木瓜福利影视

Research Profile

Dr. Floris van den Eijnde is Lecturer and Researcher in Ancient History at the Department of History and Art History, Utrecht 木瓜福利影视. His work explores processes of social and cultural integration in the premodern Mediterranean world, with particular attention to the interplay between religious institutions, political organization, and material culture. Combining archaeological evidence with anthropological and sociological theory, his research investigates how ritual practices, communal feasting, and sacred space structured civic life and collective memory in the Greek world. 

Van den Eijnde鈥檚 early work focused on the formation and rise of the Athenian polis between 1200 and 500 BCE, culminating in his doctoral dissertation Cult and Society in Early Athens (Utrecht 2010). This research demonstrated the central role of local sanctuaries in mediating social cohesion and political innovation after the collapse of the Bronze Age palatial system. Building on these insights, his later monograph (Brill 2018) analysed commensality as a social technology of inclusion and differentiation in early Greek society. His broader interest lies in the longue dur茅e of Mediterranean connectivity鈥攈ow local communities negotiated global networks of exchange, cult, and identity.

Since 2019, van den Eijnde has led the UU Research Group Sacrality and the Greek Polis and co-directs HIERON: Network for the Study of Ancient Greek Sanctuaries. He is also founder and co-director of the UU Network for Mediterranean Studies, the national OIKOS Research Group Cultural Interactions in the Ancient World, and editor-in-chief of the Brill book series Cultural Interactions in the Mediterranean. Recent editorial projects include Empires of the Sea (Brill 2020) and Late Antique Responses to the Arab Conquest (Brill 2022).

Fieldwork and landscape archaeology form an integral part of his approach. Since 2011 he has co-directed the Thorikos Fieldwork Project in Attica and now directs the interdisciplinary Nea Triglia Fieldwork Project in Chalkidiki, Greece, which investigates long-term human鈥搇andscape interactions from prehistory to modern refugee heritage. His current research, supported by the NWO Zwaartekracht Anchoring Innovation programme, examines the canonization of political and religious innovations in Classical Greece.

Through these intersecting projects, van den Eijnde seeks to connect the archaeology of sacred space with broader questions of social transformation, identity, and institutional development鈥攐ffering a comparative, interdisciplinary perspective on how communities in the ancient Mediterranean made sense of the divine, the civic, and the human.

He was a fellow of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA, 2000-2001) and has participated in the excavation of the Athenian Agora (1998-2002). As of 2011, he codirects the near Lavrio, in Attica, Greece. This long-term excavation and survey project aims to understand the settlement history of Thorikos, its importance in the emergence and functioning of the Classical Athenian polis and the role played by the local silver industry.

Floris van den Eijnde teaches Greek history, with special attention to material culture and written sources. From 2018-2024  he directed the Research Master Ancient Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He was further involved in the creation and coordination of several BA programmes (Major Foundations of Europe, Minor Archaeology, Minor Ancient Culture).

He holds MA degrees in Mediterrean Archaeology (2000) and Classics (2001) from the 木瓜福利影视 of Amsterdam and in Education (2004) from the Free 木瓜福利影视 in Amsterdam. He has been at Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 since 2004, where he successfully defended his doctoral thesis in 2010.

Areas of Interest

• Cultural Interaction in the Mediterranean
• Greek history and archaeology (ca. 1100-300 BCE)
• The Athenian polis
• Mediterranean history
• Greek sanctuaries and sacrality
• State formation and institutions
• Integration processes
• Cultural interaction
• Feasting theory/commensality