About the lecture:
At modern Kommos in Crete excavations uncovered one of the great ports of the Mediterranean. Today it is threatened by climate change. Recent research indicates its role as the major Cretan port to 18th Dynasty Egypt and the Levant, its importance for the Phoenicians as they ventured to Spain, and its role in the rise of the city-state of Gortyn. This lecture presents a fascinating story of the mercantile trade of the Mediterranean and the efforts to save Kommos from destruction.

About the Speaker:

James C. Wright held the William R. Kenan, Jr. chair and is professor emeritus in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. He was Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Bryn Mawr College from 1995-2000. From 2012-2017 he was the Director of American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 

Currently he is Director of the University of Toronto Excavations at Kommos in Crete leading a master plan of conservation and planning renewed excavations to examine the stratigraphy, conduct chronometric, floral, faunal, micromorphological, and soil research. He was Director of the Nemea Valley Archaeological Project from 1981. He has excavated in Wharram Percy in Yorkshire, Poggio Civitate in Tuscany, Ancient Corinth, Ancient Nemea, and Kommos (Crete) in Greece.
 
Wright’s primary research is in the evolution of complex societies in the Aegean with special interests in architecture, urbanism, mortuary customs, and foodways.  He has authored, edited, and co-edited six books and proceedings, over 70 articles and numerous book reviews.

He has received grants and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. He is a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute. In 2027 he is being awarded the Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement of the Archaeological Institute of America. 

He is married to Mary K. Dabney. They co-directed and published the excavations on Tsoungiza hill at Nemea and the cemetery excavations of the Mycenaean settlement on Tsoungiza at nearby at Barnavos and Ayia Sotira (with R. Angus Smith, Mary Dabney, Sevasti Triantaphyllou, and Eva Pappi). The latter publication won in 2021 the Anna Marguerite McCann Award for Fieldwork Projects of the Archaeological Institute of America.