Image Credit: Joshua Whitaker, ‘Acid History’ film still (2023) Joshua Whitaker (University of the Arts London, BSA Artist in Residence), ‘Acid History‘ Abstract: ‘Acid History’ is neither a record of psychedelic culture nor a catalogue of LSD experience. ‘Acid’ is deployed within the seminar, as Jeremy Gilbert has theorised it, as an adjective— a term […]
Professor Ursula Coope (Keble College, Oxford), "Is happiness cumulative over time? An argument from Plotinus" Abstract Is happiness the kind of thing that is cumulative over time? To many modern philosophers it has seemed obvious that the answer is yes. For example, Richard Kraut, in his recent book The Quality of Life, argues that the […]
Michalis Sotiropoulos (BSA 1821 Fellow in Modern Greek Studies), "Revolutionising the archives: The BSA George Finlay collection, the Greek Revolution and the digital condition" Abstract To what extent can the digital transformation of an archive enhance, or even change, our understanding of Philhellenism and its relationship to the Greek Revolution of 1821? What new ‘ways […]
Colloquium: Philhellenism and Greek Identity Formation in Literature, the Arts, and Scholarship - In honour of Roderick Beaton, Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature, King’s College London Programme: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Philhellenism-colloquium-programme-greyscale-set-up-as-booklet-1.pdf Thursday May 18th, Upper House (Director’s Residence) To attend IN PERSON please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/philhellenism-and-greek-identity-formation-in-literature-the-arts-tickets-615491580887
Hannah Gwyther, "Tusks, tools, and trial techniques: provisional results of experimental archaeology into the ancient craft of ivory carving" AHRC funded PhD Candidate - The University of Bristol and the British Museum
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS TALK HAS BEEN POSTPONED. IT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR JUNE 6TH Abstract From the start of the Late Bronze Age, people on the Greek mainland were buried with hundreds or even thousands of objects, made from exotic materials and embellished with figurative and abstract motifs. Through the twin representational […]
Image caption: Perdikaki (2019), a film by Catriona Gallagher, 38 minutes, film still Catriona Gallagher -Visual Artist (Bridget Riley Fellow 2022-23 - British School at Rome) , “An Athenian plant through time: a film screening and artist's talk” Abstract In 2013 British-Irish artist Catriona Gallagher discovered an unfamiliar plant growing from Athens’ urban fabric: περδικἀκι (perdikaki). […]
Douglas Forsyth (University of St. Andrews), "Social Strategies for Dealing with Scarce Precipitation; Examples from the Iron Age Cyclades" Abstract This presentation will explore some of the ways in which past human societies have dealt with living in areas of scarce or low precipitation. The examination will focus primarily on archaeological evidence from the Iron […]
International Symposium - From Sparta to Lacedaemon: daily lifeways of a Byzantine city This international symposium aims to bring together multifocal viewpoints to analyse the social and economic dynamics of Lacedaemon, as Sparta was known in post-classical periods. Combining archaeological, numismatic and textual sources, the papers presented in this symposium will shed light on the […]
BSA Friends' Lecture Series (Hybrid Event) Prof. Tony Spawforth, 'The Athenian Family of Herodes Atticus and the Spartan Contest of Endurance’ Abstract: This talk introduces the Sparta of Roman times, before focusing on a new Greek inscription from Sparta published last year by Georgios Steinhauer. The talk argues that this inscription records acclamations […]
Joshua Barley,“Greek Folk Songs: from oral tradition to literary translation” Abstract The Greek folk songs – dimotika tragoudia – make up one of the most important chapters in modern Greece’s musical, linguistic, and cultural history. Not only did these songs play a crucial role in forming the nation’s demotic language, but they have been revered […]
Image: Drawing of the stucco cornice from the dome of the Katholikon of Hosios Loukas from the Schultz and Barnsley notebook BAR-2, p. 66, British School at Athens Dr Flavia Vanni (University of Birmingham, The Richard Bradford McConnell Student/BSA), "Looking at Byzantium through materials: the case of stucco (ca 850-1453)" Abstract In 1890, Robert W. […]
Webinar Prof. Malcolm Schofield, "Aristotle on what makes a community a proper community: the ideal and the practicable" ‘The best politieia for most cities and most people’ (Pol. 4.11) Organised in collaboration with the Research Centre for Greek Philosophy of the Academy of Athens Handout 1: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Athens-Seminar-2-–-abstract.pdf Handout 2: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Athens-Seminar-2-–-texts.pdf Webinar registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FBGNbm0bTviCPHfIBYN06g
On the occasion of the establishment of the Archaeological GIS laboratory, AeGIS Athena at Xanthi, the Institute for Language and Speech Processing of “Athena” Research Center organises the International Workshop Mapping the Past, Plotting the Future. GIS in Archaeology, maturity & implementation, which will take place on 30th of March 2023 and it will be […]
Webinar Prof. Malcolm Schofield, "Aristotle on what makes a community a proper community: the ideal and the practicable" 'Aristotle’s idea of a politeia' (Pol. 3.6) Organised in collaboration with the Research Centre for Greek Philosophy of the Academy of Athens Note: those attending the webinar must have copies of texts and/or translations of Aristotle's Politics to […]
Image: The Higgins, Bedford BSA Friends' Lecture (online only) Abstract: Lear first visited Greece in 1848, and in 1849 returned with a friend Franklin Lushington to travel through the Peloponnese in March of that year. Over one hundred landscape drawings resulted, out of the total of 1.500 or more he made on all his […]
Dr Michael Loy (University of Cambridge, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow), "Roads and resources on Archaic/Classical Samos" To attend IN PERSON (Athens) please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roads-and-resources-on-archaicclassical-samos-tickets-586873874557 To attend ONLINE please register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iOzgtjPqSHWMBtDp7dzXlA
BSA Friends' Lecture Series Abstract: John Wilkes and Susan Walker consider the British engagement with the idea of Sparta as an ancient city and the urban reality as revealed by excavation in the 1980s and 1990s of the Roman Stoa and Theatre on the south side of the Acropolis. Here the residents of Roman and […]
Dr Tulsi Parikh (A. G. Leventis Fellow in Hellenic Studies / British School at Athens), "Bodies in motion: Experiencing the sacred in ancient Greece, the case of Ancient Karthaia, Kea" Abstract How did sacred landscapes shape religious experience and to what extent were sacred landscapes in turn shaped by religious experience? In this paper, I […]
We are happy to announce that the British School at Athens (BSA) and the National Library of Greece (NLG), with the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), are organizing the international conference, Philhellenism and the Greek Revolution of 1821: Towards a Global History. The conference will take place at the premises of the National Library […]
Elizabeth Foley (Macmillan-Rodewald Student, BSA), "Cycladic Cities and Hegemonic Powers in the Hellenistic Period" Please register to attend IN PERSON here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cycladic-cities-and-hegemonic-powers-in-the-hellenistic-period-tickets-577006751727 Please register to attend ONLINE here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b85vM7USQUC4JMswtxB9yA Monday 13 March, 4pm (UK) / 6pm (Greece)
On the 11th & 12th March, the British Council, British Embassy and British School at Athens (BSA) will welcome novelists, poets, academics and archivists to the BSA for a festival of writing in the ancient and modern worlds with theme of the Journey. Amid the inspiring gardens and buildings of the BSA, an institution founded […]
BSA Friends' Lecture Elena Konstantinidou, "Architectural heritage management issues: The case of Monemvasia" Bio: Elena Konstantinidou is an architect, Associate Professor in the Department of Architectural Design, at the School of Architecture NTUA, focusing on "Architectural Design and Architectural Heritage". She teaches respective lessons, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and has also been a visiting […]
Dr. Katerina Papayianni, "Tiny & cosmopolitan: the long journey of the house mouse from central Asia to the western Mediterranean" Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, M. H. Wiener Laboratory, ASCSA
Dr Carlotta Gardner, "Revisiting ancient ceramic production in the northern Peloponnese: the ceramic landscapes of Corinth and Sikyon " Abstract The northern Peloponnese provides evidence of prolific ceramic production from all periods and across the entire region, documented in the excavated ceramic assemblages and by the growing number of confirmed production centres and kiln sites. […]
Alison Hadfield (University of St. Andrews), “In Touch with the Past: How Artefact Handling Promotes Memory and Wellbeing” The speaker will focus on her research on the memory and wellbeing benefits of ancient artefact handling for people living with dementia. Alison will share with us the creative learning programmes that she has organised and executed […]
Professor Rebecca Sweetman (BSA Director) The Work of the BSA in 2022 and Professor Katherine Harloe (ICS Director) The Beyond Notability Project: Re-evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries Abstract: Beyond Notability (beyondnotability.org) is a three-year AHRC-funded collaboration between the Institute of Classical Studies, the University of Southampton and […]
Professor Rebecca Sweetman (BSA, Director), “The Work of the BSA in 2022” and Dr Andrew Shapland (Ashmolean), “Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality”
Professor Rebecca Sweetman (BSA, Director), “The Work of the BSA in 2022” and Dr Andrew Shapland (Ashmolean), “Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality”
Image:"In the vicinity of the fortified farm at Malathrea, southwestern modern-day Albania (Investigated by the Albanian Institute of Archaeology)" Nefeli Pirée Iliou, "In Search of the Greek and Roman agricultural economies in Epirus during the early Imperial period" Abstract In the ancient world different farms and country houses existed. Some have held the spotlight, like […]
BSA Friends' Lecture (hybrid: in-person and online) Prof. Graham Shipley (University of Leicester) Abstract: In this lecture I plan to outline some developing reflections on Classical and early Hellenistic Messenia as a dynamic landscape, attempting to apply concepts such as regionality, civic territories, and routes as well as certain geographical notions explored by the […]
Dr. Artemios Oikonomou, 'Understanding commercial activities: new data from core formed glass from Greece and beyond' Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, NCSR Demokritos & Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center
BSA Friends’ Lecture (hybrid: in-person and online) Prof. Roderick Beaton (KCL), "British and other Philhellenes in the Greek Revolution during the 1820s" Abstract: From the very beginning, the Greek Revolution was never a purely local affair, for Greeks alone. In April 1821 Petrombey Mavromichalis, who had raised the standard of revolution at Kalamata, issued a call […]
Image: Refugees at Knossos, 1922. Image reproduced with permission of the UN Archives. The original image shows on p. 190 of League of Nations, Greek Refugee Settlement (Geneva, 1926) https://owncloud.unog.ch/s/CnijycaeZtxXsac#pdfviewer Literature in the Aftermath of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe: Reception This is the second of two panel discussions co-organised with the Centre for […]
BSA Friends' Lecture (online only) Prof. Michael Cosmopoulos, "Homer and the Mycenaeans: The Mycenaean City of Iklaina and the Iliad" Abstract: For thousands of years Homer’s Iliad has remained the classic tale of love, honor, and war. Exciting archaeological discoveries in the past 150 years have unearthed the great palaces of the Homeric heroes and […]
Dr. Ioanna Moutafi, 'The curious case of Tomb 21: exploring mortuary change through funerary taphonomy in the Early Mycenaean Ayios Vasileios' Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, M. H. Wiener Laboratory, ASCSA
Postcards from Greece: This Afterlife, a poetry reading and conversation to mark the publication of Stallings’ Selected Poems Alicia (A. E.) Stallings will read and discuss work from her four published collections of poetry gathered into her new selected poems, This Afterlife, poems that explore Greek mythology, classical reception, ancient and modern Greece, and the diachronic strata of […]
Image: Refugees at Knossos, 1922. Image reproduced with permission of the UN Archives. The original image shows on p. 190 of League of Nations, Greek Refugee Settlement (Geneva, 1926) https://owncloud.unog.ch/s/CnijycaeZtxXsac#pdfviewer Literature in the Aftermath of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe: Translation This is the first of two panel discussions co-organised with the Centre […]
BSA Friends’ Virtual Lecture 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 £40 (£20 for students) if you have not already done so. You can find out more, and sign up, here: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/join-us-2/become-a-supporter/ Prof. John Bennet […]
Sir Michael Llewellyn Smith, "A.A. Pallis, from Greek abroad to Greek in Greece" Abstract The talk will introduce the life and work of A.A. Pallis, son of the Alexander Pallis whose translation of the Gospels caused such scandal. A.A. Pallis described himself as a Ξενιτεμενος Ελληνας. His work carried him from Manchester and Liverpool to […]
Image: Two Sisters by Per Krohg Lyndsay Coo (University of Bristol / BSA Visiting Fellow), "New approaches to sisterhood in Greek tragedy" Abstract: Greek tragedy contains numerous scenarios where the relationship between sisters is implicated in political action: these include the Danaids in Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women, Antigone and Ismene in Sophocles’ Antigone, and the Erechtheids in Euripides’ Erechtheus, to […]
Dr. Carlotta Gardner (Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens), “Recognising wood ash tempered ceramics. The impact of wood ash temper on textural, chemical and mineralogical compositions of ceramic bodies”
BSA Friends’ Virtual Lecture 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 £40 annually (£20 for students) if you have not already done so. You can find out more, and sign up, here: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/join-us-2/become-a-supporter/ Prof. Rebecca […]
Dr Antonis Kalogeropoulos (University of Liverpool), "Digital News Consumption in Greece" Abstract Greece is a global outlier in digital news consumption. Trust in legacy news organizations is very low while Greeks online rely heavily on alternative sources like social media for their news. Dr Kalogeropoulos will present qualitative and quantitative data that address how Greeks […]
Vasif Sahoglu (Ankara University), "New Evidence for Thera Eruption Tsunamis at Çeşme - Bağlararası in western Anatolia" Abstract Disasters, whether natural or anthropogenic, can be drivers of landscape and cultural change. The Late Bronze Age Thera eruption was one of the largest natural disasters witnessed in human history. Its impact, consequences, and timing, has dominated […]
LBA/EIA/Archaic Aegean ECR group mini conference (Zoom), hosted by the British School at Athens: ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to Mortuary Data’ Co-organised by Hannah Jingwen Lee (Sheffield) and Michael Loy (BSA) This is to be the fourth in a series of meetings aimed at laying the foundations for a collaborative network of Early Career Researchers with interests […]
BSA Friends' Lecture (hybrid: in-person & online) Dr Pamela Armstrong (University of Oxford), "Lost in translation: Byzantine Lakonia & the Amyklaion" Abstract: This lecture considers the results of the British School at Athens’ survey of Lakonia, directed by Professors Joost Crouwel and Bill Cavanagh, for the Byzantine period. A presentation of the changing landscape over […]
"Political violence in Greece: continuities and new directions" Since the Athens riots of 2008, Greece has experienced serious episodes of violence with clear political connotations. Framed as a fight against austerity, an expression of anti-immigrant stances or an anti-establishment struggle, political violence has reached unprecedented levels. The panel will address current debates and newly emerging […]
Dr Antti Lampinen (Finnish Institute at Athens), "Nativism in Herodes' Sophistic Attica: Rural Heroes, Hellenic Purity and the Bust of 'Sauromates'" ABSTRACT: That some second-century figures under the broad umbrella of Second Sophistic entertained nativist conceptions of Hellenicity is not news as such. Dio of Prusa was not only a fairly outspoken critic of the […]
BSA Friends’ Lecture (online only) Dr Chrysanthi Gallou, Dr. Jon Henderson & Professor Bill Cavanagh, "Pavlopetri – the Sunken City Explored" Abstract: Pavlopetri, off the coast of Laconia, Greece, has remains dating from at least 3,500 BC through to the Protogeometric period c.900 BC. Underwater research over the past decade, as a joint project by […]
Sophia Zoumbaki (The National Hellenic Research Foundation) and Constantine Cartalis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), "Monuments of cultural heritage threatened by climate change: A suggestion of how to read the past and protect the future" Abstract Climate change is an inevitable natural process which human communities always had to face. Nowadays this phenomenon is accelerated by […]
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 […]
Michael J. Boyd with Colin Renfrew and members of the Keros team, "The creative cultural nexus of Keros" Abstract The third millennium in Europe is marked by expanding horizons, the increasing importance of information, and by new identities forged in connectivity. In the Aegean, these changes are manifest in a series of creative social experiments […]
FITCH-WIENER LABS SEMINAR SERIES “Single-grain optical dating: continuous progress and lingering pitfalls” Professor Zenobia Jacobs (Centre for Archaeological Science, University of Wollongong, Australia) Wednesday, 12th October 2022, 17:00 p.m. The seminar will take place at the Wiener Laboratory (American School of Classical Studies at Athens) For any enquiries, tel.: 213-000-2400 (133) Email: infoWienerLab@ascsa.edu.gr Masks are […]
Professor Robert Parker (University of Oxford), "Helen of Sparta (sic)" BSA Friends' Lecture (online only) Webinar registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PErVbI_fQXSXc-CjE2jaYg Tuesday 11 October 2022, 5pm (UK) / 7pm (Greece)
Dr Mairi Gkikaki (University of Warwick / The Open University of Cyprus), "Tokens in Late Classical and Hellenistic Athens" Abstract Although, symbola, the Greek term for tokens, are first attested in the Archaic Period in the context of hospitality, in Athens of the mid-fifth century BC a remarkable transition may be observed from the private […]
Natalie Haynes (Writer and Broadcaster) talking about her new book, "Stone Blind". https://nataliehaynes.com/ Abstract Medusa is one of the most recognisable figures in Greek Myth: her face has stared out at us for millennia, from Agamemnon’s shield in the Iliad to Versace’s logo now. Gorgons and gorgon heads were an enormously popular feature on ancient […]
Valasia Isaakidou (University of Oxford) 28 September 2022, 8pm (Greece)
BSA Friends' Lecture (online only) Prof. Bill Cavanagh, "Kouphovouno and the story of Lakonia 6000-1600 BC" Abstract: Early farmers settled at Kouphovouno, just south of Sparta, around 5,800 BC, one part of the great neolithic peopling of Europe. The site was occupied, on and off, over some 4,500 years. The new excavations have revealed the houses […]
BSA Friends' Lecture Series Prof. Thomas Gallant (University of California, San Diego), Historical and Contemporary Archaeology in Greece Abstract: The fields of Historical Archaeology and Contemporary Archaeology are well-established globally, yet they have only recently begun to gain traction in the study of the Greek world. In this illustrated talk, Thomas Gallant assesses their state-of-play by examining […]