tegea.uib.no

tegea.uib.no is a gateway to information about fieldwork, projects, publications, networks and other activities that revolve around current research on ancient Tegea. The primary target of this page is to provide easy access to information about ongoing and previous archaeological fieldwork in the ancient city and its surrounding landscape. In addition to an updated bibliography of recent scholarly publications about Tegea, this page will also provide its visitors with its own online publications, updates on recent events, and a blog with news from the ongoing fieldwork.

tegea.uib.no is also the official webpage of the research network MEMORY AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS (MEMER) aimed at the study of peripheral mediterranean and middle eastern regions and their place in past and present cultural memory. The partners of MEMER make up an international network of researchers that work with regional studies in the Mediterranean area, and you will also find short academic biographies of its members on this page.

I hope that this page will be of interest to specialist, students, and the general public,

Jørgen Bakke,
Editor of www.tegea.uib.no

The remains of the sanctuary of Athena Alea make up the most spectacular ancient monument at Tegea. The in situ foundations and scattered building blocks on the site are mainly from a classical doric temple built by the famous Scopas from Paros.

Since the Norwegian archaeologist Erik Østby undertook preliminary investigations of the remains of the ancient sanctuary of Athena Alea in the 1980’s Norwegian archaeologists, cultural historians, and ecologists have been working together with international research teams to explore the history, monuments, and cultural landscape of the ancient Greek city-state Tegea. Ancient Tegea was situated on a mountain plain in the northern part of the Greek peninsula Peloponnese. In antiquity Tegea was an important political and military centre in the Peloponnese, and the site of ancient Tegea was a large urban settlement with political and cultural institutions, sanctuaries, theatres and an athletic stadium.

In the early 1990’s the work at Tegea was focused on the excavation and study of the Athena Alea sanctuary, where cult actvity have been traced deep into the Early Iron Age. Since the Norwegian Arcadia Survey started in the late 1990’s landscape has been the common denominator for fieldwork as well as research projects on Tegea. During the ”Norwegian Arcadia Survey. PART I” a large ancient urban settlement was documented at Tegea. A magnetometer survey of this site indicates that the urban centre of Tegea was regularily planned at an early phase of ancient Greek urbanisation. Neither the excavation of the Athena Alea sanctuary nor the first phase of the cultural landscape survey at Tegea are presently active field-projects.

In October 2008 a new cultural landscape survey, SITES IN MARGINAL LANDSCAPES: THE NORWEGIAN ARCADIA SURVEY. PART II, was started on the edge of the Tegean plain. This project has already made interesting finds of early occupation in the area. In Juni 2009 there are also plans to start an excavation in the urban centre on the plain. This excavation will dig deeper into the promising scenario of early urbanisation at Tegea.

This site is under construction.

Recent events

Fieldwork in June and July, 2009.

Both ongoing field-projects at Tegea, a survey of a side-valley to the east of the urban centre and an excavation in centre of the ancient city, starts in June, 2009. For updated information on the ongoing fieldwork, recent findings, ongoing discussions, participants and social events in connection with the fieldwork go to tegea.blog

«Sites in Marginal Landscapes: The Norwegian Arcadia Survey. Part 2». Report from fieldwork in 2008.

For more information on the findings and the research project see the REPORT FROM 2008 SEASON OF ”SITES IN MARGINAL LANDSCAPES. THE NORWEGIAN ARCADIA SURVEY PART II (NAS 2).” by Jørgen Bakke

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN CULTURAL HISTORY
Seminar at the University of Oslo 18. April, 2009.

The ongoing research at Tegea was at the focus of attention at a seminar at the University of Oslo in April entitled Eastern Mediterranean Cultural History. Professor Erik Østby from the University of Bergen presented his view of ”Early Tegea, Sparta, and the sanctuary of Athena Alea,” Associate Professor Jørgen Bakke from the Universitry of Bergen spoke on ”Marginal Landscapes and Cultural Memory in Ancient Tegea,” Associate Professor Knut Ødegård from the University of Oslo spoke on ”Polis foundation and urbanisation at ancient Tegea,” and Research Fellow Hege Agathe Bakke-Alisøy from the University Bergen talked about ”The Prehistory of Tegea.” The seminar was organised by the two Norwegian archaeologists Ole Christian Aslaksen and Lene Os Johannesen, and took place at Studentersamfunnet/Chateau Neuf in Oslo.

Swedish archaeologist presents THE URBAN MIND project in Bergen

Swedish archaeologist Gullög Nordquist presented the research project THE URBAN MIND: CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DYNAMICS, in a seminar at The University of Bergen on 23. January, 2009. Nordquist’s talk adressed the phenomenon of Aegean urbanisation from urban features in early bronze age settlements to the urban culture of Byzantium-Constantinople-Istanbul. As a field archaeologist Nordquist has long experience from the Argolid and Tegea, both in the Peloponnese, Greeece. Nordquist is Professor of Archaeology, and Head of the Departement of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University, Sweden, and she is also a member of the MEMER network.