Labyrinth Revisited

Labyrinth Revisited
Author: Yannis Hamilakis
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN:

`Minoan' Crete is one of the most intensively investigated archaeological cultures in the world, and one that has often captured the public imagination. It is a Bronze Age Aegean society, but it has been intimately connected with the Classical Greek myth of King Minos and his Labyrinth since Sir Arthur Evans excavated and restored (some would say `rebuilt') the important site of Knossos, more than a century ago. Yet many archaeological interpretations of this fascinating culture are still largely traditional in focus and often anachronistic. This collection of papers, challenging and re-examining many conventional and established versions of 'Minoan' history is thus long overdue. How have modern preconceptions and socio-political developments shaped archaeological interpretations of 'Minoan' society? What were the gender roles and attitudes of the inhabitants of Bronze Age Crete? How can data such as the puzzling architecture, the stunning wall-paintings, the elaborate and abundant pots, the landscape and the way it is perceived by humans, help us understand the nature and the negotiations of power and the role of the so-called palaces? These are some of the questions that this book addresses, considering 'Minoan' archaeology from a variety of interpretive angles, and situating 'Minoan' archaeology in the mainstream of archaeological thinking and practice.

Editing the Image

Editing the Image
Author: Mark Arthur Cheetham
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0802092489

Editing the Image looks at the editing of visual media as both a series of technical exercises and as an allegory.

The Complete Archaeology of Greece

The Complete Archaeology of Greece
Author: John Bintliff
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2012-03-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118255208

The Complete Archaeology of Greece covers the incredible richness and variety of Greek culture and its central role in our understanding of European civilization, from the Palaeolithic era of 400,000 years ago to the early modern period. In a single volume, the field's traditional focus on art and architecture has been combined with a rigorous overview of the latest archaeological evidence forming a truly comprehensive work on Greek civilization. *Extensive notes on the text are freely available online at Wiley Online Library, and include additional details and references for both the serious researcher and amateur A unique single-volume exploration of the extraordinary development of human society in Greece from the earliest human traces up till the early 20th century AD Provides 22 chapters and an introduction chronologically surveying the phases of Greek culture, with over 200 illustrations Features over 200 images of art, architecture, and ancient texts, and integrates new archaeological discoveries for a more detailed picture of the Greece past, its landscape, and its people Explains how scientific advances in archaeology have provided a broader perspective on Greek prehistory and history Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title

Side-by-Side Survey

Side-by-Side Survey
Author: Susan Alcock
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1785704761

Twenty years ago, John Cherry looked forward to the day when archaeological survey projects working around the Mediterranean region (the 'Frogs round the pond') would begin to compare and synthesize the information they had collected. He anticipated researchers tackling big questions of interregional scope in new and interesting ways, working at a geographical scale considerably larger than that of the individual survey. Was his optimism misplaced? Despite the extraordinary growth of interest in field survey projects and regional analysis, and despite the developments in survey methodology that have been discussed and implemented in the past two decades, few scholars have attempted to use survey data in a comparative mode and to answer the broad-scale questions confronting social historians. In this volume, which is the outcome of an advanced Workshop held at the University of Michigan in 2002, a number of prominent archaeologists return to the question of comparability. They discuss the potential benefits of working in a comparative format, with evidence from many different Mediterranean survey projects, and consider the practical problems that present roadblocks to achieving that objective. From mapping and manuring to human settlement and demography, environment and culture, each addresses different questions, often with quite different approaches; together they offer a range of perspectives on how to put surveys "side-by-side". Contributors include Susan E Alcock, John Cherry, Jack L Davis, Peter Attema, Martijn van Leusen, James C Wright, Robin Osborne, David Mattingly, T J Wilkinson, and Richard E Blanton.

From Stonehenge to Mycenae

From Stonehenge to Mycenae
Author: John Barrett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2019-06-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474291902

This book reconsiders how we can understand archaeology on a grand scale by abandoning the claims that material remains stand for the people and institutions that produced them, or that genetic change somehow caused cultural change. Our challenge is to understand the worlds that made great projects like the building of Stonehenge or Mycenae possible. The radiocarbon revolution made the old view that the architecture of Mycenae influenced the building of Stonehenge untenable. But the recent use of 'big data' and of genetic histories have led archaeology back to a worldview where 'big problems' are assumed to require 'big solutions'. Making an animated plea for bottom-up rather than top-down solutions, the authors consider how life was made possible by living in the local and materially distinct worlds of the period. By considering how people once built connections between each other through their production and use of things, their movement between and occupancy of places, and their treatment of the dead, we learn about the kinds of identities that people constructed for themselves. Stonehenge did not require an architect from Mycenae for it to be built, but the builders of Stonehenge and Mycenae would have shared a mutual recognition of the kinds of humans that they were, and the kinds of practices these monuments were once host to.

Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks

Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks
Author: Filippo Carlà-Uhink
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2020-04-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474297854

Theme park studies is a growing field in social and cultural studies. Nonetheless, until now little attention has been dedicated to the choice of the themes represented in the parks and the strategies of their representation. This is particularly interesting when the theme is a historical one, for example ancient Greece. Which elements of classical Greece find their way into a theme park and how are they chosen and represented? What is the “entertainment” element in ancient Greek history, culture and myth, which allows its presence in commercial structures aiming to people's fun? How does the representation of Greece change against different cultural backgrounds, e.g. in different European countries, in the USA, in China? This book frames a discussion of these representations within the current debates about immersive spaces, uses of history and postmodern aesthetics, and analyses how ancient Greece has been represented and made “enjoyable” in seven different theme parks across the world, providing an original and ground-breaking contribution to theme park studies and classical reception.

Cretan Bronze Age Pithoi

Cretan Bronze Age Pithoi
Author: Kostandinos S. Christakis
Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2005-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1623030781

The pithos is one of the most distinctive utilitarian forms of the Cretan Bronze Age ceramic repertoire. Because of its use as a storage container, a pithos is the foremost parameter for the evaluation of the economic organization of palatial and domestic sectors of Cretan Bronze Age society. The pithoi as pottery and their significance for the understanding of the Cretan Bronze Age economy has been the focus of a research project carried out from 1989 to 1999. This book is not a pithos handbook in the narrow sense, although the study offers a typological division of the data with comments on chronology and spatial distribution. It integrates stylistic considerations with broad fabric and technological observations in order to understand the production and consumption of pithoi.

Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East

Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East
Author: Claudia Glatz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2016-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1315422565

This volume reevaluates the role and social significance of plain pottery traditions in a range of early complex societies of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from both historically specific perspectives and from a comparative point of view.

An Archaeology of Land Ownership

An Archaeology of Land Ownership
Author: Maria Relaki
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1135050430

Within archaeological studies, land tenure has been mainly studied from the viewpoint of ownership. A host of studies has argued about land ownership on the basis of the simple co-existence of artefacts on the landscape; other studies have tended to extrapolate land ownership from more indirect means. Particularly noteworthy is the tendency to portray land ownership as the driving force behind the emergence of social complexity, a primordial ingredient in the processes that led to the political and economic expansion of prehistoric societies. The association between people and land in all of these interpretive schemata is however less easy to detect analytically. Although various rubrics have been employed to identify such a connection – most notable among them the concepts of ‘cultures,’ ‘regions,’ or even ‘households’ – they take the links between land and people as a given and not as something that needs to be conceptually defined and empirically substantiated. An Archaeology of Land Ownership demonstrates that the relationship between people and land in the past is first and foremost an analytical issue, and one that calls for clarification not only at the level of definition, but also methodological applicability. Bringing together an international roster of specialists, the essays in this volume call attention to the processes by which links to land are established, the various forms that such links take and how they can change through time, as well as their importance in helping to forge or dilute an understanding of community at various circumstances.