The Karystia as a Crossroads in Prehistory; Yiannis Miliades - a significant Greek archaeologist

The southern portion of the island of Euboea around ancient Karystos has a special place in the intellectual heart of the Institute. Here in the 1990s and early 2000s the Southern Euboea Exploration Project (aka SEEP), under the leadership of the late Mac Wallace (University of Toronto) and Don Keller, conducted pedestrian surveys and small-scale excavations of selected sites. One of SEEP's many co-researchers is Dr. Žarko Tankosić, Higher Executive Officer, The Norwegian Institute at Athens. On Wednesday, November 16^th at 19:30 in the Library of the Institute, Dr. Tankosić will give an illustrated lecture entitled “A Community at the Crossroads: Prehistoric Southern Euboea and the Aegean in Light of New Survey Data”.

In his lecture he will focus on southern Euboea (Karystia), which is a part of the Aegean that has been largely overlooked in models put in place to explain the prehistoric Aegean island colonization and maritime interactions. The extensive data show a lively area, whose inhabitants were fully immersed into the prehistoric maritime koine, at least during the Final Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. They also paint a picture of the region at the crossroads, bridging the insular world of the Cyclades and the larger Greek mainland.

Dr. Tankosić will outline several issues plaguing our understanding of the Karystia’s place in the prehistoric Aegean. He will address these by using evidence from the area. In the process, he will also engage with broader topics, such as identity, community, insularity, and connectivity. In addition, Dr. Tankosić will present the new results from the recently completed Norwegian Institute survey project in the Karystia.

Yiannis Miliades – a significant Greek archaeologist

The second lecture in the 2016-2017 Lecture Program of the Σύλλογος Φίλων του Ιστορικού Αρχείου της Αρχαιολογικής Υπηρεσίας will take place on Monday, November 14^th at 19:00 at the Library of the Canadian Institute in Greece. The award-winning documentary filmmaker, audiovisual storyteller and researcher, Vassilis Kosmopoulos, will discuss the background archival research and interviews that were the basis for the making of his recently-released documentary on the noted Greek archaeologist Yiannis Miliades. The film, «Γιάννης Μηλιάδης» has been shown this fall on OTENET’s History Channel. It is well worth searching for.

Miliades was a contemporary and rival (along with Christos Karouzos) of Spyridon Marinatos in the Hellenic Archaeological Service during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas in the later 1930s. He was the prime mover in the removal and the burying of the sculpture and other objects in the National Archaeological Museum before the German invasion of Greece in 1941. Miliades was the guardian of the finds of the Akropolis Museum during the German occupation as the Ephor of the Akropolis. His name became synonymous with the Akropolis in his later life.

The illustrated lecture is entitled «Γιάννης Μηλιάδης, μια σημαντική μορφή της Ελληνικής αρχαιολογίας». In it Kosmopoulos will sketch the personality, the principles and the work of this significant Greek archaeologist of the mid-20^th century.

The public is most welcome to attend!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director