Netherlands Institute at Athens

17/08/2026

⚠️ ATTENTION! CHANGE OF DATE!! ⚠️

🎬The Netherlands Institute at Athens has the pleasure to invite you to a special screening (Athenian premiere) of the short movie made in the framework of the Dutch Archaeological project in Geraki (Laconia, Peloponnese):

“The Little Shepherd” (2026)
By Anneke Dekker

🎥The screening will take place on
📅Friday 28 August,
🕗20.00,
🏢at the Netherlands Institute at Athens, 11 Makri str., 11 742 Athens.

👉The screening will be in Greek, with English subtitles.

Some words about the movie:
“Five-year-old Panagiotis comes from a family of shepherds and lives in a small village on the Peloponnese. His father and grandmother's life is hard. Yet Panagiotis wants nothing more than to follow in their footsteps.

Mother Filipia does everything she can to encourage him at school, but Panagiotis prefers going into the mountains with his father every day to care for his father's and grandmother's goats.
This is not always easy for the little shepherd. He sometimes takes out his frustrations on his grandmother.

The bond between father and son is intense. Panagiotis’s love for goats is huge, and he is determined to become a shepherd just like his father. When he hears that his father has doubts about this future, his dream seems to be falling apart. However, Panagiotis does not give up and comes up with a solution.”

📷 (On the picture (copyright Anneke Dekker): Panagiotis and his father Michalis.)

All are welcome! (limited seats available, make your reservation by email, available through the link in the first comment.)

30/07/2026

🏝️ Summer Holidays 2026 🍹

The NIA will be closed from 31 July – 23 August.

We wish you all a very pleasant summer! 🩱🤿🏄📖 ☕

📷 Sotiria Nikolou

28/07/2026

📢 Now Online: “Archaeology of Archaeology at ancient Troy? Some results from an experimental project”, by Dr. GertJan van Wijngaarden ( University of Amsterdam / Universiteit van Amsterdam )

😊We are happy to share the video recording (and some snapshots) of the lecture by Dr Gert Jan van Wijngaarden (Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam, Visiting Professor at the Netherlands Institute at Athens) that took place on

📅20 May 2026 at the NIA

👉“Archaeology of Archaeology at ancient Troy? Some results from an experimental project.“

In his lecture, Gert Jan van Wijngaarden focused on The Amsterdam Troy Project, which aims to understand better the old excavations at ancient Troy. To this aim, the team from the University of Amsterdam studied the physical remains of the excavators at this canonical site: excavations were conducted in spoil heaps, in filled-in trenches and a 4D digital model of the site has been created. In this lecture, some of the results of this experimental project will be presented. More in general, the question will be raised to which extent archaeology is able to reflect on its methodologies by archaeological means.

📽️ The recording also contains the lively Q&Α that followed the lecture.

🔗To open the link, please check the first comment.

23/07/2026

👉Τhe 3rd annual lecture of the series ‘Byzantine Talks NIA’ is now available on the YouTube-channel of our Institute.

👤NIA Deputy Director, drs. Willem Ledeboer, opened the event with a brief welcoming address. Among other topics, he discussed the purpose behind establishing this lecture series, highlighting its core mission to honor the memory of the late Professor Spyros Troianos, who generously donated a substantial part of his personal book collection to the NIA. Additionally, NIA Librarian Ms. Sotiria Nikolou highlighted in her introduction how warmly the academic community has embraced these annual lectures, proving the success of the ‘Byzantine Talks NIA’ series. She also thanked everyone in attendance for their vital support.

👤On this year’s event, Dr Vasileios Alexandros Kollias (Academy of Athens), delivered the lecture ‘Re-reading Title 1 of the Eisagoge: Law, Justice, and Constitutional Thought in Byzantium'.

📅The lecture, which took place on Tuesday, May 12th, 2026 was a collaboration between the Netherlands Institute at Athens and the Research Centre for the History of Greek Law, Academy of Athens.

😊We are very pleased to share some snapshots and the online registration of the event with you, which also includes the Q&A session.

🔗Link in the first comment.

21/07/2026

👥As our summer school Documentary and Multimodal Ethnographic Approaches (a collaboration of staff from the University of Universiteit Leiden / Leiden University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam with colleagues from Greece) has been completed with great success,
🙏we would like to thank all the staff of the summer school for their contributions, passionate involvement and student support. Prof. dr. Dimitrios Dalakoglou, dr. Tryfon Bampilis, dr. Fotini Gouseti, Ass. Prof. dr. Nicholas Karachalis , drs. Metje Postma, Mrs Maro Anastopoulou and Mr. Giorgos Charisis have all set the high and inspiring standards of this year's school.
👥🙏Lastly we would like to thank all the visiting students for their conviction and involvement which resulted in unparalleled ethnographic films and work ranging from sensorial non-human ethnography, criminalization of refugees and activism, commodity chains of fishing, pet grooming labor cosmologies, sculpturing communities and sensorial approaches to museum studies. Until next year!
📷(photos by the scientific director of social and political sciences program dr. Tryfon Bampilis)

14/07/2026

Great news from our colleagues at the NVIC - Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo !!
Congratulations from Athens to all involved in this exciting project 👏

A Dutch archaeological mission from Leiden University has uncovered a tomb in the Lower Sheikh Abd El-Qurna area of Luxor’s West Bank, adding a significant new chapter to the archaeological record of the Theban Necropolis.

14/07/2026

"While studying the dead, I fell in love with life."

A vivid report written by NIA-grant holder Christina Karasimou (MSc Archaeological Science Universiteit Leiden / Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology - Universiteit Leiden) from lively Athens.
Now on our NIA-blog (Link in first comment)

(Sofia Voutsaki)

24/06/2026

📅 Save the Date

7 July 2026: An evening in commemoration of Lucy van Schelle and Sophia Topali-van Schelle

In the Greek village of Kato Lechonia, near Volos, some 350 kilometers north of Athens, stands a monument: a mulberry tree, pollarded, cast in bronze. And around the trunk, three nooses in relief. The monument has been erected in the village square in memory of the brutal deaths of a 69-year-old mother, her 44-year-old daughter and their 40-year-old friend and fellow villager. Lucy, Sofia and Filitsa.

On 7 July 1944, they were murdered here, hanged from a mulberry tree. By whom exactly remains unclear. Some say it were only members of withdrawing German occupying forces. Others mention the involvement of Greek collaborators. The reason for the ex*****on is also unclear. Sometimes it is said that it was due to the refusal to provide food to the German occupiers; at other times, the talk is that the women actively supported the Greek partisans.

Later (it is not known exactly when), the remains of Lucy and Sofia were transferred to Athens, to be laid to rest in the city’s first cemetery in the family grave where Panagiotis Topalis (Lucy’s husband and Sofia’s father) had also found his final resting place. Their names were carved in Greek on the gravestone; without a year of birth and with an incorrect date of death: 7 June 1944.

No one knew where the monument was located until former NIA director Winfred Van De Put came across it during a visit to the cemetery in 2019. The marble column stands in a remarkably prominent position, overlooking the central square in front of the Greek Orthodox church of the cemetery. For many years, the grave had been neglected, overgrown and enclosed by a rusty fence.

At the request of Lucy and Sofia’s relatives living in Brazil, the NIA mediated last year in the carrying out of the necessary maintenance work on the grave, which now once again honours the memory of Lucy van Schelle, her husband Panagiotis Topalis and their daughter Sofia.

📅 On 7 July this year, the NIA will reflect on the lives and deaths of Lucy and Sofia. Not only to remember both women, but also in an effort to share this unique piece of Dutch-Greek microhistory with a wider audience.

We are very happy that Prof. Emeritus Riki van Boeschoten (University of Thessaly, Volos), who has been researching the remembrance and forgetting of this small piece of history for many years, has accepted our invitation to give an introductory talk at the NIA. This will be followed by a visit to the grave monument (the first cemetery is a 15-20 minute walk from the Institute), where anyone who wishes to do so may leave a flower.

🕖 You are warmly invited to attend this special evening, which will be held in English and starts at 18:00.
🔗To register (in person or on-line) please click the link in the first comment.
📅 We look forward to welcoming you on 7 July.
📷 The family grave on Athens' 1st Cemetery (Picture: Winfred van de Put)

22/06/2026

📢 Read all about Ridley Huie's (MA Northern European and Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Amsterdam / Universiteit van Amsterdam) research stay in Athens, in his contribution to our NIA-blog "A research stay at the NIA and the EC I Conundrum" (link in first comment).

18/06/2026

📢 We happily share and support the initiative of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Greece to organize a Network Group for Alumni from Dutch Universities who are living in Greece!