programme. Earlier research focused on human practice in the evolving funerary strategies of the second millennium BCE. For the Fitch Laboratory I conducted a series of geophysical projects, demonstrating the potential of the technique in Greece.

Fieldwork

In 2025 the BSA began a new, five-year fieldwork project on Keros, a today-uninhabited island in the middle of the Aegean. Co-directed with Demetris Athanasoulis (Ministry of Culture) and Evi Margaritis (The Cyprus Institute), the project envisages significant excavations on the islet of Dhaskalio over its five-year cycle, along with targeted investigations elsewhere on Keros and potentially on Kato Kouphonisi. The project is a highly integrated inter-disciplinary project which deploys a unique all-digital strategy.

Previously I was co-director (with Colin Renfrew) of the 2015-2018 Keros-Naxos Seaways Project, involving excavation on Dhaskalio, and surveys on Kato Kouphonisi and on southeast Naxos. The fieldwork and analyses for this project are complete and it is currently being published. Prior to that, I was assistant director of the 2012-13 Keros Island Survey (directed by C. Renfrew, M. Marthari and K. Dellaporta). I am the principal editor of the Keros publications series.

Books
Keros volumes
Select Keros articles (interpretative)
Recent Keros articles (analytical)
Select methodology articles
Select funerary archaeology articles
Select geophysics articles
  • Boyd, M.J. 2019: ‘The Late Roman building and settlement structures in the Rositsa Valley: the geophysical results’, in Poulter, A. (ed) Excavation and survey at Gradishte I. Oxford, 779-836.
  • Boyd, M.J. 2016: ‘Geophysical Survey: the architecture and settlement structure of Iklaina’, in Cosmopoulos, M. (ed.) Iklaina I. The archaeological survey. Athens.
  • Konecny, A., Boyd, M.J., Marchese, R. & Aravantinos, V. 2012: ‘The Urban Scheme of Plataiai in Boiotia: Report on the Geophysical Survey 2005-2009’, Hesperia 81.1, 93-140.
Select Cycladic sculpture articles