The Prepalatial Cemeteries at Mochlos and Gournia and the House Tombs of Bronze Age Crete

The Prepalatial Cemeteries at Mochlos and Gournia and the House Tombs of Bronze Age Crete
Author: Jeffrey S. Soles
Publisher: ASCSA
Total Pages: 342
Release: 1992
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780876615249

This book is a study of the house tombs of Crete based on a reexamination of the extant remains at the cemeteries of Gournia and Mochlos. Excavated in the beginning of the century by Harriet Boyd Hawes (Gournia) and Richard B. Seager (Mochlos), the cemeteries underwent cleaning operations in 1971, 1972, and 1976. These later investigations resulted in a more thorough understanding of the sites; actual-state plans and sections of the tombs and over-all maps of the cemeteries were produced. Chapters I and II present the excavations of the cemeteries of Gournia and Mochlos. A description of the cemetery as a whole unit is followed by a discussion of each tomb that includes bibliography, a description of location and excavation, a description of architecture, information about burials and chronology, and a catalogue of new and reexamined finds. Chapter III is a catalogue of all known tombs of this type in Crete. These two sections are tied together by the architectural discussion in Chapter IV. Chapter V, Offerings and Shrines, and Chapter VI, Burials and Social Ranking, explore the uses of house tombs and their significance in the religious and political life of early Greece. The volume has a comprehensive index, map and plans of the sites, line drawings of many of the catalogued objects, and photographs of the tombs and found objects.

Prehistoric Crete

Prehistoric Crete
Author: Joanne M. Murphy
Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2011-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1623031176

Since the inception of Minoan archaeology, studies pertaining to tombs and tomb deposits have played seminal roles in our understanding of Minoan culture and the reconstruction of Bronze Age society. For several geographical areas and chronological periods of Cretan history, tombs are the most abundant source of data. Each author in this volume takes a clear and distinct approach to the data, including some that emphasize political geography on multi-regional and multi-scalar levels, some that examine the commemoration of the dead and of the community for legitimizing purposes but also for maintaining and/or creating elite positions in social systems, and others that underline the overlap between mortuary rituals and religion. The aim of this volume is not to present all tombs in all periods on Crete comprehensively, but the breadth of these papers is intended generate a discourse not just among archaeologists working in different areas and time periods on Crete but also among archaeologists in Greece and a broader anthropological audience.

Incomplete Archaeologies

Incomplete Archaeologies
Author: Emily Miller Bonney
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2016-03-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1785701185

Incomplete Archaeologies takes a familiar archaeological concept – assemblages – and reconsiders such groupings, collections and sets of things from the perspective of the work required to assemble them. The discussions presented here engage with the practices of collection, construction, performance and creation in the past (and present) which constitute the things and groups of things studied by archaeologists – and examine as well how these things and thing-groups are dismantled, rearranged, and even destroyed, only to be rebuilt and recreated. The ultimate aim is to reassert an awareness of the incompleteness of assemblage, and thus the importance of practices of assembling (whether they seem at first creative or destructive) for understanding social life in the past as well as the present. The individual chapters represent critical engagements with this aim by archaeologists presenting a broad scope of case studies from Eurasia and the Mediterranean. Case studies include discussions of mortuary practice from numerous angles, the sociopolitics of metallurgy, human-animal relationships, landscape and memory, the assembly of political subjectivity and the curation of sovereignty. These studies emphasize the incomplete and ongoing nature of social action in the past, and stress the critical significance of a deeper understanding of formation processes as well as contextual archaeologies to practices of archaeology, museology, art history, and other related disciplines. Contributors challenge archaeologists and others to think past the objects in the assemblage to the practices of assembling, enabling us to consider not only plural modes of interacting with and perceiving things, spaces, human bodies and temporalities in the past, but also to perhaps discover alternate modes of framing these interactions and relationships in our analyses. Ultimately then, Incomplete Archaeologies takes aim at the perceived totality not only of assemblages of artifacts on shelves and desks, but also that of some of archaeology’s seeming-seamless epistemological objects.

The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age

The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age
Author: Cynthia W. Shelmerdine
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2008-08-04
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1107494621

This book is a comprehensive up-to-date survey of the Aegean Bronze Age, from its beginnings to the period following the collapse of the Mycenaean palace system. In essays by leading authorities commissioned especially for this volume, it covers the history and the material culture of Crete, Greece, and the Aegean Islands from c.3000–1100 BCE, as well as topics such as trade, religions, and economic administration. Intended as a reliable, readable introduction for university students, it will also be useful to scholars in related fields within and outside classics. The contents of this book are arranged chronologically and geographically, facilitating comparison between the different cultures. Within this framework, the cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age are assessed thematically and combine both material culture and social history.

An Archaeology of Land Ownership

An Archaeology of Land Ownership
Author: Maria Relaki
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1135050449

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.

Kleronomia

Kleronomia
Author: Jerolyn E. Morrison
Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2022-12-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623034337

The 27 papers in this volume harken to the themes that Jeffrey Soles has influenced during his illustrious career in Aegean Bronze Age archaeology: ancestry, burial customs, religion, trade, jewelry, the development of the Minoan settlement of Mochlos in eastern Crete, and the rise and fall of the Minoan civilization.

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean
Author: A. Bernard Knapp
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1677
Release: 2015-01-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131619406X

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean offers new insights into the material and social practices of many different Mediterranean peoples during the Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting in particular those features that both connect and distinguish them. Contributors discuss in depth a range of topics that motivate and structure Mediterranean archaeology today, including insularity and connectivity; mobility, migration, and colonization; hybridization and cultural encounters; materiality, memory, and identity; community and household; life and death; and ritual and ideology. The volume's broad coverage of different approaches and contemporary archaeological practices will help practitioners of Mediterranean archaeology to move the subject forward in new and dynamic ways. Together, the essays in this volume shed new light on the people, ideas, and materials that make up the world of Mediterranean archaeology today, beyond the borders that separate Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Exploring a Terra Incognita on Crete

Exploring a Terra Incognita on Crete
Author: Konstantinos Chalikias
Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2019-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1623034221

This book brings together for the first time scholars working on the Bronze Age settlement patterns and material culture of the southern Ierapetra Isthmus, a region that actively participated in the coastal and maritime trade networks of East Crete. During the past few decades, while various archaeological projects focused on the northern isthmus, the Ierapetra area remained largely neglected and unknown, a terra incognita. Yet, new excavations at Gaidourophas, Anatoli Stavromenos, Chryssi Island, Bramiana, and the ongoing research at the site of Myrtos Pyrgos are showing that the coastal area of Ierapetra was a vibrant and thriving settlement landscape during the Bronze Age. Far from being simply on the periphery of the major Minoan centers, the southern Ierapetra Isthmus played important roles in the cultural dynamics of Crete. Aiming to be the first building block in the development of an archaeological understanding of the region of the southern Ierapetra Isthmus, this book presents the status of the discipline and indicates future research trajectories.

The Art and Archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age

The Art and Archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age
Author: Jean-Claude Poursat
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 994
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1108571190

The Art and Archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age offers a comprehensive chronological and geographical overview of one of the most important civilizations in human history. Jean-Claude Poursat's volume provides a clear path through the rich and varied art and archaeology of Aegean prehistory, from the Neolithic period down to the end of the Bronze Age. Charting the regional differences within the Aegean world, his study covers the full range of material evidence, including architecture, pottery, frescoes, metalwork, stone, and ivory, all lucidly arranged by chapter. With nearly 300 illustrations, this volume is one of the most lavishly illustrated treatments of the subject yet published. Suggestions for further reading provide an up-to-date entry point to the full richness of the subject. Originally published in French, and translated by the author's collaborator Carl Knappett, this edition makes Poursat's deep knowledge of the Aegean Bronze Age available to an English-language audience for the first time.

Material Connections in the Ancient Mediterranean

Material Connections in the Ancient Mediterranean
Author: Peter van Dommelen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2010-09-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136903461

Material Connections eschews outdated theory, tainted by colonialist attitudes, and develops a new cultural and historical understanding of how factors such as mobility, materiality, conflict and co-presence impacted on the formation of identity in the ancient Mediterranean. Fighting against ‘hyper-specialisation’ within the subject area, it explores the multiple ways that material culture was used to establish, maintain and alter identities, especially during periods of transition, culture encounter and change. A new perspective is adopted, one that perceives the use of material culture by prehistoric and historic Mediterranean peoples in formulating and changing their identities. It considers how objects and social identities are entangled in various cultural encounters and interconnections. The movement of people as well as objects has always stood at the heart of attempts to understand the courses and process of human history. The Mediterranean offers a wealth of such information and Material Connections, expanding on this base, offers a dynamic, new subject of enquiry – the social identify of prehistoric and historic Mediterranean people – and considers how migration, colonial encounters, and connectivity or insularity influence social identities. The volume includes a series of innovative, closely related case studies that examine the contacts amongst various Mediterranean islands – Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus, the Balearics – and the nearby shores of Italy, Greece, North Africa, Spain and the Levant to explore the social and cultural impact of migratory, colonial and exchange encounters. Material Connections forges a new path in understanding the material culture of the Mediterranean and will be essential for those wishing to develop their understanding of material culture and identity in the Mediterranean.