The 46th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies was held from 23rd to 25th of March at the University of Birmingham, and this year it was dedicated to Byzantine Greece, as a miniature of the Empire.

The symposium was attended by experts in byzantine history, most of whom are university professors from all around the world, with recent findings on Byzantine art in Greece from the 4th to the 12th century.

There were two announcements on Thessaly. The first one was by Stavroula Sdrolia, archaeologist of the 7th Ephoreia (Inspectorate) of Byzantine Antiquities, who presented the Velika Castle, as an indicative case of a fortified settlement of Greek territory in late Antiquity. The castle was built in the 6th century on ancient relics, to protect local populations from raiders. The architecture and artifacts, many of which were presented for the first time, having been just restored, indicate an organized settlement of the era, engaged in commercial traffic in the Aegean, as well as other coastal villages of Greece. The announcement was made with the cooperation of the archaeologist Sophia Ntintioumi and highlighted the great importance of this monument, which preserves intact Justinian buildings, since it was inhabited at a later period.

The second announcement was made by Alcibiadis Ginali , researcher at the University of Oxford, concerning the new findings in the harbour of Skiathos, which were the result of a coastal and underwater survey conducted last summer, participating in a research team of Underwater Antiquities (Inspectorate) Ephoreia of Classical Antiquities , Volos and the 7th Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities
A byzantine jetty was identified in this research, with a 7th century inscription as well as other parts of the harbor construction, many wrecks of ancient and Byzantine period, as well as seaside ruins, which demonstrate the significant position of the harbour of Skiathos in navigation from ancient until modern times.

At the same Conference, Eugenia Gerousi, the Director of Byzantine Antiquities of the Ministry of Culture, presented a panorama of recent excavations of Greek territory, carried out within the framework of major projects, and provided an extensive report on the findings from the works at Tempi and Karla. Especially the Byzantine Inn of Tempe, one of the few samples of Greek territory, piqued the attention of Conference participants, as it relates to the reconstruction of the Byzantine Empire from the 9th century onwards. The second phase of the Byzantine cemetery of Azorou, published earlier by L. Deriziotis and P. Kouyioumtzoglou, was placed in the same historical context by a foreign researcher,

The above surveys illustrate the important position of Thessaly in the history and art of Byzantium, as its central geographical position allowed it to participate directly in the developments of all times, and also demonstrated the important research effort made in recent years.