Byron Archaeology Society

Dr Sergios Menelaou

I undertook my undergraduate studies at the University of Cyprus (2008-2012) and received my MSc in Archaeological Materials (2013) from the Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield. I completed my PhD in 2018 at the same university and continued with postdoctoral fellowships at Koç University (Istanbul, Turkey; 2018-2019) and the University of Cyprus (Nicosia, Cyprus; 2020-2022). As of December 2022, I am the Williams Fellow in Ceramic Petrology at the Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens.

My research interests concern prehistoric Aegean and Anatolian archaeology, island societies and their inter-connectivity and interaction particularly from the Final Neolithic-Chalcolithic and to the Middle Bronze Age periods. I am particularly interested in the application of an integrated methodology that combines the traditional study of ceramics and the application of scientific analytical techniques, with a special concern for recovering technological information of pottery production, usage, and circulation. My broader research is focused on the ceramic developments and technological mobility and connectivity in the eastern Aegean, western Anatolia, and Cyprus during the third millennium BC.

Dr Carlotta Gardner

I am an archaeologist who uses scientific techniques to analyse ancient materials in order to reconstruct how and where they were made and to better understand the craftspeople who were making them. I received a PhD and MSc from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and a BSc from Bradford University and have worked at the BSA, in the Fitch Laboratory, for the past 5 years and continue to be associated whilst finishing current research projects.

I have excavated at Pompeii, and worked on projects across Europe, spanning multiple time periods: from a late- to post-medieval cannon foundry in Dubrovnik, Croatia, to Roman metalworking workshops on Hadrian’s Wall, UK. At the Fitch lab, BSA, I turned my attention to investigating pottery production in the Northern Peloponnese (Archaic and Classical period), with particular focus on Corinth and Sikyon. Another growing interest and specialism of is the use of experimental work to better understand the materials used and the choices made by craftspeople in the past.

Elizabeth Foley

I studied Classical Civilisation and Jewish and Islamic Civilisations for my undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin. I then obtained an MPhil in Greek and Roman History from the University of Oxford before returning to my native Dublin for my doctoral studies under the supervisor of Dr Shane Wallace and supported by the Irish Research Council. I submitted my doctoral thesis on the Cycladic islands in the Hellenistic period (Poleis and Nesiotiai: Aspects of Agency in the Hellenistic Cyclades) in September 2022 and am now at the BSA as the Macmillian-Rodewald Student (2022-23) for my postdoctoral research. My doctoral research focused on the ways in which the League of Islanders and the individual city-states of the Cycladic islands interacted with hegemonic powers in the period after the death of Alexander the Great as seen in their inscribed honorific decrees.

At the BSA, my postdoctoral project involves the preparation of my PhD thesis as a monograph including a new study of bronze coinages from the Cycladic islands as well as a study of the concept of time and dating formulae of decrees in mainland Greece. At the centre of my approach to inscriptions is their materiality and the goal to produce translations and corpora of inscriptions for student use which entails the close study of the inscriptions themselves and thus far I have undertaken studies at the museums of Tenos and Ios. Additionally, and more broadly I am interested in building accounts and contracts of construction.

During my doctoral studies I held fellowships at the Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik, École française d'Athènes and Trinity Long Room Hub. During my time at Trinity, I taught lectures and classes on the Athenian history, inscriptions and ancient Greek federalism and I am passionate about pedagogy and education as well as outreach and the promotion of public scholarship.