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Dr Anastasia Christophilopoulou

Senior Curator Ancient Mediterranean

Anastasia is the Senior Curator Ancient Mediterranean of the Fitzwilliam Museum. She is responsible for research and exhibition projects and permanent displays in the fields of Greek, Cypriot and Roman collections. She is currently leading the 4-year research project ‘Being an Islander’: Art and Identity of the large Mediterranean Islands, (2019-2023) aiming to critically re-examine the concept of island life through material culture. The project will culminate in a large exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (21/02/202- 05/06/2023) displaying archaeological finds and artworks from the islands of Cyprus, Sardinia and Crete. She has previously curated an interdisciplinary exhibition on the history of codebreaking. Anastasia gained her PhD in Classical Archaeology at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge (2008) and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Topoi Excellence Cluster, Freie Universität Berlin (2009-2010), prior to joining the Fitzwilliam Museum. She has also lectured for the University of London, Birkbeck College and is currently an external collaborator to two interdisciplinary research networks in Cyprus and Germany. 

At Cambridge Anastasia is also a member of McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and a member of the Managing Committee of the Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies (CCGS). She is also a member of the Management Committee of the Society for Aegean Prehistory and a member of the ICOM UK and the ICOM International Committee for Education and Cultural Action. 

Anastasia’s core research interests are in the Archaeology of the Aegean Bronze and Iron Age cultures, the Archaeology of the Mediterranean islands and the Archaeology of Cyprus. She is particularly engaged with questions of island identity, mobility and migration in the Ancient World, as well as with anthropological perspectives to interpreting material culture.  Anastasia has also worked widely in the fields of Public Archaeology and Public engagement with Mediterranean collections.

Teaching and Supervision

Anastasia currently supervises 2 doctoral students in Mediterranean Archaeology registered at the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge (R. Laoutari, provisional thesis title: Social dynamics in non-urban societies: A multi-scalar analysis of social interaction in Prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus') and the Open University (M. VonBechtolsheim provisional thesis title: 'Ritual and Identity: British Collections of Bronze Figurines from First-Millennium-BC pre-Roman Italy'). Anastasia also teaches for the Undergraduate Certificate in Archaeology of the Ancient World at ICE,  as well as for the Ancient & Classical Worlds Summer programmes.

Email: ac380@cam.ac.uk

Monographs and Edited Volumes:

Christophilopoulou A., (ed), Material Cultures in Public Engagement: Re-inventing Public Archaeology within Museum Collections, Oxford, Oxbow, 2020. 

Christophilopoulou, A., I. Galanakis, and J. Grime (eds), Codebreakers & Groundbreakers. Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, 2017.

In preparation: Christophilopoulou A., (ed), Being an Islander: Art and Identity of the Large Mediterranean Islands 2500BCE- 31 BCE The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (forthcoming, 2023).

Journal Articles/ Contributions to books:

Christophilopoulou A., Sensory approaches to material culture: theories and reality of the imagined sensorially-engaged Museum. In Christophilopoulou A.  (ed) Material Cultures in Public Engagement: Re-inventing Public Archaeology within Museum Collections, Oxford, Oxbow, 2020.

Christophilopoulou A., Salamis-Toumba: An Iron Age sanctuary in Cyprus Rediscovered. Excavations of the Cyprus Exploration Fund, 1890, Part IV, Chapter 8: Catalogue of finds; Terracottas, The Fitzwilliam Museum, in Salamis-Toumba: An Iron Age sanctuary in Cyprus Rediscovered. Excavations of the Cyprus Exploration Fund, 1890, Vassos Karageorghis and Thomas Kiely (eds), with contributions by Anastasia Christophilopoulou, Giorgos Constantinou and Anja Ulbrich, The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia,  2019.

Christophilopoulou A., Codebreakers and Groundbreakers, from Linear B tablets to the Enigma machine, Minerva Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 2017, 46-50. 

Re-examining the history of Cypriot antiquities in the Fitzwilliam Museum: a closer look at the collection's past and future, in G. Bourogiannis and C. Muhlenbock eds., Ancient Cyprus Today: Museum Collections and New Research (SIMA pocket-book 184), Uppsala 2016, 13-19.

Christophilopoulou, A. 2013. ‘Does the Cretan house stand alone? Households in Geometric Crete viewed in the context of domestic architecture in the Cyclades and the eastern Aegean’, in W.D. Niemeier, O.Pilz und I. Kaiser eds., Kreta in der geometrischen und archaischen Zeit. Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums am Deutschen Archä​ologischen Institut (Athenaia 2), München, 437–453.

Christophilopoulou, A. 2010. “Review of Karageorghis V. and Giannikouri A. eds., Conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage of the large islands of the Mediterranean”, Proceedings of the International Symposium, Rhodes 2006The Classical Review 60: 266–268.

Christophilopoulou, A. 2010. ‘Domestic space and community identity in the Aegean islands and Crete’, MOSAIK Journal, Raumdimensionen im Altertum, Berlin.

Christophilopoulou, A. 2007. ‘Domestic space in the Geometric Cyclades: A study of spatial arrangements, function and household activities in Zagora on Andros, and Kastro on Siphnos’, in E. Hallager and J. Jensen eds., The Proceedings of the Danish Institute at Athens V, Athens.

Digital Resources:

Being an islander project website : https://islander.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/

  •  Member of the Council of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.
  • Affliated fellow, Center for Science and Policy (CSaP), University of Cambridge.
  • Member of the McDonald Institute for Archaeology, University of Cambridge.
  • Member of the management committee, Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies.
  • Fellow and managing Committee member, Aegeus Society for Aegean prehistory.
  • St. John's

Associated Research Projects

Associated Exhibitions

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