1. Excavation Reports

Abstract

John BINTLIFF (University of Leiden/University of Edinburgh)

The Leiden-Cambridge Boeotia Project 2023

Over the years 2022 and 2023 we have focused on editing the chapters for our third Boeotia Project monograph, on the city and countryside of the small town of Hyettos in the far north of the province. This has been a major task, as the volume is currently at least 1100 pages long (Bintliff, J. L., E. Farinetti and A. Snodgrass, eds. The Greek City State on a Small Scale. Hyettos in Boeotia and its Territory. Cambridge, McDonald Institute, Cambridge University). Our urban and rural survey was able to build on the previous and excellent historical and epigraphic volume on the city from the École Française (Étienne, R. and D. Knoepfler. 1976. Hyettos de Béotie et la Chronologie des Archontes Fédéraux. Paris, Editions de Boccard). Our volume is now in press.

A second task has been the analysis and chapter writing for our fourth monograph, on Askra and the Valley of the Muses in central Boeotia (Bintliff, J. L., P. Howard and A. M. Snodgrass (in preparation). The Boeotia Project Volume 4: Askra and the Valley of the Muses. Cambridge, McDonald Institute, Cambridge University).

In the field during the summers of 2022 and 2023 the work of restudying the survey ceramics by our small specialist team continued. Kalliope Sarri has been processing the finds from the Haliartos urban and rural survey (which will be part of the 5^th final project monograph), while Vladimir Stissi, Anna Meens and Philip Bes have been carrying out the first processing of the ceramic finds from the urban survey at the city of Koroneia in the west-centre of Boeotia. I myself have also been mapping land use potential around the city of Haliartos, while Lieve Donnellan has been taking drone pictures of its landscape. Hamish Forbes, our project social anthropologist, finalized his study of the recent history and economy of the village of Askra and has moved on to studying the recent development of the modern town of Haliartos.

In 2024 we intend to prepare the Valley of the Muses and Askra volume for publication, and then move to start collecting the chapters for the following publication of the Haliartos urban and rural survey.

Several new publications from our project have appeared:

Bintliff, J. (2023). Survey Archaeology in the Greek Aegean World. Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology.

Bintliff, J. (2023). “Agricultural intensification and the evidence from offsite survey archaeology.” Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-023-09176-4.

Bintliff, J. and P. Degryse (2022). “A review of soil geochemistry in archaeology.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 43: 103419.

Bintliff, J., P. Degryse, and J. van Zwienen (2022). “The long-term programme of trace metal analysis at the ancient city of Hyettos.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 43: 103432.