Set on the Greek island of Crete, The Shape of Crete is a thrilling drama and passionate love story between a Bulgarian artist, Steffi, and James, an American historian. Rekindling their romance after a separation, Crete's history of ancient myths and Nazi occupation entwines them in surprise and danger. They meet an Englishman searching for traces of his brother missing since 1943, and a local woman whose father was a partisan war leader; and then, shards of information reveal Steffi's grandfather fought with the Nazis. Danger lurks when a local thug decides Steffi and Jim's relationships with the others concerns gold lost in the war. The final tension-driven scenes unfold in a labyrinth-like cave in the spirit of the mythical battle between Theseus and the Minotaur. The unexpected conclusion questions whether love's best outcome is enlightenment or physical survival.
Vrokastro remains one of the few Early Iron Age settlements excavated in Crete, and it is key to understanding the nature and history of regional settlement during this period. Volume I of the Vrokrastro survey presents the first catalogue of the pottery excavated from the settlement and cemeteries by Edith Hall in 1910 and 1912, along with a brief analysis of metal objects from the town and its cemeteries and new profile drawings and photographs. This site is important for its size, long settlement history that includes both the Bronze and Early Iron Age, and its artifacts, which reveal a local pottery tradition and contacts with other areas of Crete and the Aegean. In addition, Vrokastro is the only completely excavated site within the survey boundaries, and is thus the type-site for the new systematic survey recently undertaken in this area. Barbara Hayden provides new insights concerning the chronology of the settlement and its tombs, the nature of occupation at the site over 500 years, and commentary on burial practices and techniques. She reviews the evidence for contacts with other areas in Crete and the Aegean. This publication will be of use to those interested in ceramics of the period, settlement patterns, history, trade, burial customs, and metalworking. Following the first two catalogues of the Cretan collection of the Museum's Mediterranean Section, its conclusions are an integral part of the overall Vrokastro regional survey.
An ethnographic study of a Greek island community’s culture in the face of modern times. Sfakians on the island of Crete are known for their distinctive dress and appearance, fierce ruggedness, and devotion to traditional ways. Konstantinos Kalantzis explores how Sfakians live with the burdens and pleasures of maintaining these expectations of exoticism for themselves, for their fellow Greeks, and for tourists. Sfakian performance of masculine tradition has become even more meaningful for Greeks looking to reimagine their nation’s global standing in the wake of stringent financial regulation, and for non-Greek tourists yearning for rootedness and escape from the post-industrial north. Through fine-grained ethnography that pays special attention to photography, Tradition in the Frame explores the ambivalence of a society expected to conform to outsiders’ perception of the traditional even as it strives to enact its own vision of tradition. From the bodily reenactment of historical photographs to the unpredictable, emotionally-charged uses of postcards and commercial labels, the book unpacks the question of power and asymmetry but also uncovers other political possibilities that are nested in visual culture and experiences of tradition and the past. Kalantzis explores the crossroads of cultural performance and social imagination where the frame is both empowerment and subjection. “In this original, beautifully written, and often moving monograph, Konstantinos Kalantzis has produced a lasting contribution to the anthropological study of contemporary Europe. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Tradition in the Frame explores with exquisite detail a number of timely themes—the social life of photographs, conflicting tourist and local images of Crete, the performance of gender stereotypes, and the complex tension between tradition and modernity. The author’s ability to view the world through the eyes of natives and foreigners, and to deconstruct visual signs and symbols, is nothing short of stunning. For anyone interested in Europe and the Mediterranean world today, this richly documented and theoretically sophisticated volume is a must read.” —Stanley Brandes “Tradition in the Frame is a richly innovative ethnography focusing on the visual dimensions of modern Cretan mythmaking, and especially on the material reproduction and negotiation of time-honored stereotypes of warrior masculinity. Writing of a society that has largely shifted its economy from shepherding to tourism, Kalantzis incisively demonstrates how the realities of commercial exploitation and socio-political change re-frame familiar images of a society at once proudly central to the symbolism of national identity and yet also still reluctant to accept the merest hint of intrusive authority.” —Michael Herzfeld
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.
This volume presents the primary archaeological report about the excavation of the Late Minoan I town of Gournia in eastern Crete, directed by Harriet Boyd Hawes at the beginning of the 20th century. This second edition presents exactly the same information and images as the first edition, but in a smaller, more user friendly format than the original elephantine book. Plans, pottery, and small finds among many other topics on the Bronze Age archaeology of eastern Crete are all included, just as in the first edition.
This work presents a classification system and absolute chronology for black-gloss wares from Crete, establishing the first local and regional ceramic sequences during the period from 600 to 400 B.C. This new chronological foundation of datable pottery from excavated sites fills in the so-called 6th-/5th-century gap and dispels the prevailing view that this was a period of decline in population and one of artistic and cultural impoverishment. The 6th century heralded important changes in Cretan society, reflected in the reorganization of burial grounds, new patterns of sanctuary dedication, and the circulation of exotica among the elite. The study reveals unsuspected connections with mainland Greece, especially Sparta and Athens. Historians and archaeologists will find the author's conclusions, and their implications, to be of considerable interest.
