On 8, 9 and 10 December 2017, the events "Athens Balkan Archaeology Days 2017", co-organized by the I.DI.P.O.S, the Swiss Archaeological School in Greece, the Balkan Bronze Age Borderland Project and the French-Albanian Archaeological Mission in Korytsa, with the participation of scientists from Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, USA and France.
The three-day event covered topics such as:
- The presentation of the activities of the I.DI.P.O.S. from 2006 to date by its president Dr. Stavros Economides.
- The presentation of the activities of the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece for 2017 by Tobias Krapf.
- the presentation of the collective volume "Balkan Dialogues, Negotiating Identity between Prehistory and the Present" by Drs. Maja Gori and Maria Ivanova. The book was presented by UCLA professor John Papadopoulos
- the presentation of the Balkan Bronze Age Borderland Project by T. Krapf and O. Aslaksen
- the archaeology of the tumuli, through a round table discussion chaired by G. Recchia, which included the following presentations:
- A.-Z. Chemsseddoha: Tumuli in Northern Greece: an old tradition, various realities
- Ch. Kleitsas: The burial tumuli of Epirus through time and space: not so rare after all
- R. Kurti: Recent research on tumuli from northwest Albania
- E. Agolli: Regional and intra-regional networks in late prehistoric Illyria: choices of architecture and topography of burial tumuli
- M. Gori: Tumuli in central Dalmatia: old excavations and new research perspectives
- A. Touchais / N. Papadimitriou: The prehistoric tumuli of Marathon-Vranas: Reassessing the data of an old excavation: new evidence and new queries
This was followed by an extremely interesting and lively discussion.
The participants were guided to the archaeological sites of Vrana and Tsepi Marathon by A. Touchais on Sunday 10 December.
The I.DI.P.O.S. and the Swiss Archaeological School in Greece, two main co-organizers of this event , expressed their intention to institutionalize this initiative on a regular basis. It is high time to create a regular platform for discussion and fermentation around Balkan Archaeology!
Photos