British School at Athens

The British School at Athens (Greek Βρετανική Σχολή Αθηνών, also British School of Archaeology at Athens, abbreviated BSA) is one of 17 foreign archaeological institutes in Greece, all of which have their head office in Athens.

History and tasks

The British School at Athens was founded in 1886 as the fourth such institution, after France since 1846 with the École française d' Athènes, Germany since 1874 with the German Archaeological Institute of Athens and the United States of America since 1881 with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens were already represented. The object of the British School is to support and conduct of research on classical archeology and archaeological research by British scientists. Increasingly shall be additional research into other areas such as epigraphy and history of modern Greece. In addition, the school organizes lecture series and seminars, congresses and courses for aspiring scientists, teachers, with the main focus on Athens.

Institutions and research

The British School, with about 60,000 volumes, is one of the greatest archaeological libraries in Greece and talks to the Fitch Laboratory, established 1974, the oldest laboratory for Archaeometry in Greece. In Palaikastro and Knossos, both located in Crete, it performs two permanent field offices for research purposes outside of Athens.

Throughout its history, the British School numerous archaeological projects conducted and is responsible among other things for large surveys in Laconia, Boeotia, in Ithaca, numerous islands and Crete. In Crete she has also conducted numerous excavations, of which the most important in Knossos and Palaikastro. Other archaeological field research, it provided inter alia in Lefkandi, Perachora, Mycenae and Sparta.

Publications

The British School is a year out The Annual of the British School at Athens, which first appeared in 1894, reaching up to 2010 band 105. Reports of the archaeological research are published regularly and are published together with the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies as Archaeological Reports. It is the only such summary on current archaeological research in Greece in English. Regularly archaeological research in other regions of ancient Greece and the Byzantine world are considered and shown in reports of southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Albania, Cyprus, Asia Minor and the Black Sea region in the reports. New Acquisitions of British museums and collections are also covered. In addition, the British School studies and supplementary volumes moved to closed topics mainly British and our own research in Greece.