Congratulations are due to Dr. Georgios Doudalis, recipient of the 2015 Richard Seager Fellowship from the INSTAP Study Center, for completing a Ph.D. dissertation at the Institute of Classical Archaeology of Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in June 2019. The dissertation, titled Mochlos in the Protopalatial Period: Ceramic Analysis and Social Perspectives in the Middle Bronze Age, was awarded magna cum laude in recognition of its importance and originality, and the defense was awarded summa cum laude in recognition of Doudalis’ vigorous and convincing response to questions during his oral examination in Heidelberg.
Doudalis, who holds his B.A. degree from the University of Crete and an M.A. from the University of Sheffield, has been a member of the Mochlos Archaeological Project since 2004 and has excavated many of the Protopalatial deposits discussed in his dissertation. The most important of these revealed three strata that show three different ceramic phases of the Protopalatial period: the MM IB, MM IIA, and MM IIB phases. It is the first deposit that presents all three phases of the period in East Crete in a complete stratigraphic sequence and the first one that clearly defines the character of MM IIA pottery in eastern Crete. His study of these deposits, which is planned to be included in the Mochlos Publication Series, has revealed interesting results concerning ceramic production, distribution, and consumption in the Protopalatial period. Doudalis has become one of the foremost scholars studying the Protopalatial period in Crete, and his research also includes Malia where he studies the Protopalatial material from Area Pi, a subject he presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.