The Friends of the INSTAP Study Center was founded in 2004 with the goal of bringing together the Aegean Bronze Age community through lectures by specialists in the field on topics that would be of interest to scholars, students, and the general public. Online lectures are hosted in the fall and spring focusing on current scholarship and excavations in the fields of Aegean Bronze Age and Early Iron Age archaeology.
Albert Leonard, Jr. serves as the President of the Friends of the INSTAP Study Center; Elizabeth Shank serves as the Vice President; Kostas Chalikias serves as the Secretary and Treasurer.
Malcolm H. Wiener Symposium
The annual Malcolm H. Wiener Symposium was founded in 2022 with the intention of showcasing projects at the forefront of our field supported by the INSTAP Study Center for East Crete. Held in conjunction with the Archaeological Institute of America’s annual meetings, the symposium, which is hosted by the Friends of the INSTAP Study Center, has become a forum for scholars, students, enthusiasts, and supporters to hear our Director, Thomas Brogan, summarize the work done at the Center over the previous year, followed by either one or two presentations by leading scholars. The upcoming speakers are announced each year in the fall newsletter, Kentro, and the lectures are streamed live via Zoom for those who can’t participate in person.
List of previous symposium presentations:
January 2022
Semata: Excavating and Reading the Early Iron Age Necropolis of Anavlochos, Crete
Florence Gaignerot-Driessen, University of Cincinnati
Digging in the South Cretan Mountains: The Excavation of Minoan Koumasa as an Archaeological Challenge
Diamantis Panagiotopoulos, University of Heidelberg
January 2023
Fabulous Fragments: Excavations of the Early Iron Age Cemeteries at Kavousi, Crete
Leslie P. Day, Wabash College, and Maria A. Liston, University of Waterloo
January 2024
The Final Palatial Center of Kydonia in Minoan Crete and the Human Sacrifice
Maria Andreadaki-Vlazaki, Honorary Director General of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage for the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Director of Excavations, Chania, Crete
January 2025
From Pots to Politics: Ceramic Regionalism and Political Integration in East Crete during the Neopalatial Period
Eleni Nodarou, INSTAP SCEC, and Yiannis Papadatos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Fundraising Initiatives
The Friends of the INSTAP Study Center raises funds that benefit scholars who use the Study Center and that benefit the facilities of the Study Center itself, which is visited and used by hundreds of students, researchers, and volunteers annually. The Richard Seager Fellowship and the Harriet Boyd Hawes Fellowship are granted annually to scholars who use the facilities of the Study Center for their research.
The Friends have also worked to raise money for special projects, such as our successful 2007 drive to raise $20,000 to create an archive for the Study Center. Donations from the Ms. Foundation for Women and by individuals such as Henry Davis, John Seims, and others have enabled us to purchase a new kiln for the petrography lab and a new microscope for the conservation lab and have helped us greatly with the purchase of a new vehicle to facilitate the work for the Study Center.
E-Newsletter of the Friends of the INSTAP Study Center
The Friends of the INSTAP Study Center periodically distributes an e-newsletter to inform interested parties on recent work in the archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age and forthcoming plans for lectures. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please contact Kostas Chalikias at finstapec@gmail.com.
1st Friends’ E-Newsletter, September 2019
2nd Friends’ E-Newsletter, December 2019
3rd Friends’ E-Newsletter, December 2020
4th Friends’ E-Newsletter, Summer 2021
5th Friends’ E-Newsletter, Fall 2021
6th Friends’ E-Newsletter, Summer 2022
7th Friends’ E-Newsletter, Winter 2023
8th Friends’ E-Newsletter, Fall 2023
9th Friends’ E-Newsletter, Spring 2024