Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project team photo 2024
From May 13-June 23, 2024, the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project again conducted excavations at the site of ancient Eleon in central Greece. This project is a synergasia of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Boeotia, directed by Alexandra Charami, and the Canadian Institute in Greece working with the University of Victoria. In 2024, we continued excavations, but rather than work on the top of the low plateau where we have previously worked and uncovered substantial Mycenaean remains, this year, we moved our investigation to the lower town surrounding the acropolis. In previous seasons we had surveyed in this area and noted polygonal masonry comparable to the large polygonal wall along the eastern edge of the acropolis. We opened trenches to test our survey methods and we were very successful in exposing a significant stretch of the lower town fortification system, complete with towers and stone socles which supported mudbrick superstructure. With detailed study of the ceramics, including roof tiles, we discovered that the construction date of the fortification system is in the late Archaic period, and it was destroyed in the early Classical age (ca. 500-450 BCE). We hope to report on this work at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2025 in Philadelphia.
Lower town tower (left) and wall socle (right)
Trevor Van Damme and pottery in apothiki (left) and excavation (right)
Our work in 2024, like every year since the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project began in 2007, provides research-engaged learning and university course credit for undergraduates at the University of Victoria, Wellesley College, and other universities in Canada and the US. Some of our team members miss their graduation at their home institution so we have our own ‘EBAP Graduation’ party each summer.
Graduates 2024: Lucas Goulden, Shayla Faminow, Riley Kernohan, Haley Bertram, Hana Sugioka, Ben Watts Wooldridge
Excavation supervisors: Bryan Burns, Hana Sugioka, Graham Braun, Haley Bertram, Ben Watts Wooldridge, Brendan Burke
In addition to hands-on learning for undergraduates, EBAP also provides research opportunities and experience for graduate students who engage with material from our project, supervise excavation, and conduct research projects of their own. Many of these projects have resulted in Master’s theses and PhD dissertations. In 2024, we had four excellent graduate students who supervised individual trenches and we are very grateful for their dedication. All the supervisors have worked with our project previously including Haley Bertram, who started with us in 2011 and successfully completed her dissertation at the University of Cincinnati. Haley was the senior supervisor leading the team and will start as Resident Instructor at the Intercollegiate Center in Rome in September. Hana Sugioka just completed her MA at the University of Texas at Austin in Art History and will start a PhD at UC Berkeley after an internship at the Getty Museum. Ben Watts Wooldridge is completing his MA at the University of Victoria and will start his PhD work at Princeton University this year. Graham Braun completed his MA at UBC and is in the PhD program at Cincinnati. This coming year he will be the Emily Vermeule fellow as a Regular Member of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Our graduate student supervisors are an extremely valuable part of the team and without their detailed record keeping and effective management of our undergraduate students, we would not have accomplished all that we did in 2024.
Team on break from lower town excavation
One of the things all graduates are told about their research projects, especially their PhD dissertation topics, is that their work should be original and one that advances the field of archaeology and Greek studies. Finding something new to say can be a great challenge since the field of Classical archaeology has such a long and distinguished history. By providing newly excavated material from our excavation for study, analysis, and publication, our project believes it is a doubly successful endeavor: graduate students get original material to work on to complete their degrees and our shared research results are disseminated and published. Recent projects include Haley Bertram looking at our archaic and classical figurines for an MA at UBC; Max MacDonald looking at textile equipment for an MA at UVic; Matthew Bullock studying faunal remains from Eleon for his MA in Anthropology MA at UVic; Janelle Sadarananda studying clay chemistry of the Archaic ceramics for her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania; Scott Evans looking at the lithic/chipped stone from Eleon for his UVic MA; Alix Galumbeck examining the bull figures and Mycenaean religion at Eleon for her UVic MA; Ben Watts Wooldridge from UVic studying figural decorated pottery from ancient Eleon for his MA; and Krysten Cruz studying our early Mycenaean human population for her PhD at Texas Tech.
Janelle Sadarananda presenting her petrography research
In addition, we work with young scholars who include material from Eleon in their wider regional studies, some as post-doctoral projects. This includes Vernon Stafford from the University of Tennessee, Sally McGrath UNB, Bella Dimova of the British School at Athens, Amanda Gaggioli at the University of Memphis, Chris Hale of the Polish Academy of Science, Jeremey Beller and Annika Berendt from the University of Victoria, and Symeon Gkinoudis from Groningen University. Having advanced students and young scholars keeps our project engaged with the most recent methods of research and theory, and it provides a clear inspiration to our undergraduates on the wide variety of fields that engage with our excavations at Eleon. They see what is possible for them to continue their studies in the field of archaeology, classics, anthropology, etc. Interdisciplinary training is also important for graduate students who are specializing in history and literature, including Luke Montgomery and Grace Niehaus, pursuing their MAs at the University of Victoria.
Symeon Gkinoudis presenting his research on paleobotany
We greatly value the contributions that all of our team members make to the project, but we especially appreciate our graduate students. We look forward to continuing working with them in the future and hope that many of them will incorporate research from Eleon in their future projects.. We look forward to continuing our work at ancient Eleon in 2025 and are very grateful to the Canadian Institute in Greece and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Boeotia for all of their help.
Team leaving ancient Eleon 2024
Brendan Burke, Bryan Burns & Trevor Van Damme, EBAP
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