L.M. (Laura) Magno, PhD

I received my MA in Archaeology at La Sapienza University of Rome (2013-2015). During my master I specialized in prehistory and micromorphology thanks to a one year visiting student position at the Eberhard Karl Universität, Tübingen. I was Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the M.H. Wiener Laboratory of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens between 2019-2021. On December 1, 2023, I was awarded a PhD from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) with a doctoral thesis, entitled “Sissi and its cultural sediments: material culture, built environment and cultural dynamics of a Cretan Bronze Age site approached through archaeological soil micromorphology”.

In 2024 I was awarded the Michael Ventris Memorial Award for a project titled: Minoan Earth and Plaster Floors: New Typologies and Building Techniques.

Since 2016, I have worked as permanent staff at the Palace of Nestor Excavations in Pylos (University of Cincinnati-ASCSA) and as a micromorphologist at the Minoan site of Sissi on Crete (Belgian School at Athens-UCLouvain).

I have been instructor for the Aegean prehistory part of the British School at Athens Undergraduate Course from 2021 till 2024.

My research focuses on Aegean Bronze Age urban sites and built environments and more specifically on the role played by sediments once affected by human agency and integrated within architectural contexts. For this, I combine geoarchaeological analytical techniques with the theoretical framework of materiality as applied to the study of material culture. I am also intrested in the study of building techniques, material and methods used in the construction of earth and plaster floors.

My MSCA research project GRASSP “Geoarchaeological Relations between Architectural Space and Social Practices” investigates the social practices connected to the architectures through geoarchaeological techniques. The project focuses on the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700 – 1100 BCE) Mycenaean site of Pylos (Greece).