Jacob M Engstrom

Jacob Engstrom is a PhD candidate specializing in Aegean Prehistory. For the 2024-25 academic year he is the Heinrich Schliemann Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Jacob's research focuses on transcultural interactions and cultural entanglements, stylistic change and adoption, and regional variation in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Aegean. His dissertation project, "Aegean Marine Style: Relational and Contextual Approaches to Stylistic Change and Ceramic Consumption" takes a cross-media approach to Marine Style pottery as an interregional and transcultural case study in the dynamics of development, adoption, and change in pottery styles and ceramic production, distribution, and consumption practices. He holds further research interests in the intellectual and political history of archaeology in the Aegean; archives; ideologies of Hellenism and Philhellenism; and archaeological theory (especially network dynamics, relational approaches, assemblage theory, and semiotics).

Jacob has worked as an excavation supervisor with UC's Palace of Nestor Excavations at Pylos, the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project at Ancient Eleon, and the Olynthos Project. He has also assisted with pottery study at Ayia Irini, Kea.

Before coming to Cincinnati, Jacob earned a BA Honours with Distinction from the University of Victoria. He defended his MA thesis at UC in 2022, offering a critical and integrative historiographical analysis of Carl Blegen's excavations at Troy (1932-38) based on research in the Department's archives. In addition to his dissertation, Jacob maintains ongoing research projects on Ayia Irini, the history of the Department and Blegen's excavations at Troy, and Archaic and Classical votives from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta.

B.A. Honours: University of Victoria 2020 (Greek and Roman Studies)

M.A.: University of Cincinnati 2023 (Classics)

2024 -2025 American School of Classical Studies at Athens Heinrich Schliemann Fellowship

2022 University of Cincinnati Marion and Dorothy Rawson Fellowship

2022 University of Cincinnati Cedric G. Boulter Fellowship

Peer Reviewed Publications

(with G. C. Braun) (2022. ) Lead Figurines from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Canada): Problems of Typology and Collections History .Annual of the British School at Athens, , 117, ,pp. 195-228

Engstrom, Jacob M. (forthcoming) A Marble Engraving of a "Mycenaean" Warrior from Ayia Irini, Kea: Island Iconography and Social Context .Hesperia, ,

Other Publications

Engstrom, Jacob M. (in progress) "...Still believe in Helen": An Archive Study of the University of Cincinnati Expedition to the Troad, Institutional Politics, and Archaeological Knowledge Production .

Book Chapter

Engstrom, Jacob M. (2024 ) Archive Archaeology and Critical Disciplinary Histories: A Case Study on the Origins of the University of Cincinnati Expedition to the Troad (1932-1938) Trends in Archive Archaeology: Current Research on Archival Material from Fieldwork and its Implications for Archaeological Practice .(pp. 91-114).Turnhout, Brepols

Paper Presentations

Engstrom, Jacob M. and Nicholas P. Herrmann (2020. ) Tomb 11 at Ancient Eleon (Boeotia): An Early Mycenaean Ossuary in a Built Funerary Environment .121st AIA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. Conference. Level:International

Engstrom, Jacob M. (2023. ) Carl Blegen and Homeric Troy: An Archival History of the Origins and Objectives of the University of Cincinnati Troy Expedition .124th AIA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. Conference. Level:International

Engstrom, Jacob M. (2023. ) 'The Royal Bridge': Carl Blegen and the Hellenization of Troy in the Interwar Aegean .ASOR Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. Conference. Level:International