Research Team


ATHANASIOS K. VIONIS	COORDINATOR (Landscape Archaeology - Surface Survey - Ceramic Studies)
	Athanasios Vionis is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus (UCY). He studied history and archaeology at the University of Durham (UK), he carried out his doctoral research at the University of Leiden (Netherlands), and undertook postdoctoral research at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). His research interests include landscape and settlement archaeology, surface survey, the production, distribution and use of ceramic vessels, and the study of food-ways in the Byzantine, Medieval and Early Modern eras in the Eastern Mediterranean. He is also the coordinator of several research projects, e.g. Unlocking the Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus, UnSaLa-CY (EXCELLENCE/1216/0362: Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation); The Spatiality and Materiality of Pilgrimage, SpaMaP Cy (POST-DOC/0916/0251: Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation); Stirring Pots on Fire, CCP (A.G. Leventis Foundation); Simplifying Complexity, SIMPLEX (UCY). He has been co-director of the archaeological field project and summer-school Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus (SeSaLaC) since 2014, and a member of the Consortium of the Unlocking Sacred Landscapes Network (UnSaLa).

GIORGOS PAPANTONIOU	SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW (Landscape Archaeology - Sacred Landscapes - Terracottas)
	Giorgos Papantoniou studied archaeology at UCY and carried out his doctoral research at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). He undertook postdoctoral research at Trinity College Dublin, having received an Irish Research Council (IRC), Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009-10), followed by an IRC/Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship for the project entitled Unlocking Sacred Landscapes (2011-15). From 2015 to 2018 he held a research fellowship within the Research Training Group 'Archaeology of Pre-Modern Economies' of the Universities of Bonn-Cologne (funded by the German Research Foundation). His research interests include ancient Cypriot ritual space, sanctuaries and religion from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, Greek sanctuaries and religion, Greek and Roman mystery cults, Greek sculpture and terracotta figurines, Hellenistic royal imagery and cult, landscape archaeology and approaches to art and iconography. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at UCY, co-directing the research project Unlocking the Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus, UnSaLa-CY (EXCELLENCE/1216/0362), funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (2018-21), a co-director of SeSaLaC, and the founder and coordinator of the UnSaLa Network.

MARIA DIKOMITOU	SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW (Ceramic Analysis)
	Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou studied archaeology at UCY, and completed her postgraduate studies in Mediterranean Archaeology (MA) at the University of Bristol, and in Artefact Studies (MA) at University College London (UK). She undertook her doctoral research at UCL, where she carried out the first large-scale analytical investigation ever conducted on ancient Cypriot pottery. Her research focusses on prehistoric Cyprus, employing a combination of analytical techniques, both traditional classification, and compositional and technological characterisation. Her research interests include ceramic technology and production, its differing modes of organisation, ceramic distribution, technological and cultural change. Maria was the principal investigator of the Stirring Pots on Fire project (2012-13), project manager of the interdisciplinary research project NARNIA (2011-14), and a post-doctoral researcher in the framework of the Cooking Pot Traditions in Ancient Nicosia project (Cook-Nic) at UCY (2016-17). She is currently holding a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship at UCL for the project Revisiting an Ancient Craft in a Contested Region (ReCyPot/747339).

DORIA NICOLAOU	POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER (Landscape Archaeology - Excavation - Christian Architecture)
	Doria Nicolaou studied archaeology at UCY. She completed her postgraduate studies in Christian Archaeology at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana in Rome, where she also undertook and defended her doctoral thesis. She was a fellow of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the A.G. Leventis Foundation. She has participated in several archaeological projects in Rome, Corsica, Lebanon and Cyprus. She collaborates with the Department of Antiquities in various excavations and she coordinated the project of the digitisation of the permanent exhibition of the Cyprus Museum and of all the artefacts for the first volume of the Cyprus Museum Inventory. She has also been collaborating with the United Nations Development Programme in Cyprus. Her research interests include the history and archaeology of Cyprus, especially of the Early Christian, Byzantine and Medieval eras, with emphasis on church architecture and liturgical practice. She is currently a WissenschaftsCampus Mainz Postdoctoral Fellow at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Germany), and a co-director of the SeSaLaC field project.

HARRY PARASKEVA	POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER (Geographic Information Systems - Ceramic Studies)
	Charalambos (Harry) Paraskeva studied history and archaeology at UCY and continued his postgraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh (UK), where he received an MSc in Mediterranean Archaeology (2010) and a PhD in Archaeology (2016) for his thesis entitled: “Chronology, topography and social change: a multi-linear perspective on the Chalcolithic to Bronze Age transition in Cyprus”. To date he has received 7 awards and scholarships, participated in 25 field seasons of various archaeological excavations and surveys in Cyprus and Scotland and has concluded 5 research projects concerning the construction of archaeological data management systems, ontological design, pottery analysis, and chronological data modelling. His research interests include the prehistoric archaeology of Cyprus, typological analysis of pottery, landscape archaeology, spatial-statistical analysis of archaeological data, theoretical archaeology, and digital humanities. He is also a technology aficionado, mathematics enthusiast, web and graphics designer, and an amateur programmer. He is a postdoctoral researcher at UCY since 2016, where he conducts the SimpleX project in the framework of SeSaLaC.

AGATA DOBOSZ	POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER (Excavation - Ceramic Studies)
	Agata Dobosz studied archaeology (MA) and Classical philology (MA) at the Jagiellonian University (JU) of Poland. Her doctoral thesis (defended at JU in 2013) focused on the trade connections of Cyprus during the Hellenistic period through the study of transport amphorae on the island. Her research was financially supported by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the JU and other Polish foundations. She has participated in archaeological projects in Ukraine, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan and Egypt. Her research interests include the production and circulation of pottery (especially utilitarian wares and transport amphorae), as well as the economy and trade networks of Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic-Late Antique eras. She is a member of the IARPotHP and the coordinator of the research project With Dionysus and Hermes in ancient Nea Paphos - transport amphorae and their contents, financed by the Polish National Science Centre. She has been collaborating with SeSaLaC since 2016 and she is responsible for the study of the Hellenistic-Late Roman surface ceramics in the framework of a post-doctoral fellowship by the A.G. Leventis Foundation through the University of St Andrews.

OURANIA PERDIKI	POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER (Sacred Landscapes - Byzantine Art and Architecture)
	Ourania Perdiki studied archaeology and history of art at the University of Crete and completed her postgraduate studies in Byzantine Archaeology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). She carried out her doctoral research at the University of Aix-Marseille and at École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris), while her doctoral thesis was entitled: The Iconography of Cypriot Saints (10th-15th century). Her research interests include byzantine monumental painting, byzantine and medieval art in Cyprus, Byzantium and the West, artistic trends and interrelations, the cult of local saints, pilgrimage and pilgrimage art. She was also the curator in-chief of the Byzantine Art Museum of the Bishopric of Tamassos and Oreinis at Episkopeio. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCY, working as a principal researcher in the framework of the research project The Spatiality and Materiality of Pilgrimage in Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus and Religious Networks in the Eastern Mediterranean (11th-16th century), SpaMaP Cy (POST-DOC/0916/0251), funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (2018-21), and member of the UnSaLa Network.

PANTELITSA MYLONA	RESEARCHER (Geoarchaeology)
	Pantelitsa Mylona studied archaeology at UCY. She was awarded an MSc in Geoarcheology-Soil Micromorphology by the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (France), where she also completed her Ph.D. thesis on the geoarchaeology of Neolithic Cyprus. She was a postgraduate fellow of the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation and the State Scholarship Foundation of Cyprus. She is a coordinator of the research workshop “Villages de terre crue” in the framework of the French National Research project GDR (Groupement de Recherche) 3644 BioArchéoDat (CNRS, Inrap, MNHN). She has participated in several research projects in Cyprus, Greece, Corsica and Iraqi Kurdistan as a geoarchaeologist (geomorphology and micromorphology). Her research interests include the longue durée relationship between human societies and the natural environment, as well as how human activities have an effect on soils diachronically. She has also specialised on earthen architecture in dry and semi-dry environments (from the collection of raw materials to the building of floors and walls) and how the use of domestic space is recorded in floor stratigraphy. She has been collaborating with ArtLandS Lab's field projects as a geoarchaeologist.

CHRYSTALLA LOIZOU	RESEARCH ASSISTANT - Ph.D. CANDIDATE (Landscape Archaeology - Ceramic Studies)
	Chrystalla Loizou studied archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and completed her postgraduate studies at the University of Cyprus, in the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme in Byzantine Studies. Her MA thesis on the architecture and function of the medieval towers of Euboea received an 'A'. She has been undertaking her doctoral research on the archaeology of settlements in Byzantine-Medieval Cyprus at the University of Cyprus (under the supervision of A. Vionis) since 2014. She also worked as a pottery assistant in the Cypriot medieval ceramics collection of the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia under the direction of D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi. Meanwhile, she has been collaborating (as an assistant) with ArtLandS Lab in the framework of the post-Roman pottery study of the Ancient Cities of Boeotia Project, under the supervision of A. Vionis. She has also been collaborating with the SeSaLaC field project and has been involved in the study and publication of the pottery collection of the O. Kaparis Historical-Folklore Museum in Paros (Greece).

NIKI KYRIAKOU	RESEARCH ASSISTANT - Ph.D. CANDIDATE (Landscape Archaeology - GIS)
	Niki Kyriakou studied archaeology at UCY, and completed her postgraduate studies in GIS and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology (MSc) at University College London (UK). She is currently undertaking her doctoral research at UCY (under the supervision of A. Vionis), studying the Socio-economic Landscapes of Late Roman Cyprus through a GIS perspective. She worked as a research assistant in various EU-funded research projects, in the domain of Digital Cultural Heritage (ARIADNE, ArchaeoLandscapes, CARARE, 3DIcons). She has also worked at the Cyprus Department of Antiquities in the framework of the CADiP project, undertaking the digitisation of the volumes of the Cyprus Survey and of the permanent exhibition of the artifacts included in the first volume of the Cyprus Museum Inventory. Her research interests include GIS and landscape archaeology. She has participated in various excavations in Cyprus and has been collaborating, as a GIS specialist, with ArtLandS Lab in the framework of the research projects UnSaLa (since 2013) and SeSaLaC (since 2015).