Kari Fossum

Bryn Mawr College

Doreen Canaday Spitzer Fellow

Research Topic: Contextualizing Metal Consumption in Archaic Aegean Thrace

Kari Fossum is a PhD candidate in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College. In her dissertation project, Kari investigates the social and economic landscapes of Aegean Thrace during the first half of the first millennium BCE, focusing on the dynamic relationships between shifting networks of interaction and exchange, the exploitation of metallic resources, and monetization – including, but not limited to, the introduction of coinage –, by taking a multidisciplinary approach combining pXRF analysis with typological and contextual study of metal, especially silver and bronze, objects.

Kari earned her BA in Classics at Mount Holyoke College in 2021, and her MA in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr in 2023 with a thesis focusing on the relationship between numismatics and the construction of community identities in Greek “colonies” around the Black Sea. She has experience excavating in Italy at Poggio Civitate, an early Etruscan site, and Greece, with the Molyvoti, Thrace Archaeological Project, and has also contributed to the Athenian Agora Excavations and American Excavations Samothrace.