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Dr Giorgos Papantoniou

Assistant Professor in Ancient Visual and Material Culture

I studied History and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus (B.A., 2003 – First Class Honours) and Classics at Trinity College Dublin (M.Litt. transferred to Ph.D., 2008). I have worked as an archaeologist at the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, and as a researcher and visiting lecturer at the University of Cyprus, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Bonn, the University of Sassari and the Open University of Cyprus. I re-joined Trinity College Dublin for my current position in 2020.

Research Interests

I consider myself a Mediterranean archaeologist and material culture historian. My research agenda is based on interdisciplinary and diachronic approaches bridging the Greek and the Roman worlds: bringing together landscape, archaeological, textual, iconographic evidence and deploying anthropological models, I work mainly on the visual and material culture of Cyprus from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity. I am currently developing new interests in cultural heritage and historical archaeology, especially archaeology and wellbeing, reception studies and use of ethnography. I am codirecting the archaeological surface survey project ‘Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus’ (SeSaLaC) in the Xeros River Valley in Cyprus (https://www.ucy.ac.cy/artlands/research/sesalac-survey/) and I am coordinating the international research network ‘Unlocking Sacred Landscapes’ (UnSaLa) (http://www.ucy.ac.cy/unsala/) based on a formal agreement of collaboration between Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cyprus. I am also the coordinator of the Steering Committee for ‘Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology’ (PoCA) (https://www.ucy.ac.cy/aru/poca/?lang=en) conference. Finally, in collaboration with the Marburg University and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Karditsa, I recently began a new project in Thessaly, studying the terracottas from the Sanctuary of Athena Itonia in Philia.

Selected Publications

Papantoniou, G. 2026 (forthcoming). “Political Economy and Imperial Integration: The Importance of the Arsinoe Cult in Shaping Ptolemaic Power”. The Annual of the British School at Athens 121.
Morris, C.E. and G. Papantoniou. 2025. “Cypriot Aphrodite, Archaeological Representation, and British Colonial Discourse: A Reappraisal”. In Empire and Excavation: Critical Perspectives on Archaeology in British-period Cyprus, 1878-1960, edited by T. Kiely, A. Rieve and L. Crewe, 393-405. Leiden: Sidestone Press.
Ripanti, F., G. Papantoniou, and A.K. Vionis. 2025. “Linking Community Archaeology and Well-being. Opportunities and Challenges in the ‘ΑρχαιοΛογικά’ Programme in Cyprus”. In Citizen Science in Southern European Archaeology, edited by J.B. Tirado, M.S. Montanelli and A. Giorri. London: Routledge, 137-59.
Ripanti, F., G. Papantoniou, A.K. Vionis, and A. Lanitis. 2025. “Lasting Impressions: Archaeology and Community Engagement in the Xeros River Valley (Cyprus)”. In Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences: Public Scholarship and the Mediterranean World, edited by S.C. Higgins and C.A.M. Gardner. London: Routledge, 251-74 (Open Access).
Papantoniou, G. 2024. “The Terracotta Figurines”. In Kourion Amathous Gate Cemetery, Volume 2, edited by M. Given, S. Gabrieli and C. Mavromatis. Boston: American School of Oriental Research, 181-89.
Stylianou-Lambert, T., C.E. Morris, G. Papantoniou, and A. Heraclidou. 2023. “Aphrodite’s Sisters”. In Aps Mdina Cathedral. Contemporary Art Biennale: Mediterranean Goddesses, edited by G.S. Bonaci and N. Petroni. Mdina: Mdina Biennale, 53-73.
Vionis, A.K., G. Papantoniou, and N. Savvides. 2023. “Landscape Archaeology in a Contested Space: Public Engagement and Outreach in the Xeros River Valley in Cyprus”. Journal of Greek Archaeology 8: 299-324.
Papantoniou, G., A.K. Vionis, and C.E. Morris, eds. 2022. Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Religious and Insular Identities in Context. Religions (Special Issue). Basel: MDPI (Open Access).
Papantoniou, G., and A.K. Vionis, 2021. “Popular Religion and Material Responses to Pandemic: The Christian Cult of the Epitaphios during the COVID-19 Crisis in Greece and Cyprus”. Ethnoarchaeology. Journal of Archaeological, Ethnographic and Experimental Studies. 12.2. (Open Access)
Papantoniou, G., A. Sarris, C.E. Morris, and A.K. Vionis, eds. 2019. Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Digital Humanities and Ritual Space. Open Archaeology (Special Issue). Berlin: De Gruyter (Open Access)
Papantoniou, G., C.E. Morris, and A.K. Vionis, eds. 2019. Unlocking Sacred Landscapes: Spatial Analysis of Ritual and Cult. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 151. Nicosia: Åströms Förlag.
Papantoniou, G., Michaelides, D., and M. Dikomitou-Eliadou, eds. 2019. Hellenistic and Roman Terracottas. Monumenta Graeca et Romana 23. Leiden: Brill
Papantoniou, G., and A.K. Vionis, eds. 2019. Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the longue durée. Land(Special Issue). Bassel: MDPI (Open Access)
Papantoniou, G., and N. Kyriakou. 2018. “Revisiting Cypriot sacred landscapes: A regional GIS approach”. American Journal of Archaeology 122 (4): 541–77.
Papantoniou. G. 2016. “Cypriot ritual and cult from the Bronze to the Iron Age: A longue-durée approach”. Journal of Greek Archaeology 1: 73–108.
Papantoniou, G. 2013. “Cypriot autonomous polities at the crossroads of Empire: The imprint of a transformed islandscape in the Classical and Hellenistic periods”. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Studies 307: 169–205.
Papantoniou, G. 2013. “Cyprus from basileis to strategos: A landscape approach”. American Journal of Archaeology 117 (1): 33–57.
Papantoniou, G. 2012. Religion and Social Transformations in Cyprus. From the Cypriot Basileis to the Hellenistic Strategos. Mnemosyne Supplements 347. Leiden: Brill.

Teaching & Supervision

I teach history and archaeology students across the art and archaeology of the Mediterranean world, from first year Sources and Methods and Greek and Roman Art and Architecture to more advanced and thematic modules, such as Greek Archaeology, Alexandria (The Hellenistic and Roman City and its Modern Imaginations), Independent Archaeological Project (Terracotta Figurines), Archaeological Practice and Sacred Space and Identities. I also teach Ancient Visual and Material Culture (The Hidden Lives of Objects) to classics and classical civilisation students. At postgraduate level, I teach Landscape Archaeology at the core module, and I have developed a course on Cypriot Sanctuaries and Religion from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, reviewing the main theoretical and methodological issues and approaches relating to ancient Mediterranean religions and sacred landscapes, equipping students with the appropriate skills to study them.

I am happy to supervise postgraduate research on several aspects of Mediterranean landscape studies and material culture history related to settlement archaeology, the archaeology of ritual and religion, ancient art, iconography and artefact studies (with emphasis on sculpture and terracotta figurines), Hellenistic society, Hellenistic portraiture and ruler image-making, ancient Cyprus, as well as cultural heritage studies related to reception, popular culture, ethnographic analogies and community archaeology.