1. View of Thasos from the Acropolis of Abdera, Polystylon
The Abdera Urban Plan Project 2026 began its third season at the ancient site of Abdera with a field survey of the Insula of Houses, a project conducted under the auspices of the Canadian Institute in Greece and Greek Ministry of Culture, and co-directed by Maria Chrysafi, Deputy Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Xanthi, and Dr. Maria Papaioannou from the University of New Brunswick, Department of Historical Studies.
2. Aerial view of the Insula of Houses
Work began in mid June with favourable wet and cool conditions as evidenced by the various shades of green in the aerial photo. This came as a welcome surprise in contrast to last year’s Sahara-type weather, which made excavating in the heat challenging for participants and next to impossible for the pickaxe to do its job! On occasion a welcoming sea breeze from the Aegean made its way to our site…
3. Aerial view of domestic remains from the north section of the Insula of Houses. Team members laying out 40 inter-electrode and inter-lines
Our aim was to complete the subsurface investigations of the Insula of Houses, which were begun in 2024 by Dr. Nikos Papadopoulos and his team from FORTH, the Institute for Mediterranean Studies. The Ground Penetrating Radar results from the first survey revealed a housing block populated with stone remains of peristyle houses and simple courtyard dwellings to a depth of approximately 1.80m. However, the houses in the northern half of the insula, excavated in the 1950s by Dimitrios Lazarides, were not included in the 2024 survey. This year we applied 3D Electrical Resistivity Tomography to identify stone remains beneath these houses and thus complete the subsurface survey of the insula (Fig. 3).
4. Eleni Tzema in her office
An office for the FORTH surveyors (and Doctoral candidates) Eleni Tzema, Angelo Plageras and Demitri Oikonomou, and their equipment was set up beneath a small oak tree along the east side of the insula. Mikaela Mirkopoulos, a student (ASU) member of the AUPP project, assisted the FORTH team in the field survey and worked at the museum on the material from last year’s excavations. An area of approximately 1,800 m2 was investigated in the northern half of the housing block to a depth of 3-3.5 m (Figs. 3, 2). Within this area, team members laid out 40 inter-electrode and inter-lines in a north-south direction with 0.5 m between each line. This procedure was repeated in an east-west direction. The team worked long hours (including weekends) to complete the survey within 10 days. Occasionally they would take time off for a break…. We await the results from this survey with much anticipation!
5. Working at the site: Eleni, Mikaela and Dimitrios; Taking an early break: Angelos
The results from this year’s survey will assist in analyzing and synthesizing the information collected from the previous two years, 2024-2025. We plan to return to Abera next year and continue our exploration of the city’s town plan. The outcomes of these and future investigations will underscore the complexity of Abdera’s town plan, and in general Greek town planning, and require a more comprehensive approach to our understanding of the built landscape and those who shaped it.
We thank the museum and hostel staff, archaeologist Konstantinos Darakis for the aerial photos, site supervisor, archaeologist Efie Kosmidou, and the Deputy Director of the Ephorate of Xanthi, Maria Chrysafi, for their support and gracious hospitality. The VIP however of this project is of course our cook ‘kyria Efie’, who with her delicious meals helped us make it through the day.
This project would not have been possible without the generous support of the Fr. Theordore Mirkopoulos Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Xanthi.
Dr. Maria Papaioannou (University of New Brunswick), co-director AUPP
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