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103
IX/1/2018
InterdIscIplInarIa archaeologIca
natural scIences In archaeology
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
A look at the region
OREA: The Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology,
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Barbara Horejs
a*
a
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Hollandstraße 11–13, A-1020 Vienna, Austria
1. Institutional history
The Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology
(OREA) was founded in 2013 by uniting three long-
established commissions: the Prehistoric Commission, the
Commission for Egypt and the Levant and the Mycenaean
Commission. The study of the past was one of the main
concerns when the Austrian Academy of Sciences was
founded in 1847. Accordingly, the “Commission for the
promotion of prehistoric research and excavations on
Austrian territory“, set up by the Division of Mathematics
and Natural Sciences in 1878, is one of the oldest research
units of the Academy. The “Egyptian Commission” was
founded in 1907 and the “Commission for Mycenaean
research” was added signifcantly later, in 1971. After
an international evaluation in autumn 2015, the OREA
institute was permanently established at the Austrian
Academy of Sciences in June 2016.
2. Institutional structure and facilities
The OREA research team currently comprises a director,
assistant director, sixty-three research staf, four editorial
staf, and three administrative staf, with an additional twenty-
fve afliated scientists. The Institute houses a subject library
with an active acquisition programme, several archives, a
lecture room, and seminar room. Additional facilities include
a Raw Materials Laboratory and a Digital Archaeology Lab.
The Institute also houses the
Collection Schachermeyr
of
Neolithic and Bronze Age ceramics. Fritz Schachermeyr, who
was Chair of the Mycenaean Commission from its founding
in 1971 until his death in 1987, built an impressive ceramic
collection covering the entire eastern Mediterranean. The
collection, consisting of around 2000 fragments and some
entire ceramic vessels, was donated to the OREA institute to
guarantee access to experts for ceramic studies. A permanent
exhibition of selected sherds was installed at OREA in 2017
using historic display cases from the Schachermeyr period.
In recent years, the Institute has focused on digitizing
archaeological data from older excavations and collections. For
Volume IX ● Issue 1/2018 ● Pages 103–109
*Corresponding author. E-mail: orea@oeaw.ac.at
ArtIClE InfO
Article history:
Received: 10
th
April 2018
Accepted: 10
th
August 2018
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.24916/iansa.2018.1.7
Key words:
Orient
Europe
economy
identity
interdisciplinary studies
environment
digital archaeology
AbStrACt
The Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology is one of Austria’s leading research facilities
for archaeological research and covers essential prehistoric and early historical cultural developments
from the Near East to Europe. The orient and occident are frequently understood as counterpoints
in diferent worlds and explored separately. In this research institute, these areas are deliberately
considered a common cultural bracket for crucial advances of human (pre)history and are therefore
explored together. The focus of basic research lies in the time horizon from the Quaternary,
about 2.6 million years ago, to the transformation of societies into historical epochs in the frst
millennium BC.
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example, documentation of excavations at the Urnfeld Culture
site of Thunau-am-Kamp, a fortifed hilltop settlement, is
almost completely digitized in cooperation between OREA,
the county of Lower Austria, and the Austrian Centre for
Digital Humanities (ACDH) of the Austrian Academy
of Sciences. The extensive analysis and interpretation of
the Late Bronze Age cemetery of Franzhausen-Kokoron
includes a digital, interactive open-access catalogue, via
the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, with overview
plan, basic inventory data, and photographs and drawings
of fnds and contexts (http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/franzhausen-
kokoron2/). Material from the cemetery of Inzersdorf forms
the basis of a 2017 Masters thesis by M. Fritzl. These eforts
also provide a basis for collaboration between research
groups, for example between Urnfeld Culture Networks
and Prehistoric Identities. Various other archive materials,
such as the intensive collection of excavation data from
Tell el-Dab’a in Egypt, are in process of digitalization
and re-organisation for long-term storage and open access
presentation in the future (https://www.orea.oeaw.ac.at/
forschung/digital-archaeology/a-puzzle-in-4d/).
3. Research
Research methods include archaeological feldwork
(excavations and surveys), material culture studies with
diverse archaeometric methods, and interdisciplinary
cooperation with a range of diferent disciplines, including
archaeozoology, archaeobotany, anthracology, biological
anthropology, palaeogenetics, climatology, geoarchaeology
and landscape modelling. The basic analysis and
interpretation of early cultures lies at the core of research
eforts, which aim to include all possible sources. The study
of chronologies, art and early writing as well as a broad
socio-cultural spectrum including religion, ideologies and
identities compliment research at the institute, with the main
foci being:
•
Prehistory in the Orient & Europe.
•
Archaeology from the Pleistocene to Early State
Societies.
•
Environments & Economies, Digital Archaeology.
•
Interdisciplinary Studies of Resources & Identities.
OREA researchers cover a wide range of disciplines
from Prehistoric Archaeology, Egyptology, Sudanese
Archaeology, Near/Middle Eastern and early Greek
Archaeology to various philologies, Anthropology, Digital
Archaeology and Raw Material Studies. In 2018, about 70
OREA researchers are working in 17 countries in Europe and
the Near East conducting feldwork at sites spanning from
the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age.
For ongoing national and international quality assurance
as well as additional research funding, the Institute strives for
Figure 1.
Current research projects at
OREA (map: M. Börner/OREA).
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success in competitive external funding. Financial support is
provided by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the European
Research Council (ERC), the EU Marie Curie programme,
and INSTAP, as well as by the Austrian National Bank
(ÖNB), the White Levy Fund, the City of Vienna, the County
of Lower Austria, and various private foundations. OREA
is the only archaeological institution in Austria holding
highly competitive grants. Altogether four ERC Grants (3
Starting, 1 Advanced) and four FWF START prizes mark
OREA as one of the leading institutes in the international
feld of archaeology.
Targeted research on diferent priorities is concentrated
in research groups spanning broad regions and designed
to be trans-regional and diachronic. Research groups are
constantly being initiated and developed to pick up new
trends in the research landscape and provide new impetus.
The following nine research groups are established at OREA
as of spring 2018:
Quaternary Archaeology (group leader: Thomas
Einwögerer), Anatolian Aegean Prehistoric Phenomena
(group leader: Barbara Horejs), Levantine and Egyptian
Histories (group leaders: Roman Gundacker and Felix
Höfmayer), Material Culture in Egypt & Nubia (group
leader: Bettina Bader), Tell el-Dab’a Publications
(coordination: V. Müller), The Mycenaean Aegean (group
leader: Birgitta Eder), Mediterranean Economies (group
leader: Reinhard Jung), Prehistoric Identities (group
leader: Katharina Rebay-Salisbury), UCN Urnfeld Culture
Networks (group leader: Mario Gavranovic).
3.1 Quaternary archaeology
The Quaternary Archaeology research group deals with
interdisciplinary research of Palaeolithic societies, from
approximately 100,000 years ago to the end of the last glacial
period and the gradual settlement in the period up to the sixth
millennium BC. The primary focus of the research is in the
time between 40,000 and 18,000 years ago, and cultural
developments from climatic, ecological and economic
perspectives, as well as human-environmental interactions
in light of changing resources. In addition to research at
well-known sites such as Krems-Wachtberg and Stratzing,
the group is involved in research on Gravettian red ochre
burials, the Quaternary Archaeology Database Project, and
forms the foundation for the Raw Materials Laboratory.
3.2 Anatolian aegean prehistoric phenomena
The central theme of the Anatolian Aegean Prehistoric
Phenomena (AAPP) group is the holistic analysis of Neolithic,
Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in Anatolia and the
Aegean from a supra-regional perspective. This enables
a better understanding of phenomena that connected these
two major spheres of cultural infuence. The AAPP research
group unites researchers from both regions and applies
interdisciplinary analyses and systematic comparisons in
an efort to overcome the diferent research traditions and
orientations of international academic schools. This efort is
crucial for understanding causes and socio-cultural impacts.
The Balkans as direct contact zones and links to inner Europe
are integrated in this broad geographical approach.
Figure 2.
OREA research focus pyramid.
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106
3.3 Prehistoric identities
Aspects of prehistoric identities, the building blocks of
how people saw themselves and others, include age, sex
and gender, descent, social relationships, ethnicity, status
and religion. Many of these aspects are inextricably linked
to the human body, through which the world is experienced
and which is the biological basis of existence. Material
culture is directly involved in the creation and maintenance
of identities, as well as serving to categorize people. The
Prehistoric Identities group works to recreate individual
life histories of prehistoric persons with the help of the
latest scientifc methods that reconstruct stressful events
and traumas, health and nutrition, lineages and genetic
origin, motherhood and child rearing, and mobility and
migration.
3.4 Levantine and Egyptian histories
Over the last century, Near Eastern Studies, Biblical
Archaeology, and Egyptology have developed individual
approaches and specifc traditions in addressing the historical
questions and specifc problems of the pre-classical period
of the wider Near East. The Austrian Academy of Sciences
is one of the few international research institutions that has
developed a multidisciplinary focus on, and an integrative
approach to, the history and archaeology of Egypt and the
Levant. The Levantine and Egyptian Histories research group
aims to consolidate and expand this internationally unique
research profle and to continue stimulating and advancing
cooperation between Egyptology, Biblical Archaeology, and
Near Eastern Studies.
3.5 Material culture in Egypt and Nubia
Egyptology remains a text-centred discipline, stressing
historical and political interpretations derived from textual
sources rather than the material objects used by ancient
Egyptians. A discrepancy in theoretical applications exists
between archaeological remains that constitute a large
portion of ancient Egyptian heritage, and texts in the widest
sense. Many of these texts expressed political processes and
opinions, written by elite members for a socially restricted
group who were able to read. The Material Culture in Egypt
and Nubia research group, whilst not ignoring the textual
evidence, focuses on the evidence from ‘things’ in order to
compare artefacts with source groups transmitting political
aspects. In this way, diferences and similarities of these
source types will be highlighted and more information on
social and cultural processes obtained.
3.6 Tell el-Dab’a publications
The central theme of the Tell el-Dab’a Publications group
is the synoptic analysis and fnal publication of the Tell el-
Dab’a excavations carried out under the direction of M.
Bietak from 1966 to 2009. Based on the publication concept
developed in 2014, in particular a cooperation agreement
with the Austrian Archaeological Institute, members of
this research group concentrate on specifc topics of the
excavations at ancient Avaris, the modern Tell el-Dab’a.
3.7 The Mycenaean Aegean
The Mycenaean Aegean research group takes up the long
and strong tradition of the ÖAW Aegean & Anatolian section
on the Bronze Age palace and text cultures of the second
millennium in the Aegean. The group brings together all
ongoing larger and smaller projects dealing with diferent
aspects of the Mycenaean culture and the Middle Bronze
Age (Minoan Crete, Central European mainland), including
projects on the political structures of Mycenaean Greece
and its political geography, the genesis and transformations
of Bronze Age Aegean cultures, the northern and western
regions of Mycenaean Greece, relations between the Greek
mainland and Crete during the Late Bronze Age, written
testimonies of Linear B-boards, Mycenaean religious practice
and rituals, and Middle Helladic and early Mycenaean
burials and graves. The geographical area covers all areas of
the Mycenaean culture from Thessaly to Crete and from the
Ionian Islands to the Dodecanese and the coast of Asia Minor
from Miletus to Halicarnassus.
3.8 Mediterranean economies
A central aspect of the Mediterranean Economies research
group projects is the notion that the development of the
forces of production constitutes a decisive factor in the
development of economic and political structures of all
social systems, and therefore also determines contacts
between societies to a large extent. Therefore, modes of
production and property as well as exchange relationships
between diferent Mediterranean societies form the basis of
the diferent research programmes. For the potential of this
approach to be carried out requires close interdisciplinary
cooperation of archaeologists with colleagues from a wide
range of disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences.
In addition to the archaeological evidence, written sources
are an important part of this research.
3.9 Urnfeld culture networks
The Urnfeld Culture Networks (UCN) is a broad-based
competence centre of researchers from diferent regions
integrated in a common network. UCN connects existing,
large projects conducted over several years with current
research questions regarding the period from 1300 to 800
BC (Urnfeld Culture, Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age). The
network involves archaeologists from central and southeast
Europe and covers a wide range of topics, including material
culture, burial, and ritual. It is therefore an ideal research base
for junior and senior researchers from Austria and abroad.
3.10 Enigma of Hyksos project
In addition to the aforementioned Research Groups, The
Enigma of Hyksos project, led by Manfred Bietak, examines
the Hyksos, a dynasty of foreign rulers in power in Egypt
between c.1640 and 1530 BC. Their exact geographical
origin in the Levant, the process of their seizure of power
in Egypt, and their role in history remains an enigma,
as the period is poorly represented in texts. Despite this
dearth of textual data, the Hyksos phenomenon has mainly
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107
been studied within text-based Egyptology, ignoring other
possible sources such as archaeological remains, burial
customs, settlement patterns, and biological data. Combining
new data from recent excavations at several places in
Egypt’s eastern Delta with fnds stored in several museums
around the world, scholars can now examine enormous
quantities of objects refecting the material culture and
physical remains attributable to the carriers of the Hyksos
rule and their predecessors. The Enigma of Hyksos project is
conducted in eight interrelated research tracks, incorporating
archaeological analyses, cultural interference studies,
new onomastic studies, bioarchaeology (ancient DNA and
strontium isotopes), and gas-phase chromatography. The
aim of this interdisciplinary project is to reveal the origin
of the western Asiatic population, the dialogue with the host
country, the impact on the culture of the latter and fnally
their heritage in Egypt.
4. Publication strategy
The institutes’ strategy covers two diferent felds of publication:
OREA’s own publication series and external international
publications of OREA scientists. The institute publishes two
international journals and fve publication series. All series and
journals edited and published by OREA are internationally peer-
reviewed and follow high state-of-the-art standards for scientifc
publications, regularly monitored by the Austrian Academy of
Sciences and its publishing house as well as by international
ranking institutions (Thomson Reuters, ERIH).
Figure 3.
Publication series of OREA with
recent volumes (layout: A. Schwab/OREA).
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Barbara Horejs: OREA: The Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences
108
Figure 4.
The two internationally ranked
journals with recent volumes (layout: A.
Schwab/OREA).
Series
OREA
Oriental and European Archaeology
CAENL
Contributions to the Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia and the Levant
UZK
Studies of the Cairo branch of the Austrian Archaeological Institute
MPK
Mitteilungen der Prähistorischen Kommission (Communications of
the Prehistoric Commission)
MykStud
Mykenische Studien (Mycenaean Studies)
Journals
Ägypten und Levante / Egypt and the Levant
International Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and Related Disciplines
Archaeologia Austriaca
International Journal on the Archaeology of Europe
Selected Publications by OREA members from 2017
ALRAM-STERN, E., 2017. Die chalkolithischen Statuetten von Ägina-
Kolonna.
Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts
, 85,
2016, 7–56.
ANDRESON, W., HOPPER, K., ROBINSON, A., eds., 2017.
landscape
Archaeology in Southern Caucasia. finding Common Ground in Diverse
Environments. Proceedings of the workshop held at 10
th
ICAAnE in
Vienna, April 2016
. Oriental and European Archaeology 8. Vienna: ÖAW.
BUDKA, J., 2017.
Acrossborders I. the new Kingdom town of Sai Island,
Sector SAV1 north
. Contributions to the Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia
and the Levant 4. Vienna: ÖAW.
BURKE, A.A., PEILSTÖCKER, M., KAROLL, A.B., PIERCE, G.A.,
KOWALSKI, K., BEN-MARZOUK, N., DAMM, J.C., DANIELSON,
A.J., FESSLER, H.D., KAUFMAN, B., PIERCE, K.V.L., HÖFLMAYER,
F., DAMIATA, B.N. and DEE, M.W., 2017. Excavations of the New
Kingdom Fortress in Jafa, 2011–2014. Traces of Resistance to Egyptian
Rule in Canaan.
American Journal of Archaeology,
121, 85–133.
FISCHER, P.M. and BÜRGE, T., eds., 2017.
‘Sea Peoples’ Up-to-Date.
new research on transformations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the
13
th
–11
th
Centuries bCE
. Contributions to the Chronology of the Eastern
Mediterranean, 35. Vienna: ÖAW.
GUNDACKER, R., 2017. Papyrus British Museum 10056. Ergebnisse einer
Neukollationierung und Anmerkungen zur inhaltlichen Auswertung im
Rahmen der militärischen Ausbildung Amenophis’ II.
Egypt and levant,
27, 281–334.
HAAG, S., HOREJS, B., POPOV, H. and PLATTNER, G., eds., 2017.
Das erste Gold. Ada tepe. Das älteste Goldbergwerk Europas.
Eine
Ausstellung des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien in Kooperation mit
dem Nationalen Archäologischen Institut mit Museum der Bulgarischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sofa (NAIM), und dem Institut für
Orientalische und Europäische Archäologie der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften (OREA). Vienna.
HÖFLMAYER, F., 2017. A Radiocarbon Chronology for the Middle Bronze
Age Southern Levant.
Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections,
13,
20–33.
HOREJS, B., 2017.
Çukuriçi Höyük 1. Anatolia and the Aegean form the 7
th
to the 3
rd
Millennium bC
. Oriental and European Archaeology, 5. Vienna:
ÖAW.
HOREJS, B., 2017. Zum Alltagsleben der Ada Tepe Goldproduzenten
im 15. Jh. v. Chr. Das Fundensemble aus Haus 7 in funktionaler und
kontextueller Analyse.
Archaeologia Austriaca,
101, 205–268.
HOREJS, B. and SCHWALL, Ch., 2018. Interaction as a stimulus? Çukuriçi
Höyük and the transition from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Early
Bronze Age in Western Anatolia. In: S. Dietz, F. Mavridis, Ž. Tankosić,
and T. Takaoğlu, eds.
Communities in transition: the Circum-Aegean
Area in the 5
th
and 4
th
Millennia bC
. Oxford: Oxbow, 530–537.
JUNG, R., ALEXANDROV, S., BOZHINOVA, E. and MOMMSEN,
H. (with an appendix by HEIN, A. and KILIKOGLOU, V.), 2017.
Mykenische Keramik in der Rhodopenregion. Herkunft, regionaler
Kontext und sozioökonomische Grundlagen.
Archaeologia Austriaca,
101, 269–302.
MEYER-HEINTZE, S., SPRAFKE, T., SCHULTE, P., TERHORST,
B., LOMAX, J., FUCHS, M., LEHMKUHL, F., NEUGEBAUER-
MARESCH, C., EINWÖGERER, T., HÄNDEL, M., SIMON, U. and
SOLÍS-CASTILLO, B., 2017. The MIS 3/2 transition in a new loess
profle at Krems-Wachtberg East. A multi-methodological approach.
Quaternary International,
464(B), 370–385.
POPOV, H., KOLEVA, M., ANDONOVA, A., DIMITROVA, J. and
VĂLČEV, I., 2017. Das Goldbergwerk auf dem Ada Tepe. Zu Topografe,
Stratigrafe, Chronologie und Interpretation des Nordareals.
Archaeologia
Austriaca,
101, 161–204.
REBAY-SALISBURY, K., 2017. Breast is best – and are there alternatives?
Feeding babies and young children in prehistoric Europe,
Mitteilungen
der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien,
147, 13–29.
REBAY-SALISBURY, K., 2017. Rediscovering the body: cremation and
inhumation in early Iron Age Central Europe. In: J.I. Cerezo-Román,
A. Wessman and H. Williams, eds.
Cremation and the Archaeology of
Death
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 52–71.
REBAY-SALISBURY, K., 2017. Bronze Age beginnings: the
conceptualisation of motherhood in prehistoric Europe. In: D. Cooper and
C. Phelan, eds.
Motherhood in Antiquity
. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
169–196.
SCHWALL, Ch., 2017.
Çukuriçi Höyük 2. Das 5. und 4. Jahrtausend v. Chr.
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Barbara Horejs: OREA: The Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences
109
in Westanatolien und der Ostägäis
. Oriental and European Archaeology,
7, Vienna: ÖAW.
WILCZAK, C.A., MARIOTTI, V., PANY-KUCERA, D., VILLOTTE, S.
and HENDERSON, C.Y., 2017. Training and interobserver reliability
in qualitative scoring of skeletal samples.
Journal of Archaeological
Science, reports,
11, 69–79.
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www.orea.oeaw.ac.at
Barbara Horejs – a scientifc profle
Barbara Horejs, director of OREA since its establishment,
studied Prehistory and Protohistory as well as Classical
Archaeology at the Universities of Vienna, Athens and Berlin.
She took a PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology from the Freie
Universität Berlin in 2005 and became Honorary Professor at
the University in Tübingen 2015. She was awarded an FWF
START grant in 2010 and an ERC Starting Grant in 2011 for
“Prehistoric Anatolia”. From 2011–2012, she was Director
of the Young Curia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
(ÖAW), and since 2015 Corresponding Member of the
Division of Humanities and the Social Sciences of the Austrian
Academy of Sciences, as well as being Corresponding
Member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI)
since 2016. She is (Co-)Editor of the journal Archaeologia
Austriaca and the monograph series Mitteilungen der
Prähistorischen Kommission (MPK), Mykenische Studien,
and Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA). Her
primary research interests are Prehistoric archaeology and
Landscape archaeology in south-eastern Europe, the Aegean,
and Anatolia; the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age,
including the advanced civilizations of Late Bronze Age; the
intersections of diferent cultural areas, knowledge transfer
and communication networks; and the relative and absolute
chronologies between the Danube Region and Anatolia. She
became Director of the Institute for Oriental and European
Archaeology (OREA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences,
Vienna in 2013.
Prof. Dr. Barbara Horejs
Director OREA
Hollandstrasse 11–13, 1020 Vienna
barbara.horejs(at)oeaw.ac.at
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