Reaching an audience of millions with stories about the Bronze Age

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At a ceremony in Brussels, Professor Philipp Stockhammer has received an ERC Public Engagement with Research Award (PERA). Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council (ERC), presented Stockhammer with the public outreach award, which comes with a prize of 10,000 euros, “for innovative public engagement on the ancient origins of the Mediterranean diet, reaching global audiences through edutainment and media.” The award recognizes ERC grantees who successfully engage audiences outside the academic community.

In the outreach initiative “PastFood,” the LMU archeologist builds on his ERC Starting Grant project “FoodTransforms,” showing that the Mediterranean diet is the result of an early global network that goes back at least to the Bronze Age. “From the beginning, it was our plan to share our results with people of all age groups around the world,” says Stockhammer. “We reckoned that the deeper history of the Mediterranean diet would spark a lot of interest.”

To address young people

In addition to numerous newspaper articles and activities in social networks, Stockhammer reached millions of viewers through his contributions to TV documentaries about ancient Egypt. He also co-developed the computer game "Epic Palace: Knossos". Available in English and German, the game teaches users about life in Bronze Age Greece through play.

In his acceptance speech in Brussels, Stockhammer stressed how important it is for him to address young people in particular, who are generally hard to reach by traditional means such as newspaper articles and exhibitions. Moreover, he wants to pass on this approach to his students. “I’ve started to teach students not only our scientific results, but also how to carry out comprehensive and entertaining public outreach work.”