Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus

Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus

Author: Priscilla Keswani

Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd.

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9781904768036

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A ground-breaking investigation of burial practices and social transformations in the era when Cypriot agricultural communities moved from village to urban life and became major players in the eastern Mediterranean copper trade. The author develops an innovative theoretical and methodological approach that enables her to define and elucidate the shifting spatial relationships between tombs and habitation areas, the elaboration of rituals involving secondary treatment and collective burial, and changing patterns of mortuary expenditure and symbolism throughout the Bronze Age. Keswani proposes that during the Early-Middle Bronze periods, the growing elaboration of mortuary festivities and their crucial importance in negotiating status hierarchies contributed to the intensification of Cypriot copper production and the expansion of interregional exchange relations. Subsequent changes in mortuary practice suggest that the importance of collective burial rites and traditional modes of ritual display diminished over the course of the Late Bronze Age, as urban institutions multiplied and the bases of social prestige were transformed.


The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant

The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant

Author: Raphael Greenberg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-11-07

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1107111463

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An up-to-date, systematic depiction of Bronze Age societies of the Levant, their evolution, and their interactions and entanglements with neighboring regions.


Cyprus Before the Bronze Age

Cyprus Before the Bronze Age

Author: Vassos Karageorghis

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 1990-05-17

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 0892361689

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The latest finds--architectural remains, burial objects, stone artifacts, pottery, and copper objects--from recent excavations indicate that Cyprus played a more pivotal role in pre-Bronze Age socioeconomic development than was previously thought. This book describes findings from excavations at Lemba, the site where the most important new information about this period has been uncovered. Included are illustrations of many previously unpublished or unexhibited materials from both the Cyprus Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum. This book serves as a catalog to the February 1990 exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum.


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

Published: 2015-01-12

Total Pages: 1677

ISBN-13: 131619406X

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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.


Byblos in the Late Bronze Age

Byblos in the Late Bronze Age

Author: Marwan Kilani

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-10-07

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9004416609

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In Byblos in the Late Bronze Age, Marwan Kilani reconstructs the “biography” of the city of Byblos during the Late Bronze Age, exploring its interactions and development in relation with the contemporary local and macroregional cultural and geopolitical reality.


Mycenaean Greece and the Aegean World

Mycenaean Greece and the Aegean World

Author: Margaretha Kramer-Hajos

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-08-15

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 131679072X

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In this book, Kramer-Hajos examines the Euboean Gulf region in Central Greece to explain its flourishing during the post-palatial period. Providing a social and political history of the region in the Late Bronze Age, she focuses on the interactions between this 'provincial' coastal area and the core areas where the Mycenaean palaces were located. Drawing on network and agency theory, two current and highly effective methodologies in prehistoric Mediterranean archaeology, Kramer-Hajos argues that the Euboean Gulf region thrived when it was part of a decentralized coastal and maritime network, and declined when it was incorporated in a highly centralized mainland-looking network. Her research and analysis contributes new insights to our understanding of the mechanics and complexity of the Bronze Age Aegean collapse.


Script and Society

Script and Society

Author: Philip J. Boyes

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 1789255848

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By the 13th century BC, the Syrian city of Ugarit hosted an extremely diverse range of writing practices. As well as two main scripts – alphabetic and logographic cuneiform - the site has also produced inscriptions in a wide range of scripts and languages, including Hurrian, Sumerian, Hittite, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Luwian hieroglyphs and Cypro-Minoan. This variety in script and language is accompanied by writing practices that blend influences from Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Levantine traditions together with what seem to be distinctive local innovations. Script and Society: The Social Context of Writing Practices in Late Bronze Age Ugarit explores the social and cultural context of these complex writing traditions from the perspective of writing as a social practice. It combines archaeology, epigraphy, history and anthropology to present a highly interdisciplinary exploration of social questions relating to writing at the site, including matters of gender, ethnicity, status and other forms of identity, the relationship between writing and place, and the complex relationships between inscribed and uninscribed objects. This forms a case- study for a wider discussion of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of writing practices in the ancient world.