Institute for Mediterranean Studies

Research Projects

UnSaLa

Unlocking Sacred Landscapes (UnSaLa)

This inter-disciplinary network is concerned with the diachronic study of the temporality, spatiality and materiality of Mediterranean sacred landscapes in general.

GHOST

Geographies and Histories of the Ottoman Supernatural Tradition: Exploring Magic, the Marvelous, and the Strange in Ottoman Mentalities

ERC

The project will explore Ottoman concepts and beliefs about the supernatural. Its main objectives will be to examine the significance and content of the various perceptions of the "supernatural", to place them within the various Ottoman world images, to analyse the changes that have occurred over time and to relate them to the emergence of different cultural levels and social groups.

NAYS

Promotion and material and technical documentation of Greek shipbuilding and naval history – the naval battles of Salamis and Navarino

The aim of this project is to highlight Greek maritime heritage with the creation of three exhiibtions in Eugenidis Foundation in Athens.

BIOnian

Actions to protect and promote the biodiversity of ecosystems and of areas of natural beauty of the Ionian Islands through "smart" systems of detection, recording, digital mapping and pressures management

The BIOnian project aims at identifying, recording, mapping and developing "smart" tools for monitoring and identifying the Ionian Islands Region species that are related, supported or used as habitat for the Region's territorial resources.

RICONTRANS

RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th - early 20th c.)

ERC

The Russian religious artifacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings), held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious, ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value, and uses. Their transfer and reception constitutes a significant component of the wider process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th- early 20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies and social anthropology, RICONTRANS aims: to map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; to follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; to analyze the moving factors of this process; to study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; to inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social and cultural environments; to investigate the influence of these transferred artifacts on the visual culture of the host societies.

5DARE

Development of an integrated 5 Dimensional space based methodology for Assessing and modeling the Response of Erosion dynamics to land use and climatic changes in Mediterranean watersheds

The purpose of the project is to develop integrated methodologies for using  space technology to estimate soil erosion rates in Mediterranean basins. 5DARE project will assess the impacts of a changing climate, land use, soil moisture, hydrology and vegetation cover on the quantity of erosion processes in catchments areas in the Mediterranean.

ClimaMED

Innovative technologies for climate change mitigation by Mediterranean Agricultural Sector

LIFE17 CCM/GR/000087

Total project Budget: 2,859,783€
Total eligible project budget: 2,771,090€
European Community contribution: 1,662,654€ (60% of the eligible budget)
Beneficiaries contribution: 1,197,129€

SettleinEastCrete

Spatial Dynamics and Settlement Patterns in Eastern Crete from the Classical to the Venetian Period

This project attempts to highlight the developments of the settlement patterns in Eastern Crete from the Classical to the Venetian period. The main goal is to enlighten the transition from the ancient autonomous city-states to the medieval cities and villages. This work aims to a better understanding of the economic, social, political and also environmental issues that influenced that evolution.

Concentrating on the eastern part of Crete, it is the occasion to see how, on a same territory but on a long chronological period, through very different administrative systems, population has organized itself, balancing between a centralized and a disseminated mode of settlement.

CURE

Cultures and Remembrances

CuRe: Cultures and Remembrances – Virtual time travels to the encounters of people from the 13th to 20th centuries: The Cretan experience

αποφ.ενταξης αρ.πρωτ. 87542/Ι4/29-5-2018

OXA

Oros Oxa Archaeological Survey

The surface survey at Mount Oxa started in 2017 under the auspices of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine Department of the Ministry of Culture and Sport (protocol number: ΥΠΠΟΑ/ΓΔΑΠΚ/ΔΒΜΑ/ΤΕΕΑΕΙ/ 357358/233390/6024/541). This deliberation granted the permission to the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lassithi to begin a new surface survey on Mount Oxa in collaboration with the Laboratory of Geophysical Satellite Remote Sensing and ArchaeoEnvironment at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies (FORTH), in a program articulated in three years  (2017-2019).

METOPO (WP4)

Mining Landscapes in Greece, 19th-20th c.

Scientific coordinator: Leda Papastefanaki

This research project aims at deepening the understanding in the history of mining activities and the formation of the mining landscapes in Greece during 19th-20th centuries.

METOPO (WP7)

Aspects of the theatrical landscape: the travels of foreign actors in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Fermentations and interactions between East and West

Scientific coordinator: Constantina Georgiadi

The aim of this research project is to trace, record and process the landscapes of the wandering actors and actresses in the wider Mediterranean region and the Black Sea and to investigate the artistic and cultural interactions between the Greek and the European theatre from about mid-nineteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth.

BalkanROAD

Ευρωπαϊκη Εδαφικη Συνεργασια Balkan-Mediterranean

Ευρωπαϊκη Εδαφικη Συνεργασια Balkan-Mediterranean 2014-2020

SeaLiT

SeaLiT: Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Shipping during Globalization, 1850s-1920s.

ERC

The program explores the transition from sail to steam navigation and the effects of this technological innovation on seafaring populations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, between the 1850s and the 1920s, whose lives were drastically changed by the advent of the steam.

ARCHERS

Advancing Young Researchers’ Human Capital in Cutting Edge Technologies in the Preservation of Cultural Heritage and the Tackling of Societal Challenges, Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Principal Investigator Christos Hadziiossif
Collaborator Researchers Post-doctoral researchers: Spyros Tzokas, Christos Karampatsos
Funding Institution Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Advancing Young Researchers’ Human Capital in Cutting Edge Technologies in the History and the Societal Implications of Science and Innovation in the Sectors of the:
i) Preservation of Cultural Heritage and the Tackling of Societal Challenges
ii) Environment and Clean energy

METOPO (WP9)

From the landscape of the romantics to the artof the land. Representations of the Greek landscape in the arts from the 18th until the late 20th century (painting, engraving, photography)

Scientific responsible: Evgenios D. Matthiopoulos

The project aims at the systematic recording and study of the pictorial production (paintings, prints and photographs) of the Greek natural landscape from the 18th to the 20th century.