Seals, sealings and seal impressions from Akrotiri in Thera

The present application is intended for the funding of the publication of a monograph, which is the product of a 2-year FWF/Lise Meitner Senior Post-Doc position I held at the University of Vienna (2012-2014). My project concerned the study of primary archaeological material from the site of Akrotiri in Thera (Greece), namely seals, sealings and seal impressions on various objects; although the material under study came from all phases of the settlements life (3000-1630 BC), its main bulk originated in the ultimate habitation layer, just before the settlement was destroyed by a devastating volcanic eruption. The monograph is a comprehensive archaeological, typological and iconographical study of the above material. Its publication is important because it sheds light on the political, financial and social organization of the settlement before its final destruction, and it also discusses the relation Thera had with the outside world, namely its neighboring Minoan Crete. The manuscript has been accepted for publication by the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel (CMS; previously based in the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz, now at the University of Heidelberg) as one of the series Beihefte (no. 10). Besides having the honor of being one of the authors of these Beihefte, CMS has a high standard of editing and publishing, which is based on more than 50 years of high-level scholarship; the inclusion of my book in the series is guaranteed to elevate the quality of the publication.