On Friday, September 25, 2026, the Researchers’ Night event took place once again at the Athena Research Center building, with the participation of researchers and the general public. During the event, the project team presented THRACE-CONNECT and informed interested visitors about the program’s objectives and results.
On August 28, 2026, Dr. Vasilis Evangelidis presented the THRACE-CONNECT project, in a lecture entitled “Beyond Marginality: Landscape Archaeology of the Rhodope Mountains in the Balkan Context”, within the framework of the EAA 2026 conference and specifically in Session 69 – Interaction, Connectivity & Mobility in the Balkans. Based on the preliminary results of the
Despoina Tsiafaki, Research Director and Head of the Department of Culture and Creative Industries, discussed with Patrick O’Shea the THRACE-CONNECT project and the exploration of the archaeological and historical landscape of Rhodope. You can listen to the entire discussion at the link below. https://www.podomatic.com/…/2026-07-08T07_00_00-07_00
On the 9th of March, 2026, Dr. Despoina Tsiafaki, director of Research and Head of the Department of Culture and Creative Industries, gave a lecture entitled “Mountains Without Borders: Exploring the Archaeology of Southern Rhodope,” in Hall 2 of the Rectorate of Sofia University. This lecture presented a synthetic review of archaeological sites identified in
The kick-off meeting of the THRACE-CONNECT project was held on 12/6/2025, with the participation of the members of the ATHENA RC team (Despoina Tsiafaki, Vassilis Evangelidis, Yiannis Mourthos, Melpomeni Karta, Kostas Stavroglou, Maria Topalidou), in the ILSP department of Xanthi. The research project “Unraveling Connections between Aegean and inland Thrace via the Rhodope mountains, through
