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Our Outreach team takes archaeology workshops and talks out to schools and colleges in the county. It also runs Masterclasses and workshops on campus and in the department. We've also worked with the army on 
Greek Archaeology
The archaeology of Greece has had a strong record of research and teaching at the University since the 1980s. This spans from Dark Age Greece through to the Roman period, assessing urban, landscape, political, economic and material changes in the Greek mainland, the Aegean and in southern Italy. Among the archaeologists and ancient historians in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History are several who work with archaeological data; we have strong links with the British School at Athens; and a fieldtrip module to Athens exists in the MA Classical Mediterranean programme.
Greek and Mediterranean archaeology are core to a current major research project - Tracing Networks.
Core Staff
Lin Foxhall; Borja Legarra Herrero; Naoíse Mac Sweeney; Graham Shipley; Dan Stewart; Ian Whitbread.
Staff have interests and projects spanning in time and space from late Bronze Age Greece and the Levant to Hellenistic Greece and Magna Graecia (Greek southern Italy and Sicily). Particular staff research interests are in landscape change (both urban and rural) and in the interaction between society, identity, and material culture, including pottery studies, ceramic analysis, and the interpretation of archaeological field survey data.
Key Research Projects
- Tracing Networks - Weaving relationships: loom weights and cross-cultural networks in the ancient Mediterranean (Lin Foxhall, Alessandro Quercia)
- Tracing Networks - Mint condition: coinage and the development of technological, economic and social networks in the Mediterranean (Colin Haselgrove, Stefan Krmnicek)
- Tracing Networks - Plain cooking: ceramics, networks of technological transfer and social change, from the late bronze age to the iron age in the Greek world (Ian Whitbread, Sara Strack)
- The emergence of the Mediterranean. A comparative investigation of the creation of the first hierarchical societies in Europe and the Levant (Borja Legarra Herrero)
Publication highlights
Foxhall, L. (2007) Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece.
Legarra Herrero, B. (2009) ‘The Minoan fallacy: cultural diversity and mortuary behaviour on Crete at the beginning of the Bronze Age’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 28 (1): 29–57.
Mac Sweeney, N. (in press) Community, Identity, and Archaeology.
Shipley, G. (1996 and 2002) chapters in W. Cavanagh et al., The Laconia Survey. BSA.
Whitbread, I. (1995) Greek Transport Amphorae; with M. Boyd et al. (2006) ‘Geophysical investigations at Palaikastro’, Annual of the British School at Athens, 101: 89–134.
Exploring Greek Archaeology at postgraduate level at Leicester
We welcome applications from UK, EU and International students for doctoral research with the School. PhDs on Greek archaeology can be undertaken by both campus-based study and Distance Learning, or a blend of the two. Recently completed theses, some of which investigated historical data as well as archaeology, include studies of the role of astronomy in ancient Greek religion (Efrosyni Boutsika); temple alignments and western Greek identity (Alun Salt); taverns and wine consumption in classical Greece (Clare Kelly-Blazeby); the ‘romanization’ of southern Greek landscapes (Dan Stewart); dyeing and dyeworks in ancient Greece (Mark Monaghan); and privacy within the ancient Greek house (Samantha Burke).
Current students are exploring topics such as early Greeks, Phoenicians, and Etruscans others in Spain; Hellenistic pottery assemblages; and Greek temple-builders’ debt to Egypt.
