Kommos Conservancy

24/08/2026

It is not surprising that Kommos is represented a couple of times in this video of the origins of the Philistines. Archaeologist Louise A. Hitchcock argues that distinct elements of Minoan and Cypro-Minoan culture survived and integrated into early Philistine society. Rather than viewing Philistia as purely Mycenaean or violently imposed, her transcultural research—often co-authored with Aren Maeir—highlights deep-seated Cretan and Aegean traditions in Philistine architecture, ritual practices, and symbolic artifactshttps://www.facebook.com/reel/1879136879727956

17/08/2026

A new project is taking David Kremer to Greece. There, he’s searching for a mine for a mineral that was used to produce color pigments in ancient times. https://www.dw.com/en/the-magic-of-colors/video-77023189

14/08/2026

thanks to Dr. Louise Hitchcock for posting about Cambridge Core, a central online platform's creation of a digital library for Cambridge University Press publications, now its research collection on the Odyssey is available for free download until 30 September 2026

https://www.cambridge.org/core/browse-subjects/classical-studies/highlights/the-odyssey.

13/08/2026

A substantial confirmation of this sequence, to be discussed in this
Luca Girella paper, comes from Kommos, based for the most part on the evidence of the original publication of the Kommos MM pottery by Betancourt, supplemented by the important stratigraphical observations of James Wright.
Van de Moortel and Jeremy Rutter have presented further assessments.
https://www.academia.edu/244054/TOWARD_A_DEFINITION_OF_THE_MIDDLE_MINOAN_III_CERAMIC_SEQUENCE?email_work_card=view-paper&li=0

05/08/2026

"The search for the one true Odyssey is a tradition in its own right. Translation debates aside, readers have been arguing about the right way to tell the epic for thousands of years. Scholars at the Library of Alexandria attempted to establish an authoritative version of the Greek text as early as the third century B.C.E. Any way you try to present The Iliad or Odyssey in book form, you mislead people. You put one text at the top of the page, implying that that’s the real version,” Dué says. “Is this an adaptation of The Odyssey that preserves some of its essential themes and presents them in a way that new audiences find persuasive?” https://homericquestions.substack.com/p/was-there-ever-an-original-version

14/07/2026

https://arthistory.utoronto.ca/news/memoriam-maria-coutroubaki-shaw

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Maria Coutroubaki Shaw, on December 7th 2025. Maria taught for more than three decades at UofT, starting in Classics at what was then Scarborough College in 1971, before becoming Professor in the Department of Fine Art. After receiving her PhD...

06/05/2026

Isotope analysis of copper artefacts from Bronze Age Möriken-Wildegg, Switzerland found some copper was likely sourced as far away as Cyprus, indicating that, c.1400 BC, even rural communities were involved in the extensive Eurasian market networks.
https://www.facebook.com/AntiquityJournal
Antiquity is a peer-reviewed journal of world archaeology, founded in 1927 and edited in Durham

24/04/2026

nearby to Kommos, Gortys (or Gortyna) in Crete was inhabited for approximately 6,000 years, with human activity stretching from the Neolithic era (c. 7000 BC) until its final destruction by the Arabs in A.D. 824–828. The city experienced its peak during the Roman period (1st–5th centuries A.D.) as the capital of Crete and Cyrenaica.

Heinrich Hall is at Archaeological Site of Gortys and writes:
Not a very common sight: a statue of the Roman emperor Caligula, at Gortyn (or Gortyna) on the island of Crete.
Caligula was the third emperor of the Roman Empire. He ruled from AD/CE 37 until his assassination in 41. He was a great-grandson of Augustus, the first emperor, and the son of Germanicus, one of the most famous generals of the early empire.

Caligula is notorious as the first 'mad' emperor, with all sorts of crazy and unsavoury stories attached to him, but it's difficult to distinguish between history and propaganda. It appears that even madness is in the eye of the beholder. Things haven't changed that much...
The statue shows him as a 'togatus', a Roman dignitary clad in the toga, the formal garment worn by dignitaries in the city of Rome. The fact that the toga is draped over his head like a hood probably indicates that he is depicted as a priest.

The sculpture was discovered without much context near the Roman Odeion (concert hall) at Gortyn, the Roman capital of Crete. The Sebasteion, shrine to the imperial family, was nearby and it's likely that the statue once stood in it.

Gortyn is an extraordinarily fascinating and beautiful archaeological site, set amongst olive groves in the vast Mesara Plain. Since 2023, it hosts the Archaeological Museum of the Mesara, where the statue of Caligula is on display.

I've been fascinated with this still largely unexcavated site since the 1990s and I never miss a chance to explore it. If you are interested in such exploration, and in being professionally guided at Gortyn, follow me here and join me in Greece!
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Heinrich%20Hall%20is%20at%20Archaeological%20Site%20of%20Gortys

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/heinrich-hall