Meet the project

https://thraceconnect.athenarc.gr/

🌍 How were Aegean Thrace and inland Thrace connected in antiquity?

The THRACE-CONNECT project is exploring the ancient routes, networks, and interactions that linked these two regions through the Rhodope Mountains, from the Archaic period to the Roman Imperial era.

By combining archaeology, landscape studies, topography, and material culture, the project investigates how people moved, traded, and exchanged ideas across Thrace. Using advanced digital mapping and spatial visualization technologies, the team reconstructs the communication networks that shaped the region’s cultural and economic development for centuries.

📍 What happened during the first year?

During the first year of the project, the systematic collection and geospatial documentation of archaeological data from Thrace was completed. The creation of this digital background constitutes the first and decisive step for the study of the communication networks and interconnections developed by the ancient communities of the region.

📢 Sharing discoveries beyond academia

As THRACE-CONNECT progresses, the team actively communicates the project’s objectives, methods and emerging findings to both the academic community and the wider public. Through dissemination and communication activities, it seeks to make the research more accessible and understandable, highlighting the importance of ancient Thrace and its communication networks. In this way, the project contributes to the dissemination of knowledge about the region’s past and strengthens the connection between scientific research and society.

The project team of THRACE-CONNECT during the kick-off meeting

Preliminary research results

One of the main goals of THRACE-CONNECT is to go beyond the study of individual archaeological sites and to form a more comprehensive picture of the landscape of the southern Rhodopes in antiquity.

In this context, the research team collects and re-examines data from excavations, surface surveys and published studies, synthesizing information that has until now remained scattered or examined piecemeal.

• What we are looking for

Rather than focusing on individual sites, we investigate recurring settlement types, communication networks and broader spatial patterns that are formed throughout the southern Rhodopes.

• Why is it important?

This approach allows us to better understand how the mountain landscape was organized, used and experienced by human communities from the Archaic period to the Roman imperial times.

The first results highlight a more complex and dynamic picture of ancient Thrace, where settlements, travel routes and human activities were closely linked to the natural environment of Rhodope and evolved in continuous interaction with it for centuries.

The sites collected during the data documentation of the project

Dissemination and upcoming activities

🎤 Exchange of ideas, building relationships

Dissemination of results and scientific exchange have been key axes of THRACE-CONNECT since its inception. During the first year, the project’s interdisciplinary approach to the study of ancient communication networks in Thrace and the Rhodope Mountains was presented by Dr. Despina Tsiafaki in an invited lecture entitled “Mountains without Borders: Exploring the Archaeology of Southern Rhodope”, which took place at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (March 2026).

🌍 THRACE-CONNECT on the international scientific scene

The first results of the project will also be presented at the 32nd EAA Annual Meeting in Athens in August 2026, as well as at the conferences Mobility, Interaction and Cultural Exchange in the Middle Strymon Valley (From the Bronze Age to the Late Middle Ages) in Sandanski (October 2026) and Seventh International Conference Roman and Late Antique Thrace (RaLATh) in Veliko Tarnovo (October 2026).

These events offer valuable opportunities to exchange views and develop collaborations with researchers studying issues of landscape, mobility, connectivity and human interaction in the ancient world.

🤝 Looking ahead

The THRACE-CONNECT team is already preparing the international conference “Bridging the Past: Exploring Ancient Thrace’s Complex Communication Networks in the Rhodope Mountains”, which is scheduled to take place in Xanthi in February 2027.

The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers from different scientific fields, creating a fertile environment for dialogue on issues of movement, interaction and cultural exchange in ancient Thrace. At the same time, it will contribute to the strengthening of international research networks, but also to the dissemination of new approaches to the study of the past of the wider region.

Dr. Despoina Tsiafaki in the Sofia University

The research project "Unraveling Connections between Aegean and inland Thrace via the Rhodope mountains, through archaeological exploration and spatial technology (THRACE-CONNECT)" is implemented in the framework of H.F.R.I call “3rd Call for H.F.R.I.’s Research Projects to Support Faculty Members & Researchers” (H.F.R.I. Project Number: 23755)

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