A new research program at NKUA: Funerary art in the Eastern Mediterranean (4th-1st century BCE)

Since last March, and for the next three years, the Department of History and Archaeology of NKUA will host an international research program entitled “Funerary art in the Eastern Mediterranean (4th c. – 1st c. BCE): old connections and new beginnings”, under the direction of Professor of Classical Archaeology Dimitris Plantzos, and funded by the Getty Foundation (as part of their Connecting Art Histories Initiative). NKUA’s, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology Nikolas Dimakis will also participate in the Program.

The Program, which will be carried out in collaboration with the Archaeological Society of Alexandria, and its Director, Professor Mona Haggag, aims to achieve academic and scholarly exchanges between the Universities of Athens and Alexandria, through the holding of educational meetings and workshops in Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus. The purpose of these meetings, which will be accompanied by on-site classes, seminars, and lectures, is the consolidation of a common scientific language around the issues that concern the research communities in the Eastern Mediterranean countries, such as: ancient cemeteries as places of solidification of ethnic and local traditions; funerary art as an element of ethnic, gender, and social identity; the common language of Hellenistic artistic expression, etc.

As part of the three-year Program, Professors Plantzos and Dimakis will conduct a series of lectures and on-site seminars at various archaeological sites (among them the Shatby, Mustafa Kamal, and Kom El Dika cemeteries in Alexandria, the Tombs of the Kings in Paphos, Cyprus, etc.) which will be addressed to postgraduate students, but also to doctoral candidates from the Universities of Greece, Egypt, Cyprus, and possibly other countries of the Eastern Mediterranean, with the aim of developing synergies between educational institutions and scientific organizations of the wider region.

The collaborations that will arise within the framework of the Program are expected to lead to a series of research works at the level of master’s or doctoral theses, as well as scholarly publications.

You will be able to follow the progress of the Program from its website, here.