Institute for Mediterranean Studies

Nikos Tsivikis

Postdoctoral researcher
Department of the Ancient and Byzantine World

Nikos Tsivikis is an archaeologist specialized in the study of byzantine and medieval material culture. He has studied History and Archaeology at the University of Crete, where he earned his PhD in 2016. Since 2021 he directs at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH the project “BALAA - Byzantine Agricultural Landscape across the Aegean,” funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation.

In 2016 he was awarded a four-year post-doctoral research position at the Leibniz Institute for Archaeology (RGZM) in Mainz for his project “Byzantine ‘Reconquista’ and Christianization (8th-11th centuries): Greece and the Western frontier of Byzantium.” In 2019-2020 he led a team project studying “Wine-production in Middle Byzantine Asia Minor” at the Academy of Athens. He has taught Byzantine Archaeology at the University of the Peloponnese and the National Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has held research scholarships in Europe and the USA: IMS/FORTH, Princeton, Dumbarton Oaks, Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard, Medieval Academy of America, Koç University, Metropolitan Museum of Art, California State University at Sacramento, University of Nevada at Reno.

He is specialized in the evolution of Byzantine cities focusing on social relationships as expressed in the built and unbuilt environment while his interests in social issues extends beyond academia. He is a senior member of both the Ancient Messene Project in Greece and the Amorium Project in Asia Minor, Turkey and has secured substantial grants for research and field work at both sites (Stavros Niarchos Foundation among others). He has published articles in English, Greek and Turkish on Byzantine material culture, urbanism, architecture, sculpture, epigraphy, and metalwork. His monograph entitled Urban Transformation, Christianization and Ruralization in Late Antique Peloponnese: the case of Byzantine Messene is scheduled to appear in 2022 in Mainz.

Selected Publications