“The Roman Colonia of Pella: a preliminary discussion of new discoveries by the Pella Urban Dynamics Project”
David Stone (University of Michigan), Nikos Akamatis (Academy of Athens), Bettina Tsigarida (16th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Lisa Nevett (University of Michigan), Stratos Nanoglou (Ephorate of Antiquities of Pella, Hellenic Ministry of Culture)
The Pella Urban Dynamics Project is a collaboration between the Greek Archaeological Service and the University of Michigan, with permission from the Greek Ministry of Culture to conduct field survey and excavation from 2021 to 2025. The Project builds on earlier excavation across the city by a range of different teams, and on preliminary field survey and geophysical survey initiated by the Greek Archaeological service and involving Project members. At a large scale the aim of the Project is to understand how Pella grew and changed through time in response to the settlement’s changing role in regional and inter-regional networks of power and exchange. At a smaller scale, the Project aims to explore the effects of broad settlement dynamics on the lives of Pella’s ordinary inhabitants. In this paper we focus on one aspect of the Project’s diachronic investigations, namely, the study of the Roman colonia of Pella, which was located approximately 1 km west of the Hellenistic city. Some of the buildings of the colonia have previously been investigated. Against this background we discuss evidence from the current project, including field walking in 2023 and sampling in more detail undertaken during the Project’s 2024 field season. Based on this evidence we present an interim characterisation of the cityscape of the colonia.
Lisa Nevett
University of Michigan
Lisa Nevett is an archaeologist specializing in domestic architecture and archaeological methods and theories. She is a Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, as well as the co-director of excavations at Olynthus and the Pella Urban Dynamics Project. She is the author of House and Society in the Ancient Greek World (published in 1999 with Cambridge University Press), Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity (published in 2010 with Cambridge University Press), and Ancient Greek Architecture (published in 2023 with Cambridge University Press).