You are invited to a hybrid lecture on Thursday December 11th, 2025 at 19.00 pm (Greek time) 17.00 pm (Ireland time), 12.00 pm (Standard Eastern Time) by Dr Angelos Papadopoulos (College Year at Athens), on ‘Access and Control: Inequality and Economic Power in the Late Bronze Age Aegean’.

Abstract: In discussing Mycenaean trade, James Wright asked how the elites at Mycenae achieved domination (on the mainland and across the Aegean), suggesting that at least part of their power derived from controlling production and distribution. In addition, the idea that social inequality is fundamentally rooted in access to and control over resources forms the basis of this presentation. Here, “resources” include not only cultivable land, water, minerals, metals and clays, but also passages, bridges, safe anchorages and harbours that enabled mobility and exchange. The central hypothesis is that the groups who accessed or extracted these resources were not always the same as those who profited from their distribution. Furthermore, it is proposed that individuals such as merchants or warriors may have operated privately, at times beyond the supervision of state institutions like the palaces, offering an additional layer of inequality within the Late Bronze Age Aegean. Examples from the contemporary Eastern Mediterranean will be used to illustrate these dynamics.

For online attendance register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/6YfAdSI7SgiLkplsuR8pKA

To attend in person, please register by email:irishinstitutegr@gmail.com

You are invited to an online lecture on Thursday November 13, 2025 at 19.00 pm (Greek time) 17.00 pm (Ireland time), 12.00 pm (Standard Eastern Time) by Dr Shannon LaFayette Hogue on ‘Floor Plaster Production Technologies in the Palace of Nestor at Pylos’.

Abstract: During the 1953 season, while supervising an excavation area in the Main Building of the Late Helladic IIIB Palace of Nestor at Pylos, Marion Rawson encountered substantial evidence of an upper floor collapse. Her documentation of the collapse contexts and collection of the plaster floor fragments that fell from the upper story form the basis for my new analysis of floor plaster production technologies at Pylos. This paper begins with a tour of the Main Building rooms whose excavation Rawson oversaw in 1953 and illustrates her remarkably consistent recording practices regarding the upper floor collapse. It turns then to observations regarding the floor plaster fragments, which on the surface presented a standardized appearance as polished, white pavements. Macroscopic fabric analysis, however, reveals that their internal fabric composition varied. Examples are presented to illustrate how certain fabric variations in the floor plaster indicate different choices made during the plaster production process. Rawson’s instincts to record and retain plain floor plaster yielded a body of evidence that is now contributing

Register here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/DxRTPO-xQAq503gk3NrtEg

The Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens Annual Meeting in Ireland. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Evi Margaritis from the Cyprus Institute to deliver her lecture Domesticity, craft production and  ritual: changing patterns of human life  in the 3rd millennium Aegean, co-authored with Michael Boyd and Colin Renfrew.

This lecture is co-organised by the UCD School of Archaeology Bronze Age seminar series. The meeting will be in hybrid format.
In person: UCD School of Archaeology, Ardmore Annex in Room ARD-AA1 in University College Dublin with a reception to follow, generously sponsored by Odaios Foods.

Please register via Eventbrite to attend online.