*The colloquium will be in English, the event is open to the public, light refreshments will be served after the talk.

Abstract:
Kirrha, a key site on the Northern side of the Corinthian Gulf, was well known to the scientific community since the publication in 1960 of the French excavations of the late 1930’s. They had uncovered an important Prehistoric site occupied from the end of the Early Helladic period to the end of the Bronze Age. However, criticisims were rapidly addressed, especially with regard to the precision of the stratigraphical record. Furthermore, most of the tremendous work accomplished by the Archaeological Service since the end of the 1960’s remains unpublished. Based on these shortcomings, a systematic research programme was developed, aiming to fill in the gaps and to cope with the modern research agenda. After a long hiatus, new systematic excavations thus began in 2009 under the auspices of the French School of Archaeology at Athens and the 10th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities.

The lecture will present the provisional results of the four excavation seasons and address two particular issues. Firstly, palaeoenvironmental investigations and archaeological observations lead to reconsidering the date of the first installation. It is now clear that it took place during the Neolithic period, when landscape and topography were radically different from what we supposed. Secondly, the lecture will invest the funerary landscape at Kirrha in the transition from Middle to Late Bronze Age.

About the Speaker:
Dr Orgeolet has a degree in History form Paris 10 Nanterre, a degree and Master in Archaeology at Paris 1 Sorbonne (Master's thesis on Cretan hieroglyphic seals with R. Treuil ; second Master's thesis on building material analysis with infrared spectroscopy). HiPhD comes from the University of Montpelier, "Architecture et espace domestic en Grèce centrale au Néolithique et au Bronze Ancien" funded by the French Ministry of Research (2008). He has been teaching in the Universities of Lorient, Clermont-Ferrand and Aix Marseille.

He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Aix Marseille Univ since 2013 and he has been the Chairman of the Department 2013-2016. He has extensive fieldwork experience in Greece and Cyprus. He is the co-director of the research project at Kirrha, Phocis, 2009-2015, which is a collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and the 10th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of Delphi.

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This event is part of the CyI Colloquium Series.  View all CyI events.