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Dr Giorgos Papantoniou

Assistant Professor in Ancient Visual and Material Culture

I studied History and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus (B.A., 2003 – First Class Honours) and Classics at Trinity College Dublin (M.Litt. transferred to Ph.D., 2008). I have worked as an archaeologist at the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, and as a researcher and visiting lecturer at the University of Cyprus, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Bonn, the University of Sassari and the Open University of Cyprus. I re-joined Trinity College Dublin for my current position in 2020.

Research Interests

I consider myself a Mediterranean archaeologist and material culture historian. My research agenda is based on interdisciplinary and diachronic approaches: bringing together landscape, archaeological, textual, iconographic and anthropological evidence, I work on the interaction of social power and the archaeology of religion (considering both elite and popular cultures) from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, while I am currently developing an interest on cultural heritage, reception and ethnographic analysis. I am codirecting the archaeological surface survey project ‘Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus’ (SeSaLaC) in the Xeros River Valley in Cyprus and I am coordinating the international research network ‘Unlocking Sacred Landscapes’ (UnSaLa) based on a formal agreement of collaboration between Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cyprus. I am also the coordinator of the Steering Committee for ‘Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology’ (PoCA) conference.

Selected Publications

Papantoniou, G., and A.K. Vionis. 2020. “Living popular religion, social distancing and an ‘opportunity’ for ethnoarchaeology? The Christian cult of the Epitaphios in a pandemic crisis”. Ethnoarchaeology 12 (2) (forthcoming).
Papantoniou, G., A. Sarris, C.E. Morris, and A.K. Vionis, eds. 2019. Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Digital Humanities and Ritual Space. Open Archaeology Open Access journal (thematic issue). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Papantoniou, G., C.E. Morris, and A.K. Vionis, eds. 2019. Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Spatial Analysis of Ritual and Cult. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology. Uppsala: Åströms Förlag.
Papantoniou, G., Michaelides, D., and M. Dikomitou-Eliadou, eds. 2019. Hellenistic and Roman Terracottas. Monumenta Graeca et Romana 23. Leiden: Brill
Papantoniou, G., and A.K. Vionis, eds. 2018. Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the longue durée. Land Open Access journal (special issue): MDPI.
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/special_issues/landscape_archaeology
Papantoniou, G., and N. Kyriakou. 2018. “Revisiting Cypriot sacred landscapes: A regional GIS approach”. American Journal of Archaeology 122 (4): 541–77.
Papantoniou. G. 2016. “Cypriot ritual and cult from the Bronze to the Iron Age: A longue-durée approach”. Journal of Greek Archaeology 1: 73–108.
Papantoniou, G. 2013. “Cypriot autonomous polities at the crossroads of Empire: The imprint of a transformed islandscape in the Classical and Hellenistic periods”. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Studies 307: 169–205.
Papantoniou, G. 2013. “Cyprus from basileis to strategos: A landscape approach”. American Journal of Archaeology 117.1: 33–57.
Papantoniou, G. 2012. Religion and Social Transformations in Cyprus. From the Cypriot Basileis to the Hellenistic Strategos. Mnemosyne Supplements 347. Leiden: Brill.

Teaching & Supervision

I teach history and archaeology students across the art and archaeology of the Mediterranean world, from first year Sources and Methods and Greek and Roman Art and Architecture to more advanced and thematic modules. I also teach Ancient Visual and Material Culture to classics and classical civilisation students. At postgraduate level, I have developed a course on Cypriot Sanctuaries and Religion from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, reviewing the main theoretical and methodological issues relating to ancient Mediterranean religions and sacred landscapes, equipping students with the appropriate skills to study them.
I am happy to supervise postgraduate research on several aspects of Mediterranean landscape studies and material culture history related to settlement archaeology, the archaeology of ritual and religion, ancient art, iconography and artefact studies (with emphasis on sculpture and terracotta figurines), Hellenistic society, Hellenistic portraiture and ruler image-making, ancient Cyprus, as well as cultural heritage studies related to reception, popular culture, and ethnographic analogies.