Anna Belza standing on the island of Kea

Anna Belza, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Department of Classics, has received the Archaeological Institute of America’s Harriet and Leon Pomerance Fellowship for AY 2024-2025. The award supports her dissertation project, entitled "The Cyclades in the Mycenaean Period: A View from Ayia Irini, Kea,” which is a study of the pottery, small finds, and architecture dated to Late Bronze Age IIB–IIIC from the port town of Ayia Irini, on the Cycladic island of Kea in Greece. Her study provides the first site-wide presentation of Mycenaean period activity at Ayia Irini, Kea, which is contextualized within the Cyclades in order to provide an up-to-date understanding of the efficacy and reach of maritime distribution systems in the Late Bronze Age, ultimately contributing to debates about the role of the Cycladic islands in the Mycenaean Aegean.