Objectives

1.- To create and maintain a website in which to make available all the information offered by archaeology concerning the Greek material culture of the Iberian Peninsula.

The phenomenon of Greek presence and trade on the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th to 4th centuries BC is a well-known fact, in the sense that it is well documented from an archaeological point of view: the Greek products that were part of trading, the appearance and the chronological phases of this process have been identified. Getting to know this historic phenomenon in depth and framing it in the broader, Mediterranean setting requires using a high number of archaeological documents currently found dispersed in endless publications and repertories, some of which are already old and with logical errors of chronological and cultural identification. These documents, from the synthesis works of Gloria Trías: Cerámicas griegas de la Península Ibérica (1967), and of Pierre Rouillard: Les grecs à la Peninsule Ibérique (1991), have increased exponentially thanks to the intense research work and the multiplication of excavations throughout the entire Iberian territory. And although we are familiar with the imported products, the shapes, type of evolution, workshops of origin, original functions and the new meanings and symbolic, social and political meanings and language that these objects meant in their insertion into the cultures that accepted them with a certain degree of precision, there is still a lot to be done in the field of iconographic analysis, as there is not a detailed repertory, a corpus of the Greek imported images, a preliminary, essential stage for being able to analyse the interaction of symbolic systems and their adaptation and repercussions on the Iberian world view.

The project aims to create a large database, which is ordered and up to date, with numerous cross-references, that will serve as a precise instrument to historians of the Ancient World in the Mediterranean and in the Iberian Peninsula to reconstruct diverse historic processes: production systems, trade, colonisation, development and construction of social systems, legitimacy of power, ideological and symbolic constructions, interaction phenomenon, etc.

The fundamental objectives of database are:

a) -To compile a corpus which brings together all the Greek importations found in Iberia. This corpus includes:
– a computerised database.
– a computerised file with graphic documentation of the Greek imports (photos and drawings).

b) – Analysis of Greek imports, their appearance and chronology, including the following aspects:
– Study of the shapes and types.
– Workshops and painters.
– Iconographic study.
– Chronological distribution.
– Geographical distribution.

c) – Analysis of the contexts in which the Greek imports are registered:
– Necropolis: study of the funerary goods, analysis of the symbolic factors of use (rituals, diacritics, etc.)
– Commercial settlements and factories: study of the contexts in which they appear, their frequency and distribution.

2.- To develop its own research projects which will help increase knowledge about the Greek cultural presence and its interaction with the Iberian societies in classical times.

3.- To promote research projects in Spain dealing with Greek Mediterranean archaeology, setting up cultural collaborations with the diverse scientific institutions and universities that develop this line of research.

4.- To train young researchers in the field of Greek archaeology and to involve them in the various documentation and research projects of the centre.

5.- To design a programme of cultural and social dissemination of the Greek common legacy in the Mediterranean, as an element of cohesion for the Mediterranean cultural identity.