Partner Projects

Klazomenai Survey Project / Urla-Çeşme Peninsula Landscape Research (KLASP)

Klazomenai Archaeological Survey Project (KLASP) aims to record past landscapes in the Urla-Çeşme peninsula (İzmir) diachronically, providing new insights into the deep history of Ionia (western Turkey).

In the past 15 years, fieldwork conducted by KLASP team has documented archaeological sites and landscape features from prehistory to day in the rural territories of four Ionian city-states (Klazomenai, Teos, Erythrai, Lebedos). This has helped us to define shifts in settlement patterns, regional networks, and settlement systems. As well as using a range of different survey methodologies, the project also engages in innovative outreach and community archaeology practices, aiming for the sustainable preservation of the cultural landscape. 

KLASSP is led by Dr. Elif Koparal of Mimar SInan University (Turkey).

Main website: www.klasp.net

https://www.fieldwalker.org/articles/aegean/001_koparal/

Image: Sunset at Urla (Klazomenai). Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Piano di Gioia Tauro Project (PGT)

The Piano di Gioia Tauro Project (PGT) explores the inland plains of Reggio Calabria, covering an area inland from the modern town of Rosarno in the north and Scilla in the south.

The diverse landscape includes upland hills and fertile plains, as well as rugged mountainous areas. Iron Age habitation here was sophisticated and complex, with indigenous settlements coalescing in new ways around the same time as the establishment of the new Greek communities on the coast.

PGT is led by Dr Lieve Donnellan of Melbourne University (Australia).

Image: Terracotta heads from female figurines, 5th century BCE, from Rosarno. Photograph by Alessia Mancuso.

Sinis Archaeological Project (SAP)

The Sinis Archaeological Project is a multi-scalar, diachronic regional survey in west-central Sardinia, the largest island in the western Mediterranean.

In antiquity, the Sinis peninsula was home to the Nuragic people who constructed monumental stone towers across the landscape, and later to foreign colonizers (Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans) who came to exploit rich resources there from metals, to salt and marine resources, to obsidian. Our survey aims to understand the diverse social and environmental factors impacting landscape use, settlement patterns, and colonial interactions in this varied and dynamic landscape from antiquity to the present day,. We are also experimenting with the integration of survey and excavation at different scales, exploring best-practices and new methodologies.

SAP is led by Dr Linda Gosner and Dr Jessica Nowlin of Texas Tech University (USA)

https://sinisarchaeologicalproject.hcommons.org
@SinisArchProj

Image: Coastline on the Sinis Peninsula. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Taşeli-Karaman Archaeological Project (TKAP)

The Taşeli-Karaman Archaeological Project is based in Rough Cilicia in Southern Turkey, exploring an area stretching from the Mediterranean coast to the plains of south central Anatolia. A Hittite trade corridor in the Bronze Age, and a contact zone for Greek and indigenous communities in the Iron Age, this region has a rich archaeological and cultural heritage.

The central aim of the project is to document this archaeological and cultural heritage where it is currently under risk. Risks include a number of infrastructure and development projects that are rapidly and drastically changing the landscape of the region, in many cases demolishing the natural and cultural landscapes of this part of the eastern Mediterranean.

TKAP is led by Dr Tevfik Emre Şerifoğlu of the University of Leicester (UK)

https://www.facebook.com/TaseliKaramanArchaeology/

Main website: https://lowergoksu.org/

@TaseliKaraman

Image: The ‘Bee Temple’ at Arıkusuyu. Photograph by Stuart Eve.