To celebrate our 2026 Research Grant recipients , we connected with this year’s awardees to learn more about their projects and the unique paths that led them into the field of archaeology. We’re thrilled to introduce Emily Egan, one of two recipients of the prestigious 2026 Richard C. MacDonald Iliad Endowment for Archaeological Research Grant ! Emily Egan (University of Maryland) Tell us about your project : My project, conducted under the auspices of the Hora Apotheke Reorganization Project (HARP) directed by Sharon Stocker of the University of Cincinnati, examines the decorated interiors of the Palace of Nestor, one of the key sites of Homer’s Odyssey. It looks specifically at the palace’s mural program, currently comprising more than 17,000 fragments, to understand the diachronic story of painting at Pylos and interrogate how painting choices might inform scholarly thinking about other areas of Mycenaean life, including religion, social practice, and politics.…