Congratulations to Dr Angus Smith for winning the Archaeological Institute of America, Anna Marguerite McCann Award for Fieldwork Reports for the 2017 publication of Ayia Sotira: A Mycenaean Chamber Tomb Cemetery in the Nemea Valley, Greece. Prehistory Monographs 56 (R. Angus K. Smith, Mary K. Dabney, Evangelia Pappi, Sevasti Triantaphyllou, James C. Wright).
This volume is the final publication of the results of excavation of six Mycenaean chamber tombs in the Late Bronze Age cemetery of Ayia Sotira within the Nemea Valley of the Argolid region of Greece. The work presented includes artifactual and ecofactual remains such as pottery, jewelry, figurines, metal objects, human skeletons, and botanical remains. The volume represents a tremendous amount of work including three excavation seasons, two study seasons, and an additional seven years for the team to complete the write-up. The excavation was an important one because the site was in the process of being looted. It was not a wealthy group of tombs, but instead belonged to the small farming community of nearby Tsoungiza in the Nemea Valley. Dr Smith explained “it’s demonstrative of the mortuary traditions of a small farming community in the shadow of the much larger and wealthier site of Mycenae.”
The Ayia Sotira team also includes Mary K. Dabney, a Research Associate at Bryn Mawr College; Evangelia Pappi, from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture Ephorate of Antiquities for the Argolid; Sevasti Triantaphyllou, an Associate Professor in Prehistoric Archaeology and Osteoarchaeology at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki; James Wright, a Professor Emeritus of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr, and a former Director of ASCSA.
See the Brock News for the full story!
R. Angus K. Smith, Mary K. Dabney, Evangelia Pappi, Sevasti Triantaphyllou, James C. Wright (2017) Ayia Sotira: A Mycenaean Chamber Tomb Cemetery in the Nemea Valley, Greece. Prehistory Monographs 56.
