This is a collaborative project co-ordinated by Dr Costis Davaras (former Director of the Cretan Archaeological Research Institute, and Ephor in the Greek Archaeological Service), Dr Alan Peatfield (University College Dublin) and Dr Christine Morris (Trinity College Dublin).

 

This project aims to publish material from old excavations undertaken by Dr Davaras in the 1970s, which has remained largely unstudied and unpublished, and thus unavailable to the research community. Dr Davaras invited Morris and Peatfield to work with him to publish the figurines from these sites, and it was agreed that the Prinias peak sanctuary above Sitia would be the pilot publication, the first in a planned series, which will include Petsophas, Modhi, and other smaller peak sanctuaries.

 

Integral to the work has been a 3D scanning project (using a laser scanner), which has been invaluable for producing 3D models for study of style and technology. We plan to make the 3D models available online, making the figurines more accessible to a wider audience. The scanning work has been co-ordinated by Brendan O’Neill (University College Dublin). Simone Zimmerman and Dr Constantina Alexandrou (Trinity College Dublin) are research assistants on the project.

 

For funding of this ongoing project we are grateful to: Irish Research Council; Trinity College Dublin; University College Dublin. We are indebted to our archaeological colleagues in the Ayios Nikolaos Museum for facilitating our work.