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Pylos and Minoan Crete
November 22 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
The “Ring of Nestor”, c. 1500 BC, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum.
Pylos and Minoan Crete
Lecture by Professor Andreas Vlachopoulos, University of Ioannina
Hosted by the
UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture
in collaboration with
The J. Paul Getty Museum
and held in conjunction with the exhibition
The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece
(June 27, 2025 – January 12, 2026 at The Getty Villa)
Saturday, November 22, 2025
4:00 p.m.
314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus
Reception to follow
Description:
Pylos is a sunny, fertile coastal area of Messinia (Southwestern Peloponnese), with many features of the land and its natural resources resembling those of the palatial Knossos. In the heyday of the New Palace period of Crete (c. 1600-1500 BC) the area of Pylos gradually became the seat of powerful rulers of the Mycenaean elite, whose way of life reflected not only a strong influence from the art and aesthetics of the Minoans, but also a high degree of ideological and religious osmosis of the two societies. The lecture entitled Pylos and Minoan Crete will follow the historical course of the two Aegean cultures and will try to interpret the broad Minoan influence on Pylos and the other Helladic regions where the palatial Mycenaean world of early Greece will gradually emerge.
Bio:
Andreas G. Vlachopoulos is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Ioannina. He completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Archaeology at the University of Athens, specializing in Aegean Prehistory. His 1995 dissertation on the Post-Palatial period on Naxos and the Aegean received the Michael Ventris Award. He has been a Research Fellow at Princeton University (1998-99) and at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts (2001-02). Currently, Andreas directs the Vathy, Astypalaia Archaeological Project and the Kokkino Vouno Project at Akrotiri, Thera. Among his main research interests are the Mycenaean Cyclades, the Mycenaean period in Pylos, the Thera frescoes, and the Aegean Early Bronze Age. He is the author of monographs on Mycenaean Naxos and Astypalaia and the editor of two volumes on Aegean Prehistory (Argonautes and Paintbrushes) and seven volumes on Greek archaeology. He is a Fellow of the Archaeological Society at Athens and a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute.
This event is organized by Professor David Schneller (UCLA) and Dr. Claire Lyons (Getty) and is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Co-Sponsored by:
UCLA College Division of Humanities
The Peter J. and Caroline B. Caloyeras Endowment for the Arts
The George P. Kolovos Family Centennial Term Chair in Hellenic Studies
Gefyra
UCLA Global Antiquity
The Joan Palevsky Chair of Classics at UCLA
UCLA Department of Art History
UCLA Department of Classics
UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
UCLA David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design
Don’t miss our other upcoming programs in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum here:
Saturday, November 15, 2025
Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Craft Technologies in the Second Millennium BCE Aegean
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Symposium