Academic

Digging Into Tsoungiza's Past: Nemea Center Wraps First Season

August 30, 2026

The Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology has wrapped up an exciting first season of its new excavation campaign at Tsoungiza in the Nemea Valley! Directed by Dr. Kim Shelton and supported by a talented team of Nemea Center leaders, staff, students, and local workers, the project returns to the site first explored by Carl Blegen of the University of Cincinnati in the 1920s and later investigated by the Nemea Valley Archaeological Project (NVAP).

This summer, the team focused on three areas along the eastern...

Emily Mackil Appointed Chair of the Nemea Center Advisory Committee

May 20, 2026

The Nemea Center is pleased to announce that Emily Mackil has agreed to serve as the new Chair of the Advisory Committee. The Committee has been integral to the Center since its founding, led first for many years by Robert Knapp and most recently by our outgoing Chair, Professor Mark Griffith, whose dedication and institutional stewardship have been invaluable. Emily has generously stepped into this role with the full endorsement of Director Kim Shelton, and we are grateful for her willingness to lead. Dr. Griffith will remain on the Committee as a regular member, continuing to contribute...

Well, Well, Well (?): Water Management & Use at Petsas House, Mycenae

Kim Shelton
2025

Among the most remarkable features uncovered during the excavation of Petsas House, a 14th-century BCE ceramic production and storage complex in the settlement of Mycenae, is a series of wells that shed new light on water management and industrial practice at a Mycenaean workshop. This paper focuses on the primary well in Room Π, located at the heart of the workshop area, which proved to be not only an exceptional architectural feature but also the source of the excavation's single largest deposit of archaeological material. Reaching a depth of over 12 meters and transitioning from a...

Revitalizing the Vittles: Recent Advances in the Study of Animal Subsistence at Mycenae

Gypsy C. Price
Jacqueline S. Meier
Kim Shelton
2024

Animal remains have long been an underutilized resource in the archaeology of Mycenae, overshadowed by the elite burials and high-value artifacts that dominated early excavations from Schliemann onward. This paper presents recent advances in the faunal study of Petsas House, an industrial-domestic complex at Mycenae, drawing on a assemblage of over 25,000 identified specimens recovered from a large well in the building. Using a combination of taphonomic, demographic, and isotopic analyses, the authors examine the role of cattle in the local economy, finding that while cattle were less...

Στα ίχνη της θεάς: Terracotta Figurine Production at Petsas House, Mycenae in LH IIIA2

2024

When Heinrich Schliemann began excavations on the acropolis at Mycenae in 1874 and 1876, recovering terracotta female and bovine figurines was not merely a welcome by-product of his work — it was a primary objective. Convinced that these clay "idols" were early manifestations of Hera and her sacred cow, Schliemann's interpretations set the terms for figurine studies at the site for generations. This paper uses the remarkable assemblage of nearly 1,100 terracotta figurines recovered from Petsas House — a ceramic production and storage workshop on the lower slopes of Mycenae dating to LH...

Petsas House and the History of Settlement on the Pezoulia Slope: Excavation Legacies of the 19th and 20th Centuries in 21st Century Mycenae

Kim Shelton
2024

Petsas House, a multi-story Late Bronze Age building complex on the Pezoulia slope to the northwest of the citadel at Mycenae, offers a uniquely rich window into the settlement's history — and into the history of archaeology itself. First uncovered by accident in 1950 when a farmer's plow extracted a large vase from just below the surface, the site was hastily excavated under the supervision of Fotis Petsas, then left unstudied and overgrown for nearly half a century before being relocated during the Mycenae Survey and re-excavated systematically from 2000 onward. This paper traces the...

Petsas House: Potters, The Workshop, and Ceramic Production in Mycenae’s Society and Economy

Kim Shelton
2025

Petsas House, the 14thc BCE building complex in Mycenae’s settlement, may serve as a case study for the socio-economic role/s of potters and pottery production, in this case on an almost industrial scale, within a domestic context during the palatial period. Pottery, its production, distribution, and consumption can give information on its role in the economy. Evidence from the workshop context may also provide evidence for the social roles of potters and the pottery they produced. Since the 2007 Langford conference and its publication in 2010, Petsas House has been interpreted as an...

Petsas House, Pottery Production, and the Mycenaean People in LH IIIA2

Kim Shelton
2016

This article examines the social dimensions of pottery production at Petsas House, a Late Helladic IIIA2 workshop-residence complex northwest of the Mycenae citadel, based on excavations initiated in 2000 to complete work begun by Papadimitriou and Petsas in 1950-1951. The terraced two-story structure combined craft production, large-scale ceramic storage, and domestic habitation, but was destroyed by earthquake and fire late in LH IIIA2. The building contained distinct functional zones including storerooms with over 500 vessels in Room Alpha, undecorated drinking vessels in Room Epsilon,...