Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP)

The Western Argolid Regional Project is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to collect and interpret evidence of human activity from prehistory to the modern day in the western Argolid (located in the northeastern Peloponnese, in southern Greece). Although Argos is an important city in virtually every period of Greek history, a systematic regional study of its hinterland has never been undertaken. The project aims to conduct an intensive archaeological survey that will shed light on the city’s relationships to its immediate countryside and to the communities located therein. The survey area, located in the Inachos river valley, is the region best suited to archaeological survey within the territory of Argos. A major thoroughfare of overland traffic in the Peloponnese also crossed through this region, highlighting the fact that the western Argolid was anything but isolated. Revealing the nature of the regional and interregional networks that connected these communities to each other is crucial to reconstructing their economic, social, and political structures. Because Argos and the Argive plain play a central role in scholarly discourses, such as the political geography of Late Bronze Age Greece and the emergence of the Greek city-state, this work is poised to make significant and wide-ranging contributions to Greek archaeology and history.