About

Susan C. Ferrence earned her PhD from Temple University in Philadelphia (2008). Her dissertation focused on the elite burial artifacts from the Early to Middle Minoan secondary burial cave of Hagios Charalambos in Lasithi, Crete, Greece. She has published numerous articles on the use of various forms of scientific analyses—such as proton-induced X-ray emissions (PIXE), laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF)—to inform our understanding of the manufacture and meaning of artifacts from Minoan Crete. Susan has also co-written two articles in a medical journal, Perspectives in Medicine, one of which is about the medicinal use of saffron at Akrotiri entitled “Therapy with Saffron and the Goddess of Thera.” She is field director of the renewed excavations in the Pelekitά Cave in eastern Crete. She has worked for several other excavation projects in Crete including Chrysokamino, Pseira, Chryssi island, Petras, and Pacheia Ammos. She is the Director of Publications at INSTAP Academic Press in Philadelphia where she manages the publication of excavation reports and other scholarly monographs on Aegean Bronze Age art and archaeology. Susan also consults on the Minoan collection in the Mediterranean Section of the Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology).