Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Craft Technologies in the Second Millennium BCE Aegean

The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece exhibition at the Getty Villa brings together some of the most exquisite artistic creations of the second millennium BCE Aegean. Many of these objects were the products of cultural fusion and combined elements from different artistic traditions originating in Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece, and areas far beyond. This presentation will examine the highly demanding techniques goldsmiths and seal-engravers used to create many of the objects in this exhibition. Following the lecture, Akis Goumas will demonstrate the main steps of the technical processes involved in Mycenaean gold-working (sheet metal, wire, granulation, etc.) and Minoan seal-engraving (soft materials and hard stones).

Demonstration by Akis Goumas
The artist and researcher of ancient technologies Akis Goumas will demonstrate the main steps of the technical processes involved in:
– Mycenaean gold-working (sheet metal, wire, granulation etc.)
– Minoan seal-engraving (soft materials and hard stones).

The demonstration is based on the results of studies conducted in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, the Herakleion Archaeological Museum, other museums in Greece, and the Corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals at Heidelberg, Germany, which involved microscopic examination of artefacts, archaeometric analyses and experimental reconstructions.
The studies have been conducted in collaboration with Dr Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi, of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, and Dr Nikolas Papadimitirou, of the Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum, Athens. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss with Mr Goumas and try some of the tools and materials used in the experiments.

Saturday, November 15, 2025, at 2:00 P.M., in 314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus



Bios:
Nikolas Papadimitriou is the Director of the Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum, Athens, Greece. He specializes in the Aegean Bronze Age, with an emphasis on Mycenaean burial practices, cultural interaction in the Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium BCE, the prehistory of Athens and Attica, and the study of craft technologies. Previously, he worked as a Lecturer at the Institute of Classical Archaeology, Heidelberg University, Germany, the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens and the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. Currently, he is co-directing research projects at the archaeological sites of Marathon, Thorikos (Attica) and Kato Samikon (Elis). He has a rich publication record and has received research fellowships from the Centers of Hellenic Studies at Princeton and Harvard (2011, 2017).

Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi is Curator at the Department of Prehistoric, Egyptian, Cypriot and Near Eastern Collections of Antiquities at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. She graduated from the University of Ioannina, Greece, and received her PhD at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on the Late Bronze Age Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, with special interest in Mycenaean jewelry and dress. She has given seminars and lectures on the history and technology of Mycenaean jewelry in Greece and abroad and has written articles and book chapters on various Late Bronze Age issues. For the past decade, she has been co-directing a multi-disciplinary project for the reconstruction of ancient gold-working techniques, while she is currently studying the corpus of metal signet rings housed in the Mycenaean Collection of the National Archaeological Museum.

Akis Goumas is a contemporary jewelry maker and researcher of ancient crafting technologies. After receiving a Diploma in Economics (1978), he was trained as a jeweler and silversmith. From 1982 to 1986 he studied gemology and seal engraving in Greece and Germany. Between 1990 and 2006 he was the head designer in the jewelry company ONAR. Since 2000, he has been teaching creative jewelry at the Chalkis School of Art, and since 2017 at the ANAMMA Jewelry School in Athens, and the ALCHIMIA Contemporary Jewelry School in Florence. Since 2006, he is member of an interdisciplinary group of researchers, who study ancient gold-working and seal-engraving techniques. In 2021 he was a Visiting Artist at the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies. Ιn 2023-24, he was the holder of a Homo Faber fellowship, established by Jaeger LeCoultre and Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship. In 2024-25 he participated in the organization of the exhibition Art in Gold. Jewelry in Hellenistic Times at the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece.


This event is organized by Professor David Schneller (UCLA) and Dr. Claire Lyons (Getty) and is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).