Theme:
3. Heritage Narratives and Representations
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Byzantine Heritage in Peril: The Safety of Archaeological Sites (Heritage, Conservation, Preservation, Non-Destructive Methodologies)
Content:
For the first time the International Association of Byzantine Studies (AIEB) and its newly created Commission for Byzantine Archaeology (CBA) propose a session for the EAA Meeting. In doing so, our intention is to disseminate recent archaeological work conducted in our field and to build a broader academic and collegial environment.
Byzantine archaeology, the archaeology of the millennial Eastern Roman empire, traditionally covers a huge geographic area incorporating the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeastern Europe and the Black Sea, extending in periods westwards all the way to cover Italy and much of Northern and Eastern Africa. Nowadays, areas governed by different climate regimes, populated by different people, and regulated under different authorities represent a broad spectrum of cultures where sites are treated in various ways. In these areas, since the 19th century, versions of Byzantine archaeologies have flourished at different paces and often with contrasting aims.
In this session we aim to address modern challenges of Byzantine archaeology as a wide-spanning international field. Sites can vary from long-standing excavations initiated in the conditions of late colonialism to state-of-the-art contemporary projects reflecting meta- technological breakthroughs. Nonetheless, everywhere archaeology, including Byzantine archaeology, is confronted by extreme social conditions, sometimes exponent local growth or sudden geometric recession of state or national economies, aggressive touristic and housing development, climatic challenges and extreme weather patterns, problems in archaeological finds’ storage, resources and infrastructures for sites’ management, or even just plain old ravages of war and conflict. We call upon a broad-spanning group of specialists, involved in the excavation, study and management of Byzantine archaeological sites across the Mediterranean, Southeast Europe, the Black Sea and beyond to participate in our session and present key-aspects of these challenges and possible policies of counteracting them. The session besides will be also accepting poster presentations.
Keywords:
Byzantine archaeology, Cultural heritage, Site safety, Preservation, Medieval archaeology, Late Antique archaeology
Session associated with MERC:
yes
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Myrto Veikou (Greece) 1
Co-organisers:
Joanita Vroom (Netherlands) 2
Nikos Tsivikis (Greece) 3
Affiliations:
1. University of Patras
2. University of Leiden
3. Institute of Mediterranean Studies - FORTH
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