September 30, 2020

Our group has undertaken a series of analytical investigations at the prehistoric settlement of Akrotiri, Thera, in support of the important, ongoing excavation, directed by Professor Emeritus Christos Doumas, under the auspices of the Athens Archaeological Society.

In the “House of Thrania” (Οικία των Θρανίων), a significant public building at Akrotiri, archaeologists have been gradually revealing a site dedicated to ritual acts on the southern border of the settlement.

The focus of the analyses has been primarily on organic residues, potentially related to the rituals that were unfolding in the House of Thrania, with the aim to reveal information on materials that may assist archaeologists to interpret their findings and derive further questions concerning social ideology and possibly religion in the prehistoric Aegean.

Members of our MobileLAB team (Sophia Sotiropoulou, senior research associate at IESL-FORTH with Marilena Konstantinou and Antonia Intze, chemistry students at the University of Crete) is present in this year’s excavations, with portable analytical instruments to collaborate with the archaeologists in the ongoing excavation. Special thanks are due to InterActive SA for supporting the current investigation by providing the BRUKER ALPHA portable FTIR spectrometer and a NITON XL5 handheld XRF system that enhanced our analytical toolbox and supported our on site campaign.

The Mobile LABoratory at IESL-FORTH, a partner of the E-RIHS.eu Research Infrastructure aims to offer access to a broad array of advanced mobile analytical instrumentation for measurements on valuable or immovable objects, at archaeological sites and at historical monuments.