Funerary monuments of Macedonia and Thrace

Dimitra Andrianou, Myrina Kalaitzi

Research coordinators

This field is studied by Dimitra Andrianou and Myrina Kalaitzi, whose projects are complementary.

The work of Dimitra Andrianou focuses on the typological, iconographic, and archaeometric study of funerary stelai from Macedonia (Strymon Valley) and Aegean Thrace, with the aim of understanding the societies that produced them. A shared feature of both regions is the presence of Thracian populations, as revealed through the onomastics of the inscriptions. The objective of the study is to explore the identity of the local populations through their funerary monuments and associated iconography.

Myrina Kalaitzi’s work focuses on iconography and funerary monuments from the Classical to the Roman Imperial periods, with a primary geographical focus on northern Greece and, in particular, ancient Macedonia. Drawing on the wealth of information that can be obtained through morphological, technical, typological, iconographic and epigraphic analysis, the scope of her research extends beyond artistic evaluation to consider contexts and social dynamics: social and gender roles, status, cultural identity, regionalism or consciously constructed cosmopolitanism, shifts in religious practices and attitudes towards death and the afterlife, with the aim of revealing the ideas that shaped aesthetic preferences and the choice of (self-)representation.

D. Andrianou, Figured Grave Reliefs from the Lower Strymon Valley (Μελετήματα, forthcoming).
Μ. Kalaitzi, G. Verri, A. Kakamanoudis, The Figured Stelai from the “Great Tumulus” of Aigai Revisited: New Findings on the Distribution of Pigments and Aspects of their Iconography – Part II, στο M. Kalaitzi and M. Stamatopoulou (eds.), Illustrating the Levant. Studies on the Visual Culture(s) of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, from the Late Classical to the Roman Imperial period (forthcoming).
Μ. Kalaitzi and G. Verri, “The Figured Stelai from the ‘Great Tumulus’ of Aigai Revisited: New Findings on the Distribution of Pigments and Aspects of their Iconography”, in Η. Brecoulaki (ed.), Archaeology of Colour. Technical Art History Studies in Greek and Roman Painting and Polychromy, Μελετήματα 87 (Athens 2023) 147-90.
D. Andrianou, “Figured Grave Reliefs from Aegean Thrace in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Eras”, in Delev P. et al. (eds.), Ancient Thrace: Myth and Reality. The Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Thracology, Kazanlak, September 3-7, 2017 (St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2022) vol. II, 9-20.
Μ. Kalaitzi and M. Stamatopoulou, “Bookrolls and Writing Tablets as Pictorial Gear: Images of Literati on Macedonian and Thessalian Tombstones of the Classical and Hellenistic Periods”, in V. Pappas, D. Terzopoulou (eds.), Ancient Macedonia VIII. Macedonia from the Death of Philip II to Augustus’ Rise to Power. Papers Read at the Eighth International Symposium Held in Thessaloniki, November 21-24, 2017, Institute for Balkan Studies 287 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 2021) 539-85.
Μ. Kalaitzi, “Public Profiles and Mediated Selfies in Ancient Macedonia: The Gravestones’ Facebook”, in Raja, R., Welch, K. and Wootton, W.T. (eds.), Visual Histories of the Classical World. Essays in Honour of R.R.R. Smith, Studies in Classical Archaeology 4 (Turnhout 2018) 403-23.
D. Andrianou, Memories in Stone: Figured Grave Reliefs from Aegean Thrace, Μελετήματα 75 (Athens 2017).
Μ. Kalaitzi, Figured Tombstones from Macedonia, Fifth – First Century BC, Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2016).