Fotakidis, Sotirios

Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport

Research Topic: Architectural Sculptures from Middle Byzantine Athens

He is studying three groups of Middle Byzantine architectural Sculptures from Athens. The main group consists of all Middle Byzantine sculptures from the Athenian Agora. The other two groups are from sculptures from Hadrian’s Library and the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens with origin the Athenian Agora. He intend to examine the progressive development of the form and decoration of the architectural sculptures from Middle Byzantine Athens, their trade, and activity of the marble-carving workshops during this period in general and specifically for each century, from the mid-9th to the 12th centuries.

His doctoral research comprises five primary stages:
Compilation of a catalogue (including detailed entries) of the architectural sculptures that constitute the main focus of my research.
Classification of the archaeological material into meaningful groups, and establishing their chronology.
Determination of the precise origin of the Middle Byzantine architectural ensemble of the Agora through research in the Archives of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Agora Excavations, and the Gennadius Library.
A close analysis of the literary and epigraphic sources, with a special emphasis on Byzantine texts dealing with the topography and architecture of the city of Athens, as well as the broader region during the Middle Byzantine period.
Systematic study of the marble-carving workshops of Attica.
During his stay in Istanbul, He will try to date the Athenian material with equivalent material from the capital of Byzantine Empire and Asia Minor.