The research program of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw is focused on primary archaeological research in the field, through institutional excavation projects and individual research work.
The territorial scope of the Centre’s projects has been historically the Ancient Near East and Northeastern Africa (Egypt and Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus and Lebanon). It has extended to include the Gulf and Arabia (Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia), Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia) and, most recently, North Africa (Tunisia).
The PCMA’s projects are focused on the fields of interest of its core research staff, augmented by individual grant projects carried out through the PCMA. Today, this is Pharaonic and Classical Egypt, prehistory of the Near East in the Gulf, the Classical Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, the Red Sea and Arabia, with expert focus on pottery and material culture studies, bioarchaeology, and the archaeology of death.
The PCMA’s strong history of partnering researchers from Polish academic institutions throughout the country results in a broadening of PCMA’s projects’ scope to include the research interests of the staff of the University of Warsaw’s Institute of Archaeology, the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and various other university and museum departments. A number of projects are carried out in partnership with universities and institutions abroad.
The PCMA is open to participation in international archaeological salvage projects, individually and in partnership with foreign institutes. Last but not least, the Centre is a key partner in comprehensive archeological site presentation and museum display projects, undertaken in partnership with the antiquities services of the countries in which the projects are based.
Map of all PCMA field projects up till 2016