Date: 09 Jun 2026

I’ve always loved the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron, ever since learning about it in my first year lectures, and I’m so excited and happy to be working here!

A Running Girl Krateriskos One of the museum cats The Sanctuary of Artemis

In my first week, I worked in the Brauron Museum, with our Museum Supervisor, River Ramirez and another volunteer. As it was right at the beginning of the project, there was not much to categorise to start with and so we took the time to get a tour of the museum and site, given by River, partially to look at examples of pottery found in the area to make it easier to categorise the project’s finds, and partially to get another look at some of the amazing artefacts they have there, such as (my favourites!) the Running Girl Krateriskoi. The site itself is also so beautiful and peaceful and I was very happy that we had time for a site tour! Our work in the museum itself consisted of washing the mud and dust off the pottery first thing in the morning and then categorising and cataloguing each piece after they had dried-out in the sun. Pot sherds were catalogued by material, technique, texture, fabric, part (rim, handle etc), function, shape (of complete pot) and general time period. Over time, we slowly got the hang of identifying the attributes of each category, but often had to ask the expert (River) for help! Another part of the museum work that I really enjoyed was interacting with the staff, both running the museum and conducting research in other rooms of the museum. This also really helped me to get the hang of the polite phrases in Greek, such as Kalimera, Yasas, Signomi and Efcharisto, and I wish I had more time there to learn even more!

A Byzantine Church A Frankish tower with my fieldworking team for the week An excavated Mycenaean Chambered tomb

In my second week, I worked in the Fieldwalking team doing Survey Units and logging features in the landscape. This was quite hard work, especially with the almost 30 degree weather, but was so rewarding! Over the week, we have found some very cool things and been to some amazing places, such as a Frankish Tower and over a 1000-year old Byzantine Church, as well as walking through some beautiful landscapes. On Friday, we also ended up working in-between Mycenaean Chambered Tombs which was incredible! It isn’t often that we’re allowed so close to archaeology (when not on excavations) and so these were so cool to see up close. They had also all been excavated and so we had to be very careful not to fall in, as they were everywhere!

Part of our team at lunch Views across the valleys Views towards the sea

We have also had two very lovely weekends so far! Our house, which has five Brits at undergraduate and postgraduate level, has generally been going out on Saturdays and taking Sunday to go to the beach and relax, which has been so nice. Our first Saturday, we spent in Athens. We grabbed coffees and pastries from a cafe, did some shopping in the tourist shops near the Agora, then met up with our housemate who is doing a year-abroad in Athens. She took us off the beaten track to less-touristy parts of Athens, such as Exarchia which had such a cool vibe. I really loved this area, mostly due to the huge amount of trees and greenery down every street, the interesting and often political graffiti and the delicious variety of food there was available!

Interesting graffiti in Exarchia Streets and bars in Exarchia with lots of trees and such a cool vibe! My food from our day out, which was delicious!

Another thing I have really enjoyed on this project is meeting so many new people! I have found it so fun and interesting to talk to archaeologists from other British, American and Canadian universities and see what different things we have learnt about as well as the different perspectives we bring on different topics. We have had such interesting conversations, both archaeological and otherwise! Also, I’m not a Classicist and normally focus on British Prehistory and so being around such knowledgeable people has been really interesting. I can ask almost any question about Ancient and Modern Greece and have it answered by someone on the team (or someone they know). Meeting all these people and seeing what they are doing in terms of jobs, travelling and academics has really inspired me to look beyond British Archaeology and made me ambitious about all the things I could do in the future, such as further study, more non-British projects and job opportunities! I have had so much fun so far and I look forward to seeing what the next two weeks have in store for me!