Sarantis Symeonoglou

Ph.D., Columbia University

Professor Sarantis Symeonoglou is a field archaeologist and art historian of the ancient world with an expertise in both the Bronze Age and Classical Greece, as well as the Ancient Near East and Egypt. He has excavated at Olympia, Medeon, Cyprus, Thebes, at several sites in Boeotia and has worked in the museums of Olympia, Delphi, Athens National Museum, Athens Numismatic Museum, Thebes Archaeological Museum, and Ithaca Archaeological Museum. Since 1984, he has initiated a major archaeological project on the island of Ithaca where countless people have tried to locate the palace of the legendary Odysseus in the last 200 years. He has devoted much of his time to directing the work on Ithaca and doing fundraising for it, in an effort that has involved as many as 500 different people: scholars, professionals, students, and local workers. The project has already generated a number of publications, most important among them the inscriptions of Ithaca (John Fossey), a dissertation (Nancy Symeonoglou), and many articles in Greek and English by the director himself. He is now preparing a monograph on the subject that promises to change current views about Odysseus and Homer. Professor Symeonoglou has also been researching art historical approaches to the study of Greek art, as well as innovative interpretations of prehistory through close analysis of works of art.

Selected Publications

Mycenaean Thebes: A Workshop of Jewelry at the Palace of Thebes. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology (1973) 
The Topography of Thebes: From the Bronze age to Modern Times (Princeton University Press, 1985) 
“A New Analysis of the Parthenon Frieze”. In: The Parthenon, ed. M. Cosmopoulos (2004) 
The Masters of Olympia (in preparation) 
Odysseus at Home (in preparation)

Courses

Homeric Archaeology 
Myths and Monuments 
Art and War 
Art in the Egypt of the Pharaohs 
Greek Sculpture 
Ancient Painting 
Greek and Roman coins 
The Parthenon