In March and April of 2019, with support of a Stahl award, I was able to spend 6 weeks with the Keros Seaways Project team. The project is presently studying and analyzing materials from recent excavations at the Early Cycladic site on the islet of Dhaskalio (image 1), off the coast of Keros, a large and presently uninhabited Cycladic island south of Naxos (image 2).
The first two weeks were spent in England planning post-excavation pottery analysis. This was followed by four weeks on Naxos working in the apotheke, or storage building. While in United Kingdom I benefited from the opportunity to discuss and take advice on my planned dissertation from two prominent scholars in Mediterranean petrography and chemical analysis of pottery, Dr. Ian Whitbread of University of Leicester and Dr. Richard Jones of University of Glasgow.
On Naxos, the four weeks were spent on pottery analysis of the Dhaskalio ceramics. The Keros project is using a well-documented set of fabric groups to help categorize and further the study of its ceramics. These fabric groups each have suggested provenience (based on geology) within the broader Aegean region. As would be expected, not all of the sherds fall neatly into these groupings. Our goal for the four weeks was to conduct initial formal analysis of these “other” sherds to assess whether further work was warranted. If the results were suggestive, a second round of work would be planned to further study this possibility.
Following the theoretical and practical lessons from the work on the Keros Seaways Project, in the fall of 2019 I traveled to Cyprus to begin preparations for my PhD research. In order to establish a working baseline of regional ceramics, and by invitation of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) Director, Dr. Lindy Crew, my work first focuses on CAARI-housed ceramics. These ceramic samples come from across the island and thus represent an unparalleled study collection both for completeness and ease of use. My work there in the fall of 2019 was focused on library research into both the categories of Cypriot ceramics but also into how ceramics have been studied by various regional field survey projects. Beginning in May 2020 I will be actively cataloging and analyzing these ceramics using the knowledge and experience gained with the assistance of the Stahl award.
This work was made possible with the support of the Stahl award. I am also grateful for the advice and support of my advisor, Professor Lisa Maher and the Keros Seaways Co-Director, Dr. Michael Boyd. The staff at CAARI have been extremely welcoming and the support of Dr. Lindy Crew is of particular importance.
For more on the Keros Seaways Project:
The official website for the project:
https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/current-projects/keros-project
Project press releases:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/unusually-sophisticated-prehistoric-...
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/island-of-broken-figurines
https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2019/05/06/evidence-for-advanced-architectural-pla...
A 2018 World Archaeology article: https://www.world-archaeology.com/features/dhaskalio/
A video summary of work following the 2017 season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8rmwfqgrs8&feature=youtu.be
A more fanciful (and entertaining?) article likening Dhaskalio to the Egyptian pryamids, a theory not supported by the excavation team: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/ancient-greece-ar...