The Phaleron Delta cemetery is spatially delimited by the sandy deposits of Phaleron Bay, most of which are not visible today due to the continuous earthworks that were initated at the beginning of the last century and continue uninterruptedly to this day. Excavations at the cemetery began in the late 19^th century, continued in the early years of the 20^th century and are being pursued to this day after a 100-year hiatus. (Fig.1) It is a spatially extended coastal cemetery, outside of the boundaries and the walls of Athens, but very close to its first harbour. Based on the excavation data, the period of its use can be placed from the last decades of the 8^th century BC until the 4^th century BC.

During my guest researcher stay at the Swedish Institute in Athens, I aim to research the vulnerability and resilience strategies of Assyrian and Yazidi refugees in a transit migration context by making use of an ethnographic research design supported by archival research at several institutions in Greece. So far, no specific studies have been conducted among these groups in Greece. This study will help me to understand how these groups experience vulnerability in a transit migration context and how they build their resilience in different socio-cultural environments.

The project aims at studying a time and a place in the history of the Mediterranean that has not received the attention it deserves. For 600 years a flourishing Greek culture existed in today’s Eastern Libya. The area was dominated by Cyrene, a Greek colony founded in the 7th century BC, which in turn founded several Greek cities in this part of North Africa known as Cyrenaica.

One of the greatest challenges to the global economy and ecology is the escalating urbanisation of the world population. By 2050, according to UN predictions, 66% of all humans will be settled in cities, putting enormous strain on food production and infrastructure, with further risks of epidemic disease and international conflict as consequences. To many, urbanisation appears to be an irreversible force, a tale of the triumph of the city and the degradation of the countryside to a productive unit.

Retracing Connections: Byzantine Storyworlds in Greek, Arabic, Georgian, and Old Slavonic (c. 950 – c. 1100) is a long-term international, interdisciplinary research programme funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and administered by Uppsala University, in collaboration with the University of Southern Denmark, the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul and the Swedish Institute at Athens.

The focus of my research concerns the coroplastic material from the Swedish excavations at Asine in the 1920s. This unpublished material comprises small figurines of terracotta that often represent human beings and animals, but miniature furniture and boats also occur. The figurines were discovered in various archaeological contexts, but are linked to the cultic rituals in the Bronze Age and mirror social, economic and ideological conceptions and conditions. The assemblage of terracotta figurines also signals the local identity and self- representation of the inhabitants.