Stanford University joined the Monte Polizzo project in 1999, when Michael Shanks and Emma Blake brought a dozen Stanford students to Salemi, Sicily and began analysis of finds from the 1998 excavations. In 2000, Ian Morris began excavating on the acropolis with students from Stanford and other universities and volunteers from Salemi, Corleone, and Marsala. In 2001 Jennifer Trimble carried out a magnetometry survey, and by 2002 the acropolis excavation had become one of the largest archaeological projects in the west Mediterranean, with a staff of more than eighty people, drawn from the US, Italy, Canada, Britain, Spain, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. Stanford’s excavation is funded primarily by the Tressider Fund and the Undergraduate Research Projects program, directed by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. For more information, visit the Monte Polizzo Project website.
