The Myrto Georgakopoulou Research Award for 2024-25
We are pleased to announce that Ariadne Kostomitsopoulou Marketou has been selected as the first recipient of the Myrto Georgakopoulou Research Award for 2024-2025.
Ariadne’s research interests include the materiality of ancient colourants and inks, pigment manufacturing technology, and the organisation and interconnectedness of craft production in the ancient Mediterranean world. She holds a PhD in Archaeology from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History of the University of Oslo (IAKH, UiO, Norway), a MSc in Protection, Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art from the interdepartmental postgraduate programme of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), and a BSc in Chemistry from the same university (AUTH). Her doctoral thesis focused on pigment manufacturing and treatment on Kos during the late Hellenistic period, based on the material evidence of a workshop that was found in the area of the Agora. She is currently carrying out her postdoctoral research within the framework of the project “The Early History of the Codex: A New Methodology and Ethics for Manuscript Studies (EthiCodex)” (PI: Prof. Brent Nongbri, funded by the Research Council of Norway), aiming to contextually approach early codices (1st to 4th c. CE) as archaeological finds and focusing on their materiality.
As the recipient of the Myrto Georgakopoulou Research Award (2024-2025), Ariadne will take a few chronological steps back in time to study the colourants and traces of colour from the Early Cycladic II settlement of Skarkos, on the island of Ios. The archaeometric analysis of traces of colour and unused pigment lumps from the thoroughly excavated and studied archaeological site of Skarkos, aims to deepen our understanding of the use and value of colour in the Keros-Syros culture.
We congratulate Ariadne on this well-deserved award and look forward to the outcomes of her groundbreaking research.