Organization

The archaeological investigation of New Halos and its territory started in 1976 and is conducted as a collaboration between the Netherlands Institute at Athens, the archaeological departments of the Universities of Groningen and Amsterdam (Netherlands) and the 13th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities at Vólos (Greece).

The focus of the project is on the city of New Halos itself: the environmental setting, its fortifications, the layout of the lower town with residential areas and the layout of the upper town where public buildings were situated. Over the years, houses, a sanctuary, streets, circuit wall towers and gates were excavated to unravel the plan of the city and study aspects like defense, animal husbandry and plant cultivation, household, cult and ritual, economy and contacts.

In a wider context the project aims at investigating the territory that once belonged to the city of New Halos. Archaeological surveys have been conducted in the Almirós and Soúrpi plains as well as the Óthris mountains to study the occupation history of the territory, covering all periods from Neolithic to recent times. Another aim of the survey was to determine which archaeological sites were important enough to warrant inclusion in the list of protected monuments of the Greek state.