« Iktinia » refers to Iktinos, the famous architect of Classical Greece, said to have designed the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens and the Temple of Apollo at Bassai, two of the most innovative buildings of their time.

Iktinia is a research project aiming to investigate the ways in which technical and formal features of ancient architecture were transferred, adopted and adapted across the Greek world from the Archaic (ca 700 BCE) to the Hellenistic period (ca 30 BCE).

The project combines the study of ancient architectural remains and epigraphic and literary sources in order to better understand the geographic and social networks of the various agents of construction, including architects, craftsmen, artists, commissioners, etc.

Reconstructing these networks is crucial to understand the factors facilitating or constraining the diffusion of architectural innovations, as well as the socio-economic mechanisms that underlaid them.