Eleanor Quasebarth Neil has received a scholarship from the Elizabeth Munksgaard Fonden to participate in the 2026 excavation season at Erimi-Pitharka, led by Lærke Recht (Head of World Heritage, Moesgaard Museum). She will be working with the excavation team on the development of a community engagement initiative.

Pitharka’s Late Bronze Age remains include domestic architecture, ceramic production, and evidence of community life, demonstrating Cyprus’s position within Eastern Mediterranean networks during a period of profound social and political transformation. Today, the site provides an opportunity not only to investigate the distant past but also to reimagine how archaeological research can engage meaningfully with local communities in the present.

The community engagement initiative will include local residents, school groups, and heritage associations from Erimi and surrounding villages will be invited to collaborate in shaping narratives and learning about the site. A central component will be community-led digital heritage creation: participants will select a feature, object, or space from the excavation to digitise. This will allow participants to reflect critically and expressively on their experiences, producing narratives that can reveal as much through what is left unsaid as through what is depicted.

The results of this work will be twofold: 1) open-access digital models and new opportunities for dialogue around archaeological heritage and 2) scholarly examination of how contemporary community archaeology in Cyprus inherits, challenges, and reconfigures the legacies of past archaeological research and relationships.