Dr Bartłomiej (Bartek) Lis
British School at Athens
52 Souedias Street
Athens, 10676
+30 211 1022 830
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow
Research
My research project, funded through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, is entitled TRACT: TRAvelling Ceramic Technologies as markers of human mobility in the Aegean. TRACT focuses on the transfer of technology involved in pottery manufacture, from raw material collection to firing of the finished products, which has the potential to demonstrate mobility (in this case potters’ mobility) in a manner much more unequivocal than the discussion of other aspects of material culture like burial rites, cult, architecture or even cooking traditions. I am focusing on a particular period, the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1050 BC), and a particular area of Central Greece, the Euboean Gulf, to investigate a case study of mobile potters from the island of Aegina, a renowned pottery-production centres of Aegean Bronze Age. Euboean Gulf is a Mediterranean microcosm, where mobility was, and still is, a practical necessity of every-day life. Building upon my earlier research, and applying an interdisciplinary approach perfected at the Fitch Laboratory, the assumed mobility of Aeginetan potters will be further investigated regarding its circumstances, duration, scale and interaction with local communities.
I received my PhD in archaeology from the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology. My long-standing interest is in Bronze Age pottery in the Aegean as a mean to investigate past societies. I have been involved in pottery studies from fieldwork projects at Mitrou (East Locris, from 2005) and at Eleon (Boeotia, from 2013), preparing part of material for publication. Throughout my research, I have also studied pottery from older excavations, including Pylos, Lefkandi, and the Menelaion.
Publications
- Lis, B. “Foodways in Early Mycenaean Greece: Innovative Cooking Sets and Social Hierarchy at Mitrou and Other Settlements on the Greek Mainland.” American Journal of Archaeology 121, no. 2 (2017): 183–217.
- Lis, B. “A Foreign Potter in the Pylian Kingdom? A Reanalysis of the Ceramic Assemblage of Room 60 at the Palace of Nestor in Pylos.” Hesperia 85, no. 3 (2016): 491–536.
- Lis, B. “Variability of Ceramic Production and Consumption on the Greek Mainland During the Middle Stages of the Late Bronze Age: The Waterpots from the Menelaion, Sparta.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 36, no. 3 (2017): 243–66.
- Lis, B., Š. Rückl, and M. Choleva. “Mobility in the Bronze Age Aegean – the Case of Aeginetan Potters.” In The Transmission of Technical Knowledge in the Production of Ancient Mediterranean Pottery, edited by W. Gauss, G. Klebinder-Gauss, and C. von Rueden, 63–75. Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 2015.
- Lis, B. “Handmade and Burnished Pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean at the End of the Bronze Age: Towards an Explanation for Its Diversity and Geographical Distribution.” In Forces of Transformation: The End of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean: Proceedings of an International Symposium Held at St. John’s College, University of Oxford, 25-26th March 2006, edited by Ch. Bachhuber and R. G. Roberts, 152–63. Themes from the Ancient Near East BANEA Publication Series, v. 1. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2009.
- Lis, B. “The Sequence of Late Bronze/Early Iron Age Pottery from East-Central Greek Settlements – a Fresh Look at Old and New Evidence.” In LH III C Chronology and Synchronisms III: LH III C Late and the Transition to the Early Iron Age: Proceedings of the International Workshop Held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences at Vienna, February 23rd and 24th, 2007, edited by S. Deger-Jalkotzy and A. E. Bächle, 203–33. Veröffentlichungen Der Mykenischen Kommission 30. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009.