The Myth of the Ancient Greek Colony - Naoíse Mac Sweeney & Jana Mokrišová

A lecture by Professor Naoíse Mac Sweeney & Dr Jana Mokrišová on the subject of 'The Myth of the Ancient Greek Colony' as part of the Migration, Mobility and Displacement Series hosted by the University of Potsdam and sponsored by the Routes network. The lecture was held on 28th April, 2022. Naoíse Mac Sweeney is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on the construction of identity and cultural interaction. She is especially interested in the making of communities – not only their physical formation through landscape and architecture, but also their social formation through cultural practice, and their conceptual formation through the construction of identity. Her work to date has focused on these topics in relation to the Iron Age to Classical periods in the ancient Greek world and Anatolia, focusing in particular on the Greek cities of Ionia and Cilicia, but also on Troy and myths of the Trojan War. Her current project expands the geographical frame, considering migration and mobility around the Mediterranean in the Iron Age. It is called MIGMAG: Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World, and is funded by a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council, and will run from 2020 to 2025 (https://www.migmag-erc.eu/). Naoíse is also interested in wider engagement with the antiquity, and the politics of reception and heritage. Jana Mokrišová is an archaeologist specialising in western Anatolia and the eastern Aegean from the Late Bronze Age to the Classical period and theoretical approaches to ancient mobility. She holds a PhD in Classical Art and Archaeology (University of Michigan) and a BA from Trent University (Ontario, Canada). At the University of Cambridge, she is Research Associate for ‘MIGMAG: Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World’ (ERC Consolidator Grant; directed by Prof. Naoíse Mac Sweeney. Her new research develops aspects of ancient mobilities, such as the application of regional approaches (as part of MIGMAG) and issues of technological transfer with a particular focus on the role of iron (as part of ’Project Sideros: Early Iron Technology and Culture History in the Aegean during the Early Iron Age’, directed by Dr Marek Verčík, Charles University, Prague).