Mediterranean Economies

The causes for and circumstances of the decline of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean are the main research aim of this project. The focus lies on Cyprus, the centre of international trade in this region and the main supplier of copper.

In the late 13th and more pronouncedly in the early 12th century BCE the contacts between Late Mycenaean Greece and Bronze Age Italy assumed a new character. This becomes especially visible on the basis of metal objects, archaeometric analyses of which can contribute to understanding their provenance and distribution patterns.

The Ayios Vasileios research project focuses on pottery studies at the newly identified Mycenaean palace in Laconia. The project provides the chronological framework for important episodes in the history of the palace, i.e. construction and destruction events among others. Furthermore, it investigates aspects of production and consumption practices with the help of archaeometric methods.

Pheneos is one of the few sites in Arcadia, of which settlement activity during the Middle Bronze Age is known from excavations. On the basis of the pottery found during these excavations, it is possible to reconstruct the changes in the connectivity of the inhabitants of this remote settlement with the outside world in the period from about 2000–1600 BC.

Tiryns is one of the famous citadels of the Mycenaean era in the Peloponnese. Its history during the palatial period in the 13th and 12th century BC is well-known, but its development during the Middle Bronze Age and early Late Bronze Age is less understood. The project is dedicated to a Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery complex found during excavations at the Upper Citadel.

The Austrian Archaeological Institute has conducted excavations in the area of the acropolis of Aigeira (Northern Peloponnese – Greece) since 1975. The Department of Prehistory & WANA Archaeology has undertaken the publication of the Premycenaean (5th–3rd millennium BC) and of the postpalatial Mycenaean settlement (12th century BC). As a result, the contextual analysis revealed house complexes, which are characterised by storage, production of goods and consumption in the course of feasting. The high social status of the inhabitants is further evidenced by a cult room. During its final phase, a fortification wall separates the acropolis from the houses on the lower terraces and marks it as the most important part of the settlement area.

The harbour settlement of Kynos at the Gulf of Euboea, going back to the Mycenaean Palatial period, has its most important settlement phase during the postpalatial Mycenaean period of the 12th century BC. The excavations from 1985 till 1995 under the direction of Phanouria Dakoronia (Ephorate of Lamia) revealed more than 160 figurines which were handed for publication to the Department of Prehistory & WANA Archaeology. The figurines correspond the shapes known from other Mycenaean sites. Hollow, partly wheel-made figures point to the cultic importance of the site. Figurines of the postpalatial period, such as a number of bird figurines as well as fragments of miniature carts, probably underline local ritual features.

This project focuses on the study of the Mycenaean workshop installation at Kontopigado, 5 km south of the Athenian Acropolis. Through analysis of the preserved remains, portable finds and with the help of geophysical prospection, our project investigates the chronological framework, the practical function and the economic and social context of the largest workshop installation discovered in Late Bronze Age Aegean.

Punta di Zambrone is a Bronze Age harbour site on the western coast of Calabria in southern Italy, excavated by a joint Italian-Austrian team. It was founded at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE and abandoned around 1200 BCE. Especially in the early Recent Bronze Age during the 13th century BCE, its community, which was economically connected to other settlements in its hinterland, maintained relationships with remote regions in Italy, continental Greece and Crete.

The pottery record from the 13th through the 11th centuries BCE (LC IIC–IIIB) offers the best clues to understand the position that the island of Cyprus had in the world historical events of the time. It offers information on goods exchange, technological as well as cultural innovations and finally on migration.

On the Ada Tepe hill in the Bulgarian Rhodopes a Bronze Age gold mine was exploited since the 15th century BCE, which makes it one of the oldest gold mines in the wider region of Europe. Since the site had been excavated by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and a joint Bulgarian-Austrian project investigated the findings from the site including the settlement, focusing on the reconstruction of life, work and wide ranging interregional connections of that Bronze Age community.

In the framework of this PhD project the material culture of the early Iron Age (c. 11th century BCE) at Tell Abu al-Kharaz in the Jordan Valley was investigated. A specific focus laid on aspects of continuity vs. transformation, tradition vs. innovation and transcultural contacts after the period of upheaval at the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age transition.

Tell Abu al-Kharaz is a 12 ha large tell in today’s Jordan at a crucial position, from which large parts of the Jordan and the Jezreel Valleys can be overlooked. The main objectives of the excavations are the study of its Bronze and Iron Age occupation, which lasted from around 3200 BCE until its destruction by the Neo-Assyrian empire in the late 8th century BCE.

Hala Sultan Tekke was one of the most important urban centres of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. The city is located on the southern coast, on the shore of the present-day Larnaca Salt Lake, which in ancient times was connected to the Mediterranean, thus providing one of the best protected harbours on the island.

The project aims at a systematic and diachronic analysis of depositional practices and their relation to ritual activities in Late Bronze Age Cyprus (c. 1650–1050 BCE). It includes the study of all material remains and their contexts with a focus on wells and other shafts to understand these practices as part of the island’s religious and social realm.

The aim of the project is to trace changes in diet and food preparation on Cyprus at the end of the Late Bronze Age (13th–12th century BCE). The period around 1200 BCE is characterised by major political, cultural and social upheavals. Organic residue analyses of cooking vessels, indicating their original contents, will contribute to a deeper understanding of changes in dietary patterns at Hala Sultan Tekke, which may be connected to the upheavals around 1200 BCE.