At its annual awards ceremony yesterday evening, 18th December 2025, Greece’s national academy of arts, science and letters, the Academy of Athens, awarded Teresa Shawcross the “Lykourgeio Prize”.
Τhe prize was given this year in Arts and Letters in the field of History for “an original, synthetic work” on “a subject relating to the history of the Greek nation from earliest antiquity to the contemporary era”. The plenary assembly of the Academicians decided to recognise Teresa Shawcross in this way because “by her outstanding work, Wisdom’s House, Heaven’s Gate: Athens and Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, she very greatly advances the study of the history and geography of our Mediterranean Sea, as well as the knowledge of the philosophy, theology, and manners of those dwelling around it”.
The original statement, written in Ancient Greek, as befits an institution that considers itself to be a direct heir of the ancient academy founded by Plato in Athens, reads: “ὅτι τῷ ἐξόχῳ αὐτῆς πονήματι Wisdom’s House, Heaven’s Gate: Athens and Jerusalem in the Middle Ages τὴν περί τὴν ἱστορίαν καὶ γεωγραφίαν τῆς καθ᾽ἡμᾶς μεσογείου θαλάσσης μελέτην, ἅμα δὲ καὶ τὴν περὶ τὴν θεολογίαν τά τε ἤθη τῶν περὶ αὐτὴν οἰκούντων γνῶσιν τὰ μέγιστα προάγει”.
We would like to say a massive Congratulations to Professor Shawcross!!!