The Archaeological Museum of Heraklion is pleased to invite you on Wednesday 9 July 2025 to the lecture of the archaeological temporary exhibition EKATOMPOLIS: The World of Archaic Crete. The speaker will be Florence Gaignerot-Driessen, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cincinatti and director of the excavation research at Anavlos Vrahasios.

The lecture will be given in Greek.

On the steep ridge between Milatos and Dreros, above Vrachasi, Anavlochos reveals the traces of a mountain community that flourished during a crucial era in Greek history: the transition from palaces to cities (1200–650 BC).

Professor Florence Gaignerot Driessen will present to us the recent excavations of the French Archaeological School and the impressive findings that have come to light. Monumental burial mounds as described in Homer’s epics, places of worship, and a metallurgical workshop bring to life the distant era when the first historical cities of Crete were being formed.

How did the community of Anavlochos forge its identity? What might the dawn of the archaic city have looked like as a new era began on this mountain peak?

Florence Gaignerot-Driessen teaches archaeology in the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. She received her PhD in Greek Archaeology from Paris-Sorbonne University and has taught and conducted research in France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany. Her publications include a monograph on the Mirabello region from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period, co-editing a collective volume on the formation of Cretan cities, and numerous articles on Crete and the Aegean between the 13th and 5th centuries BC. She has participated in excavations at many sites in Crete, mainly at Sissi and Dreros, as well as at Pyla-Kokkinokremos in Cyprus. Since 2015, she has directed the archaeological research of the mountainous region of Anavlochos under the auspices of the French Archaeological School at Athens, which included a two-year surface survey followed by a five-year excavation program.