From 1983-2012, under the direction of Caroline and Hector Williams (University of British Columbia), research, remote sensing, and excavation were used to explore the Acropolis/Early Modern castle and the Lower City of the polis of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Founded by settlers from central Greece around 1000 BCE, Mytilene has flourished from the Archaic period down to the present. Excavations (1983-1992) at the highest point of the large Byzantine-Genoese castle that dominates the seaward side of Mytilene revealed a previously unknown sanctuary to the chthonic goddesses Demeter and daughter Persephone (Kore) and the burial chapel of the Gattelusi, a Genoese family who ruled Lesbos and much of the northern Aegean between 1355-1462. Founded around 400 BC, the sanctuary, with many hearths, a dining room, a Sacred house, and thousands of terracotta figurines, oil lamps, pots, and more, continued in use until early Roman times. The Gattelusi chapel provided a number of skeletons of men and women of the late medieval period that have provided much information about local diet from chemical analysis of the bones and about life generally from studies of age, sex, and illnesses apparent in the remains. Remains of Ottoman villages attest to trade connections, while a huge dump of industrial debris from the 3rd-2nd centuries BC contained evidence for pottery and figurine manufacture, bone and horn work, cloth making and dyeing, and metal work in bronze and iron.
More on the project can be found here: https://portal.cig-icg.gr/node/548
