The 11th season of the international field school for archaeology took place at Stobi between the 25th of June and the 23rd of July, as part of the partnership with the Bulgarian foundation “Balkan Heritage” since 2010. 12 students from Canada, USA and Australia were part of the training program for learning of the basic methods of archaeological documentation and the creation of field documentation which includes field journal, photography, photogrammetry, technical documentation, locus sheets and field inventory. The excavations took place between the Theodosian palace and the so-called Prison, revealing the remains of two buildings which existed during the Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval period. These structures are separated from the Theodosian palace by a street and they incorporate the walls of the so-called prison. The investigations of the area began in 2014 as part of the international field school. Their goal is to document the relation between the Theodosian Place and the Prison, as well as research of the “Prison” in order to define its purpose, the period of construction and period of use. As a reminder, a marble statue of Dionysus was discovered during the field school excavations in 2019. The statue was made in the 2nd-3rd century and it was reused as a building material in the walls of the 6th-7th century. Besides fieldwork, the program includes lectures about Roman history and archaeology of Macedonia, educative visits of Ohrid, Bitola and Skopje, and an optional visit of Pella and Vergina.
The field school was financed by the donations of the student participants and realized by the professionals from NI Stobi, Balkan Heritage and Queens University in Canada.