60th ARU Public Lectures Series

The program of the 60th ARU Public Lectures Series of the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, focusing on the archaeology of Cyprus and the Aegean, has been announced for autumn 2022. All lectures are held virtually via ZOOM every Monday at 7:30 pm (EET); they are free and open to the public, but registration is required for access before each event starts. Registration is available at https://ucy.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5wqdOqrrT4sHNBTwJz0po54A54syd-T6xxh#/registration. Papers of interest to Nestor readers will include:
25 September 2023: C. Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, “Late Bronze Age archaeology of the island of Kefalonia in the 21st century: From culture history to hermeneutics”
27 September 2023 (hybrid): Book presentation – G. Koiner presenting E. Poyiadji-Richter, ed. 2023. Alexander Malios Collection, Vol.1: Cypriot Antiquities. (Leipzig: AMRICHA).
2 October 2023: M. Tsipopoulou, “Feasting (and dancing and singing?) with death: Ceremonial areas in the necropolis of Petras, Siteia, as a mnemonic landscape”
6 November 2023: E. Kozal, “Cypro-Cilician connections in the Late Bronze Age”
13 November 2023: K. Fisher, “Rethinking Late Cypriot monumentality”
20 November 2023: C. Kearns, “Challenges and opportunities in the archaeology of rural landscapes of Iron Age Cyprus”
11 December 2023: M. Rousou, “The contribution of botanical reference collections to archaeological studies: From the field to the laboratory”

Mycenaean Seminars

The University of London School of Advanced Study, Institute of Classical Studies has announced the following schedule of Mycenaean Seminars for 2023-2024, to take place in the Institute of Classical Studies, Room G37, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. Attendance may be either in person or online unless otherwise noted; booking is required. Mycenaean Seminars begin at 3:30 pm GMT. Further information is available at https://ics.sas.ac.uk/sites/default/files/institute_classical_studies/Mycenaean%20Seminar%202023-24_final.pdf.
18 October 2023: A. Shapland, “Animals, Humans and Social Change in Palatial Crete”
8 November 2023: Ž. Tankosić, “An Island Between Two Worlds: Southern Euboea (the Karystia) in the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age”
6 December 2023: V. Şahoğlu, “Çeşme – Bağlararası: Exploring Dynamic Patterns of Connectivity and Transformation of a Coastal Western Anatolian Settlement during the MBA/LBA Transition”
17 January 2024: A. Bogaard, “New Insights into the Lakeshore Neolithic of South-east Europe from the EXPLO Project”
14 February 2024: E. Finn, “Moving, Making, Meaning: Pebbles in the Archaeology of Bronze Age Crete”
13 March 2024 (online only): C. Langohr, “The Postpalatial Communities of Crete. Assessing Local Practices and Foreign Elements within a Unique Architectural Complex at Sissi (13th c. BCE)”
15 May 2024 (online only): C. Gallou, “‘Malea's Airy Height’: the Mycenaeans and the Sea in South-eastern Laconia”

Minoan Seminar

The Minoan Seminar is being hosted in hybrid format at the British School at Athens. Registration is required for either in-person or online attendance. Further information is available at https://www.bsa.ac.uk/events/iro-mathioudaki-luca-girella-the-three-west-court-kouloures-at-knossos-between-the-first-and-second-palace-periods/. The first seminar of 2023-2024 has been announced:
20 October 2023, 6 pm EEST: I. Mathioudaki and L. Girella, “The three West Court Kouloures at Knossos: between the First and Second Palace periods”

Η αρχαιολογία της πειρατείας στην αρχαιότητα

On 5-6 October 2023 a conference entitled Η αρχαιολογία της πειρατείας στην αρχαιότητα will be held in Athens. Further information is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OOwVpqr2G7HLVa164xFiBfG5uF1AMEWK/view?fbclid=IwAR1hiozU7plaZ_WqAa1_kby1Pxd77VtrQCjzxXZbIbw1cPF73nhwoPy024g. Papers of interest to Nestor readers will include:
Ο. Βικάτου and Β. Στάικου, “Από τους Ταφίους του Ομήρου στους κουρσάρους της Αγίας Μαύρας. Εξερευνώντας την ιστορία της πειρατείας στο κεντρικό Ιόνιο πέλαγος. From Homer’s Taphians to the corsairs of Santa Maura: Exploring the legacy of piracy in the central Ionian Sea”
Π. Γουνελάς, “Πλέοντας «πόντον ἐπ’ ἀτρύγετον»… Η αρχαιολογία της πειρατείας στο Αιγαίο της Πρώιμης Εποχής του Σιδήρου. Sailing through ‘the unresting sea’: The archaeology of piracy in the Aegean of the Early Iron Age”
J. Driessen, “Ληστικός or Can we really talk of pirates in the Bronze Age? Ληστικός ή Μπορούμε πραγματικά να μιλάμε για πειρατές κατά την Εποχή του Χαλκού;”
Ά. Παπαδόπουλος, “Πολεμιστές, οικονομία και πειρατεία. Ένα ιδιαίτερο κοινωνικό τρίπτυχο στην Ανατολική Μεσόγειο της Εποχής του Χαλκού. Warriors, economy, and piracy: A peculiar social triptych in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean”
Χ. Παπαναστασοπούλου, “Πειρατεία στις επιστολές της Αμάρνα; Η διαμαρτυρία του βασιλιά της Alashiya και ο επίμονος Rib-Addi της Βύβλου. Piracy in the Amarna letters? The protest of the king of Alashiya and the persistent Rib-Addi of Byblos”
Α. Λαδάς, “Αναζητώντας ξυλεία στα λημέρια των πειρατών. Τα νέα δεδομένα στη ναυπήγηση πλοίων στο τέλος της Ύστερης Εποχής του Χαλκού και στις αρχές της Πρώιμης Εποχής του Σιδήρου. Seeking timber in the pirates’ lairs: The new facts at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age”
Δ. Σακκάς, “Αναζητώντας την πειρατεία στο Αιγαίο της Μέσης και της πρώιμης Ύστερης Εποχής του Χαλκού. Searching for piracy in the Middle and early Late Bronze Age Aegean”
Π. Κουνούκλας, “Ληΐστορες Λοκροί στη μυκηναϊκή εικονογραφία του Κύνου. Lokrian freebooters in the Mycenaean iconography of Kynos”
Λ. Βοκοτόπουλος, “Οι οχυρωμένες θέσεις της Κρήτης του 13ου/12ου αι. ΠΚΕ και η ανασφάλεια στη θάλασσα. The Cretan fortified sites of the 13th/12th c. BCE and insecurity at sea”
Κ. Τσονάκας, “Τα πολλαπλά πρόσωπα των θαλασσοπόρων κατά τη Μυκηναϊκή Ανακτορική περίοδο. The multiple personae of the seafarers during the Mycenaean Palatial period”
Ν. Γιαγκουδάκη, “Αναζητώντας τις απαρχές της πειρατείας στο Αιγαίο: Εμπόριο και θαλάσσιες επιδρομές κατά την Πρώιμη Εποχή του Χαλκού. Seeking the origins of piracy in the Aegean: Trade and maritime raids during the Early Bronze Age”
Α. Αγγελοπούλου, “Η τέχνη του πολέμου στο προϊστορικό Αιγαίο. Πρωτοκυκλαδικές οχυρωμένες ακροπόλεις και όπλα. The art of war in prehistoric Aegean: Early Cycladic fortified citadels and weapons”
Π. Τζοβάρας, “‘Έμποροι’ ή ‘πειρατές’; Τα τεχνικά χαρακτηριστικά των τύπων πλοίων της Ύστερης Νεολιθικής-Πρώιμης Εποχής Χαλκού σε συνάρτηση με τη χρήση τους. ‘Merchants’ or ‘pirates’? The technical properties of the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age boat types of the Aegean in relation to their functions”
Μ. Πλατή and Ε. Μάρκου, “Παρουσίαση του εκπαιδευτικού προγράμματος ‘Η πειρατεία στις αρχαίες Κυκλάδες’. Presentation of the educational program ‘Piracy in the ancient Cyclades’”

29 September 2023

ESHE 2023

On 21-23 September 2023 the 13th Annual Meeting of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution (ESHE 2023) was held in Aarhus, Denmark. Further information is available at https://www.eshe.eu/meetings/. Papers of interest to Nestor readers included:
D. De Caro, M. Kuhn, E. Panagopoulou, K. Harvati, and V. Tourloukis, “The technological behaviour in the Lower Palaeolithic site of Marathousa 1 (Megalopolis basin, Greece)”

Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A

On 23 September 2023 a workshop entitled New Prospects on the Aegean Undeciphered Scripts: Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A was held at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in collaboration with the ERC research project “INSCRIBE – Invention of Scripts and their Beginnings” of the University of Bologna. Further information is available at https://www.heraklionmuseum.gr/anakoinosi-16-3-2023-duplicate-9858-duplicate-11172-19/. The program was:
S. Ferrara, “Introduction”
A. Kanta, “Recent finds from the cult centre of the city of Knossos”
A. Santamaria, “Shaping, reading and stamping a hieroglyphic seal: The interweaving of material, epigraphic and contextual features”
M. Civitillo, “Seals for counting? A new proposal for the ‘meaning’ and use of recently identified Cretan Hieroglyphic Script signs on seals”
A. Greco, “The Minoan scribes treated as criminals! First results of an integrated palaeographic survey of the corpus of Linear A tablets from Phaistos”
J. Weingarten, “A new look at the first ever published Cretan Hieroglyphic 4-sided prism, 150 years later”
G. Flouda, “Closing remarks: From iconicity to the future of Minoan writing”

Brightening the Dark Ages

On 27-30 September 2023 an international conference entitled Brightening the Dark Ages, Archaic Greek Culture and Its Past was at the Academy of Athens. Further information is available at http://www.academyofathens.gr/en/conferences/brighteningthedarkages. The program was:
A. Vlachopoulos, X. Charalambidou, and V. Lambrinoudakis, “The settlement of Grotta, Naxos: from the ‘proto-urban town’ to the historical ‘polis’”
Y. Lolos and C. Marabea, “Kanakia and Ginani: the end of the Mycenaean Palatial Age and the transition to the Early Iron Age in Southern Salamis”
H. Goette, “The sanctuary of Zeus Hellanios on Aigina: Mycenaean connections into historical times?”
C. Brillante, “Homeric poetry and local traditions: the Pylian epos between Mycenaean and archaic age”
A. C. Cassio, “Ἀλλόκοτα γράμματα: notes on the dialectal and graphemic fragmentation of archaic Greece”
M. Finkelberg, “From Iolkos to Troy: Thessaly and Thessalians in Greek heroic tradition”
K. Kalogeropoulos, “Aristocratic and democratic perceptions of the Mycenaean past in Attica during the 8th and the 7th centuries BCE”
J. Burgess, “Achilles and the development of Trojan war myth”
A. Lardinois, “Homer’s Pindar: the epic possession of a lyric past”
R. Seaford, “From aggregation to antithesis: vase-painting, text, and cosmology in the developing ‘polis’”
I. Rutherford, “Greek religious networks from Mycenaean period to archaic Greece”
E. Cingano, “Epic verse and performance before Homer: the spoken word and the fixed text”
G. Nagy, “Comparative approaches to Greek myths about invasions during the ‘Dark Ages’: on the so-called Dorian Invasion”
E. Cline, “Coping, adapting, and transforming in the aftermath of the LBA collapse: the view from the Aegean to Assyria during the Iron Age”
J. Whitley, “Alternative pasts: Crete and Thessaly compared”
S. Sherratt, “Euboean sub-protogeometric plates in the 9th century BCE, East and West”
E. Wagner-Durand, “‘Fantastic Beasts’ … between East and West: the transfer of emotive images using the example of composite and other special beings”
P. W. Stockhammer and The Attica Archaeogenetic Project, “A bioarchaeological light on the ‘Dark Ages’”
I. Hajnal, “The Greek dialects in the early phase of the Dark Ages”
A. Duplouy, “A link to the past? The ancestors cult reconsidered”
A. Willi, “Before the dithyramb”
R. Janko, “Archaeological versus linguistic interpretations of the Greek Dark Age: the power of wishful thinking”
R. Osborne, “What sort of a political world should we posit for the 8th century BCE?”

La religion micénica

On 28-29 September 2023 a symposium entitled La religion micénica: conceptos, prácticas, objetos was held in Segovia. Further information is available at https://extension.uned.es/actividad/32911&codigo=. The program was:
C. Varias García, “La religión de Micenas en las fuentes textuales y arqueológicas”
A. Bernabé, “En torno a ki-ri-te-wi-ja”
J. M. Jiménez Delgado, “La sacerdotisa Erita, los ko-to-no-o-ko y las parcelas ke-ke-me-na de pa-ki-ja-ne: personal religioso y tenencia de tierras en Pilo”
H. Whittaker, “From Bronze to Iron; the Demise of Mycenaean Religion”
E. R. Luján, J. Piquero, and I. Serrano, “De animales y máscaras: sobre los zoónimos micénicos”
J. Weilhartner, “Mycenaean kings and the divine sphere: some thoughts on a ‘complicated relationship’”
S. Lupack, “Reconsidering Religion in the Throne Room: Religious Authority in Mycenaean Society”
F. Díez Platas, “Sillas, vasos y gestos: sobre la iconografía de la celebración cultual del vino en la imaginería micénica”
F. Blakolmer, “Why are we unable to identify the deities of the Linear B texts in Mycenaean iconography?”
M. Perna, “Religione e scrittura nella società minoica e micenea”
C. Varias García, A. Bernabé, J. Weilhartner, F. Blakolmer, and H. Whittaker, “Progress and Perspectives in the study of Mycenaean Religion”

29 September 2023

The September 2023 issue of Nestor (50.9) is available as a free download.

31 August 2023

Symbolism, Pre-Writing, and Writing

On 4 September proposals (300 words maximum) with author biographies (100 words maximum) are due for a volume entitled Symbolism, Pre-Writing and Writing in Neolithic Anatolia, Fertile Crescent and Europe: An Introduction to Pre Historic Symbolism, to be published by Peter Lang in the series “South-East European History” Further information is available at https://www.balkan-history.com/neolithic-symbolism/.

AEA 2023

On 15 September 2023 (extended deadline) abstracts are due for the 43rd Conference of the Association for Environmental Archaeology: Telling Environmental Archaeology Stories (AEA 2023), to be held on 24-26 November 2023 in Tarragona, Spain. Further information is available at https://icac.cat/en/dissemination/icac-activities/43rd-aea-conference/. Papers in standard format (15 minutes), storytelling format (6 minutes) or poster format (A1 size) are invited on:
• Social relations and the role of different social groups in shaping society and economy
• The role of immigration/movement in changing society, how this took place, and its repercussions
• Past cosmologies and belief systems
• How people or groups of people perceived and acted on issues of health and medicine
• How people or groups of people engaged with their environment: reconstructing rural or urban histories of interactions
• People and societies as the main actors impacting landscapes, geographies, and environments
• Local versus global narratives
• Key events of the past (agricultural and farming developments, emergence of new forms of socio-economic organisation, and what these meant or how they changed life, etc.)
• Communicating environmental archaeology stories:
o Environmental archaeology contributions to policy making and impact
o Successful stories of communicating and disseminating environmental archaeology research to researchers of other fields and the public
o Environmental archaeology and the press
o Environmental archaeology and impact on education
o Inclusive environmental archaeology

BANEA 2024

On 6 October 2023 session abstracts (250 words) are due for the annual conference of the British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology (BANEA 2024). Archaeological and heritage practice in Southwest Asia: towards equitable futures, to be held on 3-5 January 2024 in Glasgow. Further information is available at https://www.banea.org/banea24. The sessions and workshops are:
• Archaeological fairness
• Landscape
• Digital archaeologies
• Field reports
• Foodways
• Social worlds
• Achaemenid Environments: Agenda-setting economic, landscape, environmental and bioarchaeological approaches to Achaemenid Impact
• The Archaeology and Cultural Heritage of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region
• Big Dig Energy: Gendered practices and internalised patriarchy in archaeological fieldwork in West Asia
• Dialogues Across Landscapes: New Challenges to Practicing Landscape Archaeology in Western Asia
• When is Urban, Really? Looking Back, Moving Forward – Exploring temporalities of Late Chalcolithic Mesopotamia in the present: A workshop celebrating historic innovations in early urban archaeology, and tackling current challenges to the field
• Whose Heritage Is it? A Discussion on Community Engagement and Local Counter-narratives in Archaeology of Southwest Asia

LAC 2024

On 31 October 2023 session abstracts are due for the 8th Landscape Archaeology Conference: Human Challenges in a Context of Changing Landscapes (LAC 2024), to be held on 10-14 June 2024 at Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain. From 1 December 2023 through 29 February 2024 submission of abstracts for papers and posters will be open. Further information is available at https://lac2024.com/. The themes of the conference are:
• Mobility, settlement and people: an environmental approach
• Places, people and identity: a conceptual challenge for Landscape Studies
• Space vs site: human dynamics in landscape
• Cutting-edge technologies and theories: a new perspective from Landscape Archaeology
• Knowledge transfer and local communities in Landscape Studies
• Landscape heritage values
• Climate change and ancient natural and human-shaped landscapes: interdisciplinary approaches
• Landscape Archaeology: visual and virtual perceptions
• Landscape Archaeology and Landscape Ecology

31 August 2023