Transitions and Turning Points in Aegean Thrace: Insights from the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project

About the lecture

Located on the periphery of modern Greece, Aegean Thrace occupies an important crossroads between land and sea, East and West. Its geopolitical significance has long been acknowledged: from mythic attempts at control by heroes such as Odysseus and Heracles, to historical endeavors marked by the passage of the Persian Royal Road and, later, the Via Egnatia. In subsequent centuries, this strategic corridor was successively claimed and fought over by Philip II, the Romans, and, until a century ago, by the Bulgarians. Even today, multiple pipelines carrying natural gas from East to West still traverse the region, underscoring its enduring importance.

Despite this prominence, Aegean Thrace remains among the least archaeologically explored areas of Greece—particularly its central zone. Trying to address this gap, the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (MTAP), launched in 2013, explored a coastal settlement in this region along with its hinterland from a diachronic perspective. The synergasia between the Rhodope Ephorate of Antiquities and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens concluded fieldwork in 2023.

In this talk, the expedition co-directors use the project as a window onto the transformation of the region over time, devoting attention to moments of rapid turning points, such as destruction, alongside periods of more gradual transition, such as changes in geomorphology. New evidence from classical domestic architecture, rural organization, and an extra murus Hellenistic sanctuary will be presented to offer fresh insights into the dynamics of a vital but understudied region.

About the speakers

Nathan Arrington is Professor of Art and Archaeology and Hellenic Studies and Chair of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. He is the co-director and USA director of the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (MTAP). He has published Ashes, Images, and Memories: The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Athens at the Margins: Pottery and People in the Early Mediterranean World (Princeton University Press, 2021). In addition to overseeing the publication of MTAP and contributing chapters on stratigraphy, architecture, and ceramics, he is currently working on a monograph on haptics, which offers an alternative to histories of Greek art constructed around visual illusion and seeks to reconcile art historical and archaeological approaches to the ancient world.

Marina Tasaklaki (PhD in History and Numismatics, Ionian University) has served as an archaeologist at the Rhodope Ephorate of Antiquities since 1996. She has conducted excavations at numerous sites ranging from the prehistoric to the Byzantine period, including Maroneia, Dikaia, Molyvoti, Samothrace, and Paradimi. Since 2013, she has been a member of the Molyvoti, Thrace Archaeological Project (MTAP, https://scholar.princeton.edu/mtap/home), which investigates a classical city on the Thracian coast within its evolving environmental, economic, and cultural contexts. She has contributed to major publication projects on the coinage of Maroneia and Zone and has authored several articles on pottery and coin finds from excavated sites. She is also the Director of the Archaeological Project in Paradimi (ParEx), a Neolithic settlement in Aegean Thrace.

Domna Terzopoulou has studied Archaeology and History of Art at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki where she also completed her PhD, Thesis: The tumulus of Mikri Doxipara-Zoni, Evros Prefecture. The excavation record and the offerings of the cremation burials.

In 1994 she was appointed after examinations to the Archaeological Service of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. She worked in the area of Thrace (excavations in the ancient city on the Molyvoti Peninsula -Rhodope Prefecture and in burial tumuli -Evros Perfecture) and in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. Since 2013 she is the co-director of the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (MTAP), a co-operation with the Rhodope Ephorate of Antiquities, Greece and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

She has taken part in symposia in Greece and abroad and published papers in conference proceedings, honorary volumes, museum catalogues, academic journals etc. Her academic interests focus on Classical and Roman Periods.