Dimitri Nakassis (born 1975) is an American classicist and archaeologist, and is a professor at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

. He is also co-director of the Western Argolid Regional Project. He was awarded a

MacArthur fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

in 2015.

Life

He graduated from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

with a B.A., and from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

with a Ph.D.

Work

Nakassis's work focuses on the archaeology and scripts of

Mycenaean Greece Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainla ...

, in particular the administrative practices of the state. His findings challenge assumptions that the

palace economy A palace economy or redistribution economy is a Economic system, system of economic organization in which a substantial share of the wealth flows into the control of a Centralisation, centralized administration, the palace, and out from there to ...

of Mycenaean Greece had little in common with the democratic

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

s of

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

. Since 2013, he has co-directed a project using

Reflectance Transformation Imaging Polynomial texture mapping (PTM), also known as Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), is a technique of imaging and interactively displaying objects under varying lighting conditions to reveal surface phenomena. The data acquisition method is ...

to create detailed 3D images of the

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

tablets found in the

Palace of Nestor The Palace of Nestor (Modern Greek: Ανάκτορο του Νέστορα) was an important centre in Mycenaean times, and described in Homer's ''Odyssey'' and ''Iliad'' as Nestor's kingdom of "sandy Pylos". The palace featured in the story of ...

References

External links

The Western Argolid Regional Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nakassis, Dimitri Living people 1975 births MacArthur Fellows Academic staff of the University of Toronto University of Michigan alumni 21st-century American archaeologists Archaeologists of the Bronze Age Aegean