The BSA’s activities in generalFootnote ¹

Last year’s report was delivered solely in virtual format to an audience of almost 600 from Greece, the UK, and elsewhere. It was therefore a great pleasure to deliver the 2022 report in person and in hybrid format, so that many more were able to participate who could not make it to London or – understandably – remained wary of in-person events while Covid-19 was prevalent.

The BSA has, of course, hosted many virtual events since April 2020 and this facility enabled us to maintain regular contact with our many stakeholders worldwide, as well as to draw in new interest, significantly augmenting our supporter base. Digital outreach has been complemented by further work to make our collections available over the internet to a worldwide audience. This aspect of our recent activity highlights one of the key words I often use to characterize the BSA as I look back over almost seven years in post as director: innovation. But innovation is not only a recent feature, confined to our digital offerings; the BSA was a pioneer in fieldwork techniques with systematic intensive survey in the 1970s, for example, while the Fitch Laboratory has pioneered innovation through science-based archaeology for almost 50 years.

The BSA, however, couples innovation with tradition. Our presence in Greece for 136 years now brings intangible aspects: authority, experience, contacts, reputation, and a tradition of interdisciplinary study that reaches back to the early 20th century. It also involves tangible materials: our landmark buildings dating to the later 19th century, our library with 70,000+ volumes, our rich archival collections (a focus of our digitization programme) and legacy and reference materials, especially at Knossos. Another strong element in that tradition is philanthropy: the BSA owes its foundation to a generous group of supporters who responded to an appeal for funds in 1883 and raised £4,000 – a sum that today seems entirely trivial, but was sufficient then to build our first building and inaugurate the BSA. A first government grant came in 1895, but that tradition of philanthropy has continued and is becoming ever more important to sustain our high level of overall activity and to enable us to realize specific, significant goals like the Knossos 2025 Project or our ambition to ‘green’ our premises.

I would add a third word to make a trio: partnership – with many individuals and organizations in Greece and with many UK higher education institutions and the other organizations through which we conduct, facilitate, and promote research in all areas of Hellenic studies, across all arts, humanities, and social science disciplines (Fig. 2.1 ). We also partner with those who choose to give us their generous support. All of these partnerships enrich what we do, indeed enable what we do. This word runs through this entire article. We tried to capture the essence of the BSA – in a vivid and upbeat manner – in five five-minute videos launched in November 2021, from which these still images come; they remain visible to view on our website (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/about-us/).

2.1.

Stills from the recently commissioned videos about the BSA expressing the three qualities: innovation, tradition, and partnership. © BSA/Long Run Productions.

Despite continuing uncertainty, we ran a full programme in 2021, as this infographic covering the 2021 calendar year vividly demonstrates (Fig. 2.2 ). Almost all our lectures, seminars, workshops, panels, and other events were held virtually, but our facilities in Athens and Knossos were more extensively used than in 2020: the library remained open from June 2021 onwards; we supported four fieldwork projects and – towards the end of the summer – ran our undergraduate course Archaeology and Topography of Greece in person, if not quite ‘as usual’. I summarize those activities here with a mixture of pleasure and relief that we were able to achieve so much; you can find more detail in our June and December 2021 and June 2022 Newsletters downloadable from our website (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/).

2.2.

Infographic compiled by Kate Smith, London development and administrative officer, summarizing the BSA’s activities in calendar year 2021. © BSA.

Finlay is a name that resonates with those who know the BSA; his bust sits on top of the bookshelves in the Athens Common Room, known as ‘the Finlay’, where a bilingual Greek and Latin dedication over the fireplace commemorates his generosity. In 1899 Finlay’s executor and nephew arranged for his papers, books, and antiquities collection to come to the BSA, forming our Finlay Collection (see also Loy, this volume) (Fig. 2.3 ). It is a great pleasure therefore, before the 2021 bicentenary recedes into memory, to present more information on the BSA’s legacy contribution to the bicentenary in the form of a three-year research project, supported by generous funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Unpublished Archives of British Philhellenism During the Greek Revolution of 1821 that will deliver a digital resource and a published international conference on British Philhellenism. The BSA’s first 1821 Fellow, Dr Michalis Sotiropoulos, who has a PhD from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), began selecting for digitization and transcription a significant body of papers from the Finlay Collection held at the BSA (Fig. 2.4 ). He is also studying the papers of the London Greek Committee – founded in 1823 – that are held in the National Library of Greece. Felicity Crowe, archive project assistant, has set up the digital catalogue and the first major batch of items has already gone for scanning. In addition to preparing the digital output that will be available through the BSA’s Digital Collections portal, in March 2023 Michalis will also organize an international conference – also funded by the SNF, to be held at the National Library in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre – to mark the bicentenary of the London Greek Committee’s establishment. A collective volume, under Michalis’ editorship, based on those papers will appear in the BSA’s Routledge series Studies in Modern Greek & Byzantine Studies.

2.3.

A selection of papers from the BSA’s Finlay Collection. © BSA.

2.4.

Project archive assistant Felicity Crowe and BSA 1821 Fellow Michalis Sotiropoulos. © BSA.

In November 2021, we offered a ‘behind the scenes’ view of the 1821 project – Finlay in Focus – including video interviews with Roderick Beaton (Emeritus Koraes Professor, King’s College London (KCL)/BSA Chair of Council) and Michalis Sotiropoulos, as well as a ‘taster view’ of a small exhibition – curated by Michael Loy and Deborah Harlan – entitled Bones, Stones, and Prehistory, comprising 21 objects from the museum, combined with material in the archive and library, reflecting Finlay’s broader interests in prehistory and palaeontology (Fig. 2.5). We hope to make these video interviews more widely available in our Video Archive in due course.

2.5.

Assistant director Dr Michael Loy speaking about the Finlay Collection during the Finlay in Focus event; in the background are BSA ‘digital’ volunteers Conor Walker (L) and Michael O’Ryan. © BSA.

Finlay in Focus was just one of many events delivered virtually in 2021 that received over 7,000 live views from around the world, while video recordings on our YouTube channel subsequently received a similar number (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/video-archive/). The range of coverage in these events was impressively broad. In the Upper House seminar series, Yiannis Hamilakis and Raffi Greenberg compared colonialism, archaeology, and the national imagination in Greece and Israel, a preview of their book (Greenberg and Hamilakis Reference Greenberg and Hamilakis2022); John Bintliff and Anthony Snodgrass summed up the important work of their long-running archaeological survey project in Boeotia; as COP26 started in Glasgow, Amy Bogaard gave a seminar on lessons from the past about sustainability (Fig. 2.6 ); and Juan De Lara shone new light on lighting effects in Greek temples, particularly the Parthenon. Our seminar series in partnership with the Greek Politics Specialist Group, co-organized by Lamprini Rori (Athens) and Eirini Karamouzi (Sheffield), both former BSA Early Career Fellowship holders, also continued into the 2021–22 academic year.

2.6.

Screenshot from Prof. Amy Bogaard’s timely Upper House seminar on lessons from the past about climate change and resilience. © BSA.

Public lectures included a well-attended presentation of the life and work of John Craxton by his biographer, Ian Collins (see Collins Reference Collins2021) (Fig. 2.7 ); the Annual Bader Archive lecture on George Finlay and Scottish Philhellenism delivered by Alastair Grant (Edinburgh); another very well attended BSA Friends Committee talk by Judith Herrin (KCL) on Ravenna; a keynote by Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (St Andrews) on the life of Levant Company merchant Thomas Burgon; and the Annual BSA-ICS Lecture on striking recent finds from the ancient city of Helike, given by two experienced archaeologists from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sport, Anastasia Gadolou and Erofili Kolia (Fig. 2.8 ).

2.7.

Ian Collins guides a small group of BSA supporters around the recent Benaki Museum exhibition John Craxton: A Greek Soul. Photo: John Bennet.

2.8.

Drs Anastasia Gadolou and Erofili Kollia delivering the Annual BSA-ICS Lecture on the site of Helike in Achaea. © ICS.

Conducting live discussions in virtual format is difficult, but can enable panellists to join across continents. We gained some experience of this through a series of panels spanning revolutionary ideas around 1821, discussions of recent books by Michael Llewellyn-Smith on Venizelos (Llewellyn-Smith Reference Llewellyn-Smith2021) and Mark Mazower (Columbia) on 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe (Mazower Reference Mazower2022) (Fig. 2.9 ); a lively conversation with broadcaster, author and stand-up Natalie Haynes; and a genre-spanning pair of panels on inclusion versus exclusion in translating to and from modern Greek and English. Conferences and workshops are perhaps the most difficult to manage virtually. We hosted virtually Travel and Archaeology in Ottoman Greece in the Age of Revolution ca. 1800–1833, convened by Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (St Andrews) in September, and our first hybrid event was a workshop on The Greek Language After Antiquity, convened by David Holton (Cambridge) in Athens in November.

2.9.

Screenshot of virtual discussion between Mark Mazower (L) and Roderick Beaton. © BSA.

Not everything was virtual, however: former development officer Nicholas Salmon and our London development and administrative officer Kate Smith curated a small, but rich exhibition at the 12-Star Gallery in Europe House, reflecting 20 years of BSA Arts Bursary holders. The well-attended Private View on 21 July 2021 included several of the artists (Fig. 2.10 ). The exhibition ended in September and was followed in October by a virtual panel discussion among three former Bursary holders – Vanessa Gardner, Eleanor Wright, and Annabel Dover – chaired by Malcolm Quinn (University of the Arts London; UAL). The physical exhibition will soon become permanent in digital form in Digital Collections on our website.

2.10.

Visitors at the Private View of 20 Years of Artists at the BSA. Photo: Jamie Smith.

Work was completed in 2022 on the over 7,000 images in the SPHS BSA Image Collection – a photographic reference and loan collection assembled in the late 19th to mid-20th century by the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. The last substantial tranche of images (including series from Sparta and Perachora) went live recently, accompanied, as usual, by related blog posts, including a final reflection on the collection as a whole (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/about-us/archive/archive-stories/). This collection is not merely a virtual picture-book of old images, however; among other data, each fully-searchable record contains information about the physical object, the photographer (when known) and the location depicted, linked to a map interface (Fig. 2.11 ). The collection is relevant to the study of disciplinary history, the history of pedagogy, and the early development of mass tourism, among other fields.

2.11.

Screenshot of the BSA SPHS Image Collection, showing item 03/1753.4366, an image from Richard Dawkins’ fieldwork in Cappadocia in 1911; the entry is shown, along with the map interface. © BSA.

Conventional publication continued with both our print journals (Fig. 2.12 ) – volumes 116 of the Annual of the BSA and 67 of Archaeological Reports, the latter in partnership with the Hellenic Society. AGOnline continued too, in collaboration with the EfA, and, by August 2022, the database had reached over 16,500 publicly available entries. Another volume of our in-house Supplementary Volume series appeared in 2022: Knossos: House of the Frescoes by Emilia Oddo and Vasso Fotou, more legacy material published to modern standards (Oddo and Fotou Reference Oddo and Fotou2022). The Macedonian Front, 1915–1918: Politics, Society, and Culture in Time of War, the ninth volume in our Modern Greek & Byzantine Studies series (published by Routledge) appeared in April 2022, while the tenth is scheduled for October (Gounaris et al. Reference Gounaris, Llewellyn Smith and Stefanidis2022; Kakissis Reference Kakissisforthcoming) (Fig. 2.13 ).

2.12.

Covers of the 2021 issue of the Annual of the British School at Athens and of Archaeological Reports 2020–21. © CUP.

2.13.

Covers of the most recent publications in our Supplementary Volume and Modern Greek & Byzantine Studies series. © BSA/Routledge.

Bela Dimova ended her tenure as A.G. Leventis Fellow in Hellenic Studies in September 2021. Her research on the textile economy of Greece and the Southern Balkans in the Classical to Hellenistic periods was carried out with great success, despite the challenges of 2020 and 2021. We wish her well and welcome her successor, Dr Tulsi Parikh (Cambridge) who is researching ‘Mobilizing Greek Religion: The Dynamics of Sacred Space in Ancient Greece from the Archaic to Hellenistic Period’ (Fig. 2.14 ). She will look at interactions between worshippers and their environment, including the built sanctuary and wider religious landscape, uniting different methodological approaches to achieve a more materially aware approach to the study of Greek religion. Tulsi is a former contributor to and now co-editor of AR.

2.14.

BSA A.G. Leventis Fellow in Hellenic Studies, Dr Tulsi Parikh, at Sounion. © BSA.

Anna Judson started a two-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship in October 2020, funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Fig. 2.15 ). Her project, Writing at Pylos: Palaeography, Tablet Production and the Work of the Mycenaean Scribes (or WRAP for short), focuses on the practices involved in creating the Linear B documents from the palace of Late Bronze Age Pylos. There are two main elements: first, examining the initial stage of producing the Linear B texts, namely making the clay tablets; and, second, analysing in detail the handwriting and how the forms of written signs can vary. One research strand has taken her into the Fitch Laboratory to learn about clay as a material and to carry out experimental tablet manufacture; the other has required long hours examining the originals in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. We are pleased to note that Anna has moved on, since September 2022, to a post at Durham University.

2.15.

Dr Anna Judson, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, demonstrating how to make a Linear B tablet in a video made as part of the project’s outreach element. © BSA.

Maria Pretzler (Swansea), BSA Visiting Fellow 2020–21, could only arrive late in the academic year, but made the most of access to the library for her monograph The Peloponnesians and their Allies, a study of the Peloponnesian league, widely conceived, but with a particular focus on the allies (Fig. 2.16 ). She intends this work to be a history of communities, networks, and different modes of interaction in the Peloponnese from the Archaic period to the fourth century BC. In contrast, our 2021–22 Early Career Fellow, Matthew Walker (QMUL), arrived early, spending autumn rather than the spring in Athens, and explored how knowledge of Greek architecture was acquired in the field and transmitted back to Britain in the period before systematic study in situ began in the later 18th century. An important figure here was Francis Vernon, who reached Athens in 1675 and was murdered in Iran in 1677; his journal survives in the library of the Royal Society (see Walker Reference Walker2013).

2.16.

Visiting Fellow Dr Maria Pretzler on Lykavittos hill with Athens in the background. © BSA.

The BSA’s 2020–21 Arts Bursary holder, Elin Karlsson (UAL), finally made it to Athens in October, for a shorter than anticipated period (Fig. 2.17 ). She concentrated on extending the fictional part of her practice-based doctoral thesis using historical women whose lives she blends with her own memories. She focused on Emily Penrose, daughter of the first BSA director, and her 1887 diary kept in the archive. Emily was Elin’s guide to the city through her entries about spending time sketching at the Acropolis or visiting the temple of Olympian Zeus.

2.17.

BSA Arts Bursary holder 2020–21, Elin Karlsson, pictured here at the exhibition 20 Years of Artists at the BSA in July 2021. © BSA.

Our 2020–21 Research Fellows – ‘Students’ as we quaintly call them – Rossana Valente (Richard Bradford McConnell Student) and Matteo Randazzo (Macmillan-Rodewald Student), managed the challenges, adapting their research plans to Covid-19 restrictions (Fig. 2.18 ). Both were researching a similar time period: Matteo the archaeology of the Emirate of Crete; Rossana the development of the post-Antique settlement in the area of Sparta’s Roman theatre, with an emphasis on the ceramic evidence. The 2021–22 Bradford McConnell Studentship was shared between Dòmhnall Crystal (Cardiff), who investigated the relationship between local populations and Greek-speaking settlements in the north Aegean in the eighth–fourth centuries BC, using settlement, funerary and epigraphic evidence (Fig. 2.19 ); and Rossana Valente, who continued her research on ceramics from post-Antique Sparta. They were joined by Macmillan-Rodewald Student Marcella Giobbe (Oxford), based in the Fitch Laboratory, who is exploring Greek colonization through the study of ceramic production and technology, as well as the changing patterns of pottery consumption in Campania during the eighth and seventh century BC, work that she had initiated in 2021 as a Fitch Laboratory Bursary holder. (Fig. 2.20 ) There is more information about Marcella’s, Rosanna’s and Dòmhnall’s research in our June 2022 newsletter (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/).

2.18.

BSA Students Matteo Randazzo and Rossana Valente during the 2020–21 academic year. © BSA.

2.19.

BSA Richard Bradford McConnell Student 2021–22, Dr Dòmnhall Crystal, examining inscriptions in the Athenian Agora. © M. Giobbe.

2.20.

BSA Macmillan-Rodewald Student 2021–22, Marcella Giobbe, at work in the Fitch Laboratory. © BSA.

Two more doctoral students held Fitch Lab Bursaries in 2021: Alice Clinch (Cornell) researched the use of pigments in domestic contexts in Greece from the Classical to Roman periods, both in their raw form and as applied to wall plaster, ceramics and other media (Fig. 2.21 ). Building on Masters research at Warwick, Alice created a reference collection for the study of pigments from archaeological contexts. Using a historical pigment supplier, she produced a collection of slides for microscopic analysis, as well as taking portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) readings for elemental analysis. The data collected will act as standards for microscopic and elemental analysis of ancient pigments.

2.21.

Fitch Bursary holder Alice Clinch working on pigments in the Fitch Laboratory. © BSA.

Anna Karligkioti (Cyprus Institute) worked with former BSA Student Efi Nikita (Cyprus Institute) on Biocultural Transformations in Central Mainland Greece from the Classical to the Roman Era (Fig. 2.22 ). At the Fitch, Anna conducted macroscopic analysis of human skeletal remains of primary and secondary inhumations and cremations from cemeteries of various types spanning the Classical to Roman periods excavated by the Ephorate of East Attica. Using rich osteoarchaeological evidence, in combination with mortuary data and historical information, Anna sought to promote the study of biocultural determinants of identity, as reflected in health inequalities, differential access to food, genetic affiliation and activity patterns, and to investigate how these are affected by broader sociocultural and political transformations.

2.22.

Fitch Bursary holder Anna Karligkioti studying a cemetery assemblage in the Fitch Laboratory. © BSA.

The Marc and Ismene Fitch Laboratory

The Fitch Laboratory, led by its director, Evangelia Kiriatzi, is now only two years shy of its fiftieth birthday. The lab adapted its work rhythms to shifting restrictions, and generated a larger than usual number of analyses while also maintaining considerable research momentum (Fig. 2.23 ). Fitch staff, associate researchers and partners in a number of institutions across Europe and north America worked on more than 30 projects in the past year.

2.23.

Fitch Laboratory staff and researchers gathered on the BSA Catling Terrace for a birthday celebration. © BSA.

Through the Fitch, the BSA is now a partner in two training and research networks that will ensure important developments in the field of Mediterranean science-based archaeology over the next decade, while further strengthening the Fitch’s key goal to help train the next generation of science-based archaeologists and to establish new methodologies in material culture analysis following technological and theoretical developments in the field.

The first network – PlaCe – trailed in last year’s AR, is a high-profile partnership to train early-stage researchers in the interdisciplinary study of pre-modern plasters and ceramics (hence the acronym), the most abundant materials in archaeological sites. Coordinated by the Cyprus Institute, with eight partners, including University College London (UCL) and Cambridge, the network has almost €4 million in funding from the EU’s Horizon2020 framework and runs until 2025. The project has a website, where – among other things – you can watch the formal start-up event held virtually in March 2021 (https://place-itn.cyi.ac.cy/).

In addition to hosting a number of training and outreach events over the next three years, the Fitch also hosts one of the project’s 14 early-stage researchers, Timothée Ogawa. His PlaCe-funded doctoral research concerns the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition in the northern Aegean through the study of cooking pots and cooking installations at the site of Toumba Thessalonikis, combining detailed macroscopic study with scientific techniques to reconstruct their manufacturing technology, provenance, and use. Timothée works closely with the Fitch Laboratory director and its scientific research officer, Noemi Müller, and spent a week in Thessaloniki over the winter becoming familiar with the Toumba site and its material (Fig. 2.24 ). He will also enjoy a secondment in Cambridge to acquire familiarity with organic residue analysis, especially protein analysis.

2.24.

PlaCe Early Stage researcher Timothée Ogawa is guided on the site of Toumba Thessalonikis by Dr Sevi Triantaphyllou. © BSA.

The second project, launched in November 2021, is an international research network (called pXRF-CUN) funded by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) that brings together 10 institutions from Mediterranean countries with a long tradition in ceramic studies, from Spain and France to Greece, Cyprus, and Lebanon, including the Centre d'Études Alexandrines as the coordinator. The aim is to review current practices across different laboratories and agree a common protocol for the calibration and use of pXRF devices that have recently become popular for chemical/elemental analysis of ceramic materials, and how their data should be treated to ensure quality and comparability. The Fitch Lab director and scientific research officer attended a hybrid two-day meeting to share information on laboratory infrastructure, research policy and projects, and the analytical protocols currently in use for ceramic analysis.

The issue of mobility has been central to Fitch research: mobility of goods and the study of trade, and more recently the mobility of craftspeople and technology transfer. Two recently launched projects, focusing on two emblematic ancient Greek pilgrimage sites – Delos and the sanctuary of Zeus on Mt Lykaion – aim to shed light on human mobility and the sites’ networks of economic and political transactions. On Mt Lykaion, having confirmed the lack of locally produced pottery, samples have been selected to identify the origin of both the ceramic vessels and the animal bones recovered from the altar in use over almost a millennium. Pottery sampling from around the Peloponnese is underway and comparative analysis will provide valuable reference evidence for tracing sources. On Delos, by contrast, the starting point is the question of local ceramic production. A large number of samples have already been selected and their analysis will be combined with prospection for potential raw materials on Delos and neighbouring islands.

Understanding ceramic technology depends crucially on knowing how to identify key steps in ceramic vessel production, including how potters adapted their raw materials. The global ethnographic literature documents the use of wood ash, often the waste product from previous firings, as temper to adapt the workability of the raw clay. However, only rare cases have been identified archaeologically and there is no definitive way of identifying this material as temper. The Fitch developed and ran a successful cross-disciplinary experimental project in partnership with Ian Freestone (UCL) and Panagiotis Karkanas (director, Wiener Laboratory ASCSA) to identify wood ash temper in ceramics, as well as to understand the motives behind its addition (Fig. 2.25 ). Moreover, wood ash temper has now been identified within the Fitch’s extensive reference collection from Greece and beyond.

2.25.

Experimental briquettes containing clay pastes with various proportions of wood ash. © BSA.

The Knossos Research Centre

In 2021 our Knossos Research Centre once again saw fewer of the public-facing events that have enriched its activities in recent years, but two museum educational programmes were successfully organized for 43 schoolchildren: From Sherds to Pots and Cooking and Eating in Minoan Crete. The BSA also participated in the re-launch of an exhibition – Φιλό-ξενη Aρχαιολογία – this time at the Iraklion Museum on Crete, where the director gave a presentation on the BSA’s work on Crete from 1893 to the First World War. Research continued in the Knossos Stratigraphical Museum – ‘the Strat’ – on material held there and on the INSTAP-funded Curation Project that is systematically digitizing its collections. In addition to Geneviève Lascombes (curatorial project manager), six volunteers assisted this year, using this opportunity to study a diverse range of finds and thus acquire and develop hands-on skills valuable for future studies. Geneviève has now moved on and the new curatorial project manager is Dr Bastien Rueff (Paris-Sorbonne) (Fig. 2.26 ). The Knossos 2025 Project continued with relatively low visibility in 2021, with a focus on identifying major funding. We are very pleased to be able to report here that we have now reached 80% of our funding target thanks to some generous donations and pledges. We are now mounting a campaign among BSA supporters and users of the Strat to close the final gap; please see the Join Us section of our website for more information, including a short video about the project and a fly-through of the renovated Strat (https://www.bsa.ac.uk/join-us-2/knossos-2025-project/) (Fig. 2.27 ).

2.26.

Knossos Curatorial Project Manager Dr Bastien Rueff at work in the Strat. © BSA.

2.27.

Still from the video for the Knossos 2025 Project, showing an aerial view of the Strat. © BSA/Long Run Productions.

Archaeological fieldwork (Map 2.1)

Remaining on Crete, July 2021 saw the beginning of a new collaboration between the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi (Chryssa Sofianou), the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and the BSA, directed by Theotokis Theodoulou (EUA), Andrew Shapland (Oxford) and Carl Knappett (Toronto). Underwater survey was conducted off-shore near Palaikastro (ID14540), where sporadic underwater finds have suggested sea-level change and an ancient shoreline in both Chiona and Kouremenos bays considerably further out than at present. The project promises to broaden significantly our understanding of this key site, on which the BSA has worked intermittently since 1902.

Work began by mapping remains in the shallow waters along the coastlines of Kouremenos and Chiona bays using drone and underwater photography for photogrammetry, and also scuba diving (Fig. 2.28 ). Bronze Age (Minoan) structures were mapped in Kouremenos Bay: about 500m south of the harbour, there is a rectangular structure at ca. 2.2m depth together with other walls nearby of probably Bronze Age structures. At least two rooms were discernible and a possible stone floor.

2.28.

Palaikastro 2021: map showing the area of Kouremenos and Chiona bays, with annotations of finds in 2021. © BSA.

To the south, at a location known as Plakopoules, remains of a circular structure were identified also at 2.2m depth, with associated pottery potentially indicating earlier use in the third millennium BC, recalling similar tholos structures of Early Minoan I date elsewhere in east Crete (Fig. 2.29 ). Immediately north, large pithos fragments were located, one example with rope decoration probably dating to the Late Minoan I period.

2.29.

Palaikastro 2021: photogrammetric representation of Minoan remains on the seabed at Plakopoules. © BSA/Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi/EUA.

Structures from the Roman period were found in both Kouremenos and Chiona bays: a Roman mole (harbour work) at a depth of 1.4m was relocated and photographed, and similar submerged buildings at the north end of Chiona Bay were re-photographed and studied.

Exploration further out at greater depths revealed a Roman wreck dating to the second century AD northwest of Cape Plaka (Fig. 2.30 ). Loaded principally with about 240 Beltrán IIB amphorae in its surface layer, it is about 13m long by 8m wide, and lies at a depth of between 19.5m and 23.5m. Its location, on a sandy terrace, means that some of the wooden hull might be preserved. These investigations will continue in 2022 alongside excavation of structures on the current shoreline.

2.30.

Palaikastro 2021: amphorae on the seabed at the site of the Roman wreck. © BSA/Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi/EUA.

Two new projects promise to shed important light on the insular eastern Aegean and interaction with what is now the Turkish mainland. A first season of intensive survey on the island of Samos was co-directed by Anastasia Christophilopoulou (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), Michael Loy (BSA assistant director), Naoíse Mac Sweeney (Vienna) and Jana Mokrišová (Cambridge) (ID17012).

Samos, a powerful player in maritime trade and a place of pilgrimage because of the much-frequented Sanctuary of Hera, was exceptional in having a single city-state in the east, the polis of Pythagoreio, while some of its richest economic resources lay in the west (Fig. 2.31 ). This configuration contrasts with other large Aegean islands, such as Rhodes, Chios, and Lesbos, home to multiple city states. Western Samos has not yet been the subject of systematic archaeological survey, so the Western Area of Samos Archaeological Project (WASAP) aims to analyse how the rural landscape in the west developed and to assess whether this part of Samos was more like an ‘island within an island’. In addition, it seeks to articulate Samos within a wider Anatolian-Aegean seascape.

2.31.

Western Area of Samos Archaeological Project 2021: team fieldwalking in the vicinity of Kampos Marathokampou. © John Bennet.

‘Previous knowledge’ from literature research was entered into a Points of Interest database through a customizable and open data collection interface app, KoBo Collect, and this helped target areas for research. Intensive survey in 2021 was restricted to an area north of Kampos Marathokampou, centred on Agios Ioannis church. Field walkers, spaced at 10m intervals covered 9.48ha, counting visible surface sherds and tile, and collecting diagnostic sherds and a representative range of wares. Tracts walked were aligned with a predefined grid and team members located grid corners using handheld GPS units. Tract areas and walker lines were digitized in GIS at the end of each day, and cumulative spatial statistics were made available to field walkers. Project data – in field and at base – were collected into forms feeding data into KoBo Collect and uploaded to a central project workspace on the KoBo Toolbox web interface, where they are stored securely.

Preliminary analysis shows the highest density of material in the area of the church and terraces to the east and north (Fig. 2.32 ). The majority of finds collected were medium or coarseware ceramics or tile, with some marble and quartz, and one possible stone tool. Most collected ceramics are Byzantine in date, while a small but significant number of diagnostic sherds in the immediate vicinity of the church can be dated to the first millennium BC.

2.32.

Western Area of Samos Archaeological Project 2021: ceramic densities plotted in the vicinity of Agios Ioannis church near Kampos Marathokampou. © WASAP.

The project plans a longer 2022 season, with a larger team, including separate data and field laboratory components.

The BSA returned to Chios for a new collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Chios, led by Olga Vassi (Ephorate of Antiquities of Chios) and Andrew Bevan (UCL) (ID17010). Like Samos, Chios’ position at the interface between the eastern Aegean and western Anatolia means it played an important role in major patterns of cultural, demographic, and political flux. The site of Emporio provides the most fine-detailed, single-location data on long-term patterns from deeper prehistory to the present, but it presents several challenges that include a lack of contextualization within the wider landscape. The Emporio Hinterland Project seeks to address this latter issue with survey of a 10km² area around Emporio, the size deliberately chosen with a view to efficient, successful publication.

A short programme of intensive fieldwalking was conducted in July and early August 2021, under the direction of Bevan and Vassi, assisted by Despoina Tsardaka (Ephorate of Antiquities of Chios) and Brenna Hassett (UCL) (Fig. 2.33 ). Individual surveyors walked in teams of four or five at 10m spacing, each navigating with handheld GPS and recording counts of finds observed, as well as collecting ‘diagnostic’ finds of all periods every 10m along each line.

2.33.

Emporio Hinterland Project 2021: map showing location of study area and detail of area covered in 2021. © Emporio Hinterland Project.

Excavation and informal survey by the BSA from 1953 to 1955 at Emporio and Kato Phana to the west, and more recent rescue work in the vicinity by the Greek Archaeological Service offer a good context for survey work. Furthermore, research has recently intensified across the strait in the Çeşme-İzmir area, addressing especially the Neolithic and Bronze Age, offering opportunities for comparison between material culture sequences.

The project completed two weeks of survey, covering 1km², and focusing on the immediate headland of prehistoric Emporio and a single block slightly further south in the Dotia/Phoki valleys, heart of mastic gum (μαστίχα) production on Chios. Prehistoric material was concentrated around the Emporio headland, including sherds of both Neolithic and Bronze Age date and some lithics. A further cluster of prehistoric material was found around the known Early Bronze I site of Phoki and more of similar and possibly later date around another hilltop immediately to the southwest. In the Dotia valley, a striking mix of discrete Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Late Roman, and Medieval scatters seem to indicate farms or small estates, although there is also some evidence for a possible Archaic cult site (Fig. 2.34 ). Material of later date was primarily confined to lowland parts of the valley. The 2022 season will be spent on study of material, with a view to a further fieldwalking and remote-sensing season in 2023.

2.34.

Emporio Hinterland Project 2021: a selection of diagnostic surface finds from fieldwalking: (a) Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age horned handle; (b) Late Neolithic pattern-burnished handle; (c) Early Bronze I pithos handle; (d) Archaic, probable Sphinx-and-Lion style; (e) Archaic jug handle; (f) sgraffito-decorated Medieval bowl. © Emporio Hinterland Project/Ephorate of Antiquities of Chios.

The BSA’s tradition of research on the earlier prehistory of Thessaly and Macedonia reaches back to the days of Wace and Thompson and the First World War (see, for example, Shapland and Stefani Reference Shapland and Stefani2017) and continues today with the first season of a five-year collaborative research programme between the Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres and the BSA focusing on the Neolithic site of Toumba Serron and the neighbouring Strymon valley. The project is led by Dimitra Malamidou (Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres), Nicolas Zorzin (National Cheng Kung University-Taiwan) and James Taylor (York) (ID17011).

Work accomplished in this first season involved magnetometer, drone (AUV) and pedestrian survey, as well as the first steps in the project’s archaeological ethnography programme. Geophysical survey recorded magnetic anomalies, many correlating well with similar measurements on other sites in the region, including those verified by excavation. Anomalies were characteristic of burned buildings, ovens, and hearths on the hilltop, as well as on the adjacent slopes. Some buildings seem to be arranged radially while others are arranged along parallel rows, suggesting a possible chronological difference as well as possible horizontal dislocation over time.

Using the same 50m × 50m grid as the magnetometry survey, but extending it towards the north and west, Zorzin conducted pedestrian survey over the northern, western and southern sides of the Toumba (Fig. 2.35 ). Concentrations of pottery were particularly high on the top of the Toumba, remained high on the south slope, but were much less dense on its western and northern slopes. All diagnostic material identified so far suggests a Late Neolithic date (5300–4300 BC) for the site (Fig. 2.36 ). Soil colour changes are noticeable between the Toumba itself and its surroundings, and within the tell: slightly lighter in the northern part and darker at its centre.

2.35.

Toumba Serron 2021: aerial view of the site, showing those areas of the tell covered by magnetometry (yellow hatching, lower right) and pedestrian survey (red shading, top and left side). © BSA/Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres.

2.36.

Toumba Serron 2021: ceramics, lithics, and shell collected on the surface of the tell. © BSA/Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres.

Survey on the Toumba was complemented by a general reconnaissance of the regional landscape, locating known Neolithic sites, while Ioanna Antoniadou (independent researcher) initiated an archaeological ethnography of the surrounding area, focusing on the continuities and disconnections between present and past. A full season, combining excavation and survey, is planned for 2022.

Archaeological research always forms a significant part of our portfolio because of our legal role in obtaining fieldwork and study permits for UK-based projects and researchers (Map 2.1 ). Without the BSA, UK-led fieldwork could not take place, nor would the £196,000 of research funding – not income to the BSA – won by projects for 2021 fieldwork and study be spent. Our work would not be possible without the cooperation and assistance of numerous colleagues in the Ministry of Culture and Sports, as noted earlier (fn. 1), nor would it be possible without the generous financial support from a wide range of bodies and individuals that sustains our projects in the field. Further details of all projects appear in our December 2021 newsletter and on AGOnline (https://chronique.efa.gr/?kroute=homepage).

People of the BSA

As noted in last year’s AR, Elizabeth (Lisa) French, the BSA’s first female director, passed on in June 2021, aged 90, after a short illness, active until the end over a long career in the field (Fig. 2.37 ). The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian carried obituaries of her, and she was also featured in BBC Radio 4’s Last Word. The 2022 volume of the BSA carries a full account of her life by Sue Sherratt (Sherratt Reference Sherratt2022). On 26 May 2022, the BSA staged a hybrid memorial event in Athens, comprising talks by the director, Iphiyenia Tournavitou (University of Thessaly), one of Lisa’s doctoral students, and Lisa’s daughter, Ann French. A reception followed for a group of Lisa’s Greek friends and colleagues. Lisa will be sorely missed by a large international community of scholars and friends. Our sincere condolences go to her family, friends, and colleagues.

2.37.

Elizabeth (Lisa) French at Mycenae in the 1950s with her father, Alan Wace. Photo: French family archive. © Ann French.

The period 2021–2022 is a period of change for the BSA. Dr Carol Bell stepped down in February 2022 as Chair of Council after five years in that role, and an even longer stint before that as honorary treasurer. We thank her most warmly for her service to the BSA and look forward to her continuing input on our Investment Committee. She was succeeded by Prof. Roderick Beaton (KCL), a distinguished Hellenist and long-term associate of the BSA (Fig. 2.38 ). Prof. Robin Osborne (Cambridge) continues as vice-Chair of Council. In September a new director, Prof. Rebecca Sweetman (St Andrews), takes up her post (Fig. 2.39 ). Rebecca’s experience in her home institution, and as a former BSA assistant director, will ensure her success. As the outgoing director, I offer her my warm wishes for her tenure of this enormously rewarding and exciting, yet demanding post.

2.38.

BSA Chair of Council, Prof. Roderick Beaton, speaking in the logos series at the National Library of Greece. © John Bennet.

2.39.

The new director of the BSA, Prof. Rebecca Sweetman. © R. Sweetman.

Our development officer, Nicholas Salmon, moved on in October 2021 to take up a new opportunity at the Badsisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, after devoting considerable energy over the past four years to building the BSA’s development function. Part of Nick’s role has been assumed by Kate Smith, who became full-time in September 2021 and has the new title of London development and administrative officer. On a consultancy basis, we also engaged a fundraising professional with almost 30 years’ experience, Miles Stevenson, who focuses on higher-level fundraising as our development executive (Fig. 2.40 ). In Athens, Hallvard Indgjerd left his post as IT officer in September 2021 to pursue research; he was replaced by Nathan Meyer (Berkeley), who also brings 30 years’ experience as an IT professional. The Athens Library saw the assistant librarian, Sandra Pepelasis, follow Penny Wilson-Zarganis into retirement in July 2021, after 28 years in the role. Sandra’s post was filled by Evgenia Villioti, who has worked both with our neighbours across the garden in the ASCSA and in the National Library of Greece.

2.40.

BSA development executive Miles Stevenson (L) and Knossos curator Dr Kostis Christakis in the Villa Ariadne garden, Knossos. Photo: John Bennet.

The uncertainties that remained in 2021 led us once again to postpone all but one of our in-person courses. We offered two four-session virtual courses: a ‘Short Course for Teachers’, organized around ‘The Homeric World’, a core component of the OCR GCSE syllabus for Classical Civilisation, which was attended by over 120 teachers; and a new offering, a short course on ‘Byzantine Art and Archaeology’, covering the BSA’s Byzantine Research Fund Collection, pottery, church architecture, and coins, and combining seminar presentations with multimedia elements, that had 80 participants.

We ran the undergraduate summer course on the Archaeology and Topography of Greece in a carefully orchestrated manner over two 10-day sessions in August and September 2021, with participants in a ‘bubble’ based at the BSA and catered onsite (Fig. 2.41 ). Museums and sites in Athens were the focus, with day trips to sites including Marathon, Mycenae, and Delphi. So far, we have been able to run all our planned courses in 2022.

2.41.

Students delivering their final projects at the end of the BSA undergraduate course Archaeology and Topography of Greece. © BSA.

The undergraduate course turns 50 in 2022 and has seen almost 1,400 students pass through it, taught by 97 tutors and led by 12 assistant directors (Fig. 2.42 ). We marked the anniversary in February 2022 with a very well received celebration at Senate House in London, attended by over 70 people. Michael Loy and Kate Smith, with assistance from Nick Salmon before his departure, produced a wonderful book of reminiscences by students, tutors, and assistant directors, copies of which are still available through our London and Athens offices.

2.42.

Assistant director Dr Michael Loy speaking to the group assembled at Senate House, London, to celebrate 50 years of the BSA undergraduate summer course. Photo: John Bennet. The cover of the commemorative volume to mark the fiftieth anniversary. © BSA.

Mention of an undergraduate course may seem out of place in a presentation about the activities of a research-focused organization, but running the course is fully consistent with the BSA’s aim to develop careers: many participants have started their academic careers on the course. The majority of participants, however, do not follow an academic career, but do retain an affection for the BSA and an interest in our work, often becoming supporters or donors, which brings me back to the theme of philanthropy mentioned earlier. As I noted above, all donations make a difference and they are every bit as important now as they were when those pioneer donors supported the founding of the BSA when it was first mooted in 1883.

Farewell and many thanks

Since this is my final article in AR summarizing the BSA’s many activities, I take this opportunity in closing to thank all BSA staff present and past – in Athens, Knossos, and London – for all they have done for the BSA over the period of my directorship (Fig. 2.43 ). It is an absolute given that, without them, the programmes I have summarized seven times now would simply not have been possible. I also thank sincerely the British Academy for its support and also my BIRI (British International Research Institutes; https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/international/research-institutes/) colleagues – from Rome to Nairobi – as the BSA seeks even more partnerships, further strengthening our capability to enhance UK research’s international dimension. Finally, I also take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported us financially – through regular or one-off donations, large or small – over the years, and particularly the past two that have presented us all with so many challenges. Your generosity has allowed us to maintain our key activities. We are most grateful to you all.

2.43.

One way the BSA thanks its staff and supporters is at its two garden parties, held again in 2022 for the first time since the pandemic struck, in Athens [above] and London [below]. © BSA [above] and Sarah Green [below].

Map 2.1.

Sites of BSA study and fieldwork in 2021. © BSA.

Information about all BSA activities, including future courses as well as videocasts of lectures held in Athens, London and elsewhere are available on our website (www.bsa.ac.uk). The BSA’s Facebook and Instagram pages and Twitter feed are regular sources of news and information (https://www.facebook.com/britishschoolathens/; https://www.instagram.com/britishschoolatathens/; https://twitter.com/BSAthens). We publish a twice-yearly newsletter in June and December and copies are always available for download from the Publications section of our website. Our London office sends out regular e-Bulletins, plus announcements about events, to those who choose to be included in our e-mail list.