Belgian School te Athene
The Belgian School te Athene or École Belge d'Athènes ( Greek Βελγική Σχολή Αθηνών , EBSA or BSA or EBA for short ) is one of 17 foreign archaeological institutes in Greece , all of which have their headquarters in Athens .
The school was founded in 1985 when the Greek government raised the Comité des fouilles belges en Grèce asbl to the rank of “Archaeological School”, with the condition, however, to take its seat in Athens. The committee itself became a non-profit organization in 1965 as the successor to the Center national des fouilles à l'extérieur , an organization founded in 1962 on a private initiative to coordinate and oversee Belgian archaeological activities in Greece. The Center national was founded by three former Belgian members of the École française d'Athènes , which had been working with Belgian archeology in Greece since the beginning of the 20th century.
The first activity was the excavation in Thorikos in 1963 , initially with the support of the Belgian Fonds de la recherche fondamentale collective à l'initiative des chercheurs , later the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek / Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique , both ministerial institutions. The excavation house in Thorikos, built in the early 1970s, became the center of the Belgian archaeological mission in Greece and developed into a contact point equipped with all the facilities necessary for research.
Since 1999 the Belgian school has received an annual budget for logistical support; However, she only achieved financial security in 2002 with the establishment of the Center belge de recherches archéologiques en Grèce , which is supported by the Belgian universities, the state and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels . In 2003 the Belgian School te Athene / École belge d'Athènes was finally founded as a company under Greek law with its seat in Athens in accordance with Greek law. The first director was Christiane Tytgat , who previously worked at the École Française . Since 2007 the school has been run by Steven Soetens . His successor has been Jan Driessen since 2012 .
Current research focuses on the excavations in Thorikos, in Sission on Crete and in Titane near Corinth . The Belgian School does not publish its own publication organ, but takes part in the publication of journals from Belgian universities. The school organizes congresses and exhibitions on topics related to Greek archeology.
literature
- Elena Korka (Ed.): Foreign Archaeological Schools in Greece: 160 Years . Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens 2005, pp. 48–51.