About us: staff and sponsors

Directors of the 2023-7 project: Dr Saro Wallace (Gerda Henkel Stiftung of Germany 2021-24); Professor Krzysztof Nowicki (Polish Academy of Sciences)

Saro's research career (PhD Edinburgh 2001 under the supervision of Professor Irene Lemos) has been in the Bronze-Iron Age of Greece and especially Crete. Author of Ancient Crete (Cambridge University Press); Travellers in Time (Routledge) and Karphi Revisited (BSA) and of numerous articles on Mediterranean and UK archaeology and heritage in peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, she conducted survey and trial excavation at Karphi in 2008-12 while Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Reading 2006-10, a contract post following lectureships at the Universities of Bristol and Cardiff. The post was succeeded by various international fellowships and visiting professorships, including a Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship at the University of Heidelberg 2010-2013, Glassman Holland Research Fellowship at the Albright Institute Jerusalem 2013, a Fellowship of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies 2015-16, and an Honorary Research Fellowship at the University of Manchester 2016-20. She is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Gerda Henkel Stiftung 2021-24. She has been a staff member  on numerous rescue and research excavations in the UK Cyprus, Crete Jordan and Lebanon including projects run by the University of Edinburgh, British Museum, Museum of London and British School at Athens. Between 2018 and 2021 she regularly took on archaeological consultancy and heritage management contracts in the UK public sector (e.g. for the National Trust, National Trust for Scotland and Arts Council-funded organisations). A wide variety of organisations including the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, British School at Athens, Institute for Aegean Prehistory, Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation and A.G. Leventis Foundation have funded her research.

Krzysztof (PhD Warsaw 1990) entered the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1982 as a PhD student of Professor Bogdan Rutkowski. He has spent his career researching the settlements and landscapes of prehistoric Crete, especially those of the Lasithi region, between the Neolithic and Iron Age periods through survey and excavation including as a staff member on projects run by  the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Greek Ministry of Culture and the British School at Athens: his excavation of the extreme site of Monastiraki Katalimata in east Crete in collaboration with the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport's Archaeological Service revealed architecture and finds dating between the Final Neolithic and Early Iron Age periods.  A founding member of the Polish Archaeological Institute at Athens,  and twice Mellon Fellow of the American School of Archaeology at Athens, he has been Glassman Holland Research Fellow at the Albright Institute Jerusalem, British Academy Visiting Fellow at the University of Birmingham, UK (where he also held a lectureship 1998-2000) to 2004, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg funded by a Polish National Research Exchange Grant.  Author of The Psychro Cave and other Sacred Grottoes in Crete (Art and Archaeology), Monastiraki Katalimata: a Cretan Refuge Site (INSTAP Academic Press); Defensible sites in Crete, LM IIIC-Geometric (Aegaeum), and Final Neolithic Crete and the Southeast Aegean (De Gruyter)  He has held four Polish National Research Grants and annual grants from the Institute for Aegean Prehistory for more than twenty years.  

Other staff involved in project fieldwork and publication 2023-5:

Archaeobotanist

Professor Evi Margaritis and Ms Carly Henkel (Cyprus Research Institute)

Zooarchaeologist

 Dr Dimitra Mylona (INSTAP Study Center for East Crete)

Wood charcoal specialist 

Associate Professor Maria Ntinou (University of Thessaloniki)

Metals specialist (metallography, XRF)

Dr Nerantzis Nerantzis (University of Kalamata)

Ceramic petrographer

Dr Florence Liard (University of Leiden)

Soils analyst

Dr Michael Morris (Freelance Soils and Geology Consultant)

Osteologist

Dr Claire Hodson (University of Reading)

Project advisers:  

These senior scholars with a strong history of published research, including excavation and survey, on Bronze to Iron Age Crete advise on and support our project, along with many other colleagues in the field:

Professor Leslie Preston Day (Wabash College)

Professor Donald Haggis (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) 

Professor Kevin Glowacki (Texas A&M University)

Professor John Bintliff (Universities of Edinburgh and Leiden)

Sponsoring research institutions:

The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport and its Ephorates authorise and supervise our research programme according to Greek antiquities law. Since 2002 the supervising body has been the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lasithi; from 2022, due to administrative changes at the Karphi site it will be the Ephorate of Antiquities of Heraklion, which has also supported Wallace's work at the nearby site of Papoura from 2022. We warmly thank them both for the time, effort and expertise put into the research project by their staff.

The Museum of Heraklion has supported Wallace's numerous projects relating to the finds from the 1930s excavations at Karphi and at other sites in Lasithi, such as Tzermiado Kastello.

The Polish Institute of Archaeology at Athens (PAIA) with Krzysztof Nowicki as the director of record, will make permit applications for work on the site from 2022.

The US/Greek nonprofit HERITΛGE from 2021, formerly the Heritage Management Organization, channels and audits public funds and oversees and advises on our training and outreach activities 

The British School at Athens has until 2022 acted as our legal sponsor for permits from the Greek Ministry of Culture, for which we are deeply grateful.