4EU+

4EU+ Alliance educational project (Universities of Copenhagen, Heidelberg, Prague, and Warsaw): Artefacts, Creativity, Technology and Skills from Prehistory to the Archaic Period in Greece. Communities of Learning in the Past and in Higher Education Today (ACTS)

The ACTS project is designed for creating a common platform of innovative research-based teaching among four European universities. The main emphasis will be on novel advances in archaeological theory and analytical methods for exploring human creativity, technology, and skills through artefacts in Greece from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Period. The thematic focus on the ‘making’ provides an optimal platform for merging empirical understanding, scientific research, social theory and experimental practice and for moving beyond disciplinary borders and beyond the academic sphere. The teaching formats will address two target group levels (BA and MA) with teaching formats specifically tailored for both levels, striving to combine digital teaching tools with hands-on-approaches. Most of the BA and MA classes will take place in a lab/collection environment for giving students the opportunity to get acquainted with modern analytical approaches to the materiality and technology of ancient artefacts. Three institutions with a strong research agenda (German Archaeological Institute at Athens, Danish Institute at Athens and the newly founded Polish Archaeological Institute at Athens) will be further nodes of this network enhancing research-based teaching.

Teaching formats:

BA level

1) A joint online lecture course per term in which teaching staff and BA students of all four universities will participate (2-3 ECTS). The lecture course will target methodological approaches to two key themes of the joint educational programme: a) Archaeological approaches to skills and creativity from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Period (Winter term 2021-2022), b) Ancient crafts and mobility (Summer term 2022).

2) Two online labs/seminars per term with the participation of students from two to three universities (3-9 ECTS). The topics will include archaeological approaches to different types of artefacts exploring new analytical approaches to materiality in a laboratory/collection environment. The courses will be conducted by teaching staff from two of the four universities.

MA level

1) Two online labs/seminars per term with the participation of students from two to three universities (3-9 ECTS). The courses will be conducted by teaching staff from two of the four universities. The topics will include archaeological approaches to textiles, scripts, seals, administration and migration/mobility.

2) One online joint colloquium for MA students in the Summer term 2022 in which they will present and discuss their MA theses (with the participation of all four universities).

For all levels

One two-week summer school in Athens in July 2022 with the participation of our external partners. Part of the summer school in which 8 members of the teaching staff and 20 students of the four universities will participate. The summer school will include a research trip in Attica and the Peloponnese on the topography of ancient technology.

In the winter term 2021/2022, the students of the University of Heidelberg will have the opportunity to attend three courses: a) the joint lecture course (Vorlesung) “Artefacts, Creativity, Technology and Skills from Prehistory to the Archaic Period”, b) the course “Aegean Seals as Strategic Artefacts” as well as c) the course "Gender and Sexuality in the Bronze Age Aegean". An online introduction in the ACTS educational project will take place on 11th October. For more information, you may contact Diamantis Panagiotopoulos.