Excavations on the Koukounaries Hill, Paros, Greece from 1976-1992 revealed a 12th century B.C.E. Mycenaean building, an Iron Age settlement, and an Archaic sanctuary. This volume presents the pottery from five areas inside the building, as well as the pottery from a limited reoccupation after the building's destruction and abandonment.
The excavations on the Koukounaries Hill, Paros, Greece, conducted under the direction of Demetrius U. Schilardi for the Archaeological Society at Athens from 1976 to 1992, revealed a 12th century B.C.E. Mycenaean building, an Iron Age settlement, and an Archaic sanctuary. Koukounaries I: Mycenaean Pottery from Selected Contexts presents the pottery from five areas inside the building: three large storerooms, the main east-west corridor, and a small shrine, as well as the pottery from a limited reoccupation after the building's fire destruction and abandonment. The ceramics from the main occupation phase comprise the largest and best-preserved domestic assemblage from the 12th century B.C.E. in the Cyclades and offer important evidence for the continuation of Mycenaean culture after the destruction of the mainland palatial citadels. The small deposits of pottery from the reoccupation phase, provide important stratigraphic evidence for defining the Late Helladic IIIC ceramic sequence. The volume also considers the function of the individual spaces within the building, based largely on the patterns of shape distributions and quantities, with the statistics for each context presented in a series of appendices. Other issues area also explored, including the evidence for itinerant potters, the trade in antique vases, and the place of origin of the settlers who founded and inhabited the Mycenaean building on the summit of the Koukounaries Hill.
Robert Koehl has long considered processions to have played an integral role in Aegean Bronze Age societies. Papers concentrate mainly on evidence from Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland, with additional perspectives from abroad, these geographic divisions forming the basic outline of this volume.
This second volume on Early Cycladic (and Cycladicising) sculptures found in the Aegean, examines finds from mainland Greece, along with the rarer items from the north and east Aegean, with the exception of those discovered in the Cyclades (covered in the preceding volume), and of those found in Crete. The significance of these finds is that these are the principal testimonies of the influence of the Early Bronze Age Cycladic cultures in the wider Aegean. This influence is shown both by the export of sculptures produced in the Cyclades (and made of Cycladic marble), and of their imitations, produced elsewhere in the Aegean, usually of local marble. They hold the key, therefore, to the cultural interactions developing at this time, the so-called ‘international spirit’ manifest particularly during the Aegean Early Bronze II period.This was the time when the foundations of early Aegean civilisation were being laid, and the material documented is thus of considerable significance. The volume is divided into sections wherein contributions examine finds and their archaeological, social, and economic contexts from specific regions. It concludes with an overview of the significance and role of these objects in Early Bronze Age societies of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean region. This will be the first time that this material has been systematically gathered together. Highly illustrated, it follows and builds on the successful preceding volume, Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context (Oxbow 2016).
Brill’s Companion to Greek Land Warfare Beyond the Phalanx brings together emerging and established scholars to build on the new consensus of multiform Greek warfare, on and off the battlefield, beyond the usual chronological, geographical, and operational boundaries.
Presents the study of the finds from the Mycenaean cemetery of Clauss near Patras, carried out between 1988-1992 under the direction of Prof. Thanassis Papadopoulos. During the excavation project, fifteen chamber tombs were located and researched in detail, to be added to those already known from the pre-war excavations by Nikolaos Kyparissis.
Situated at the disciplinary boundary between prehistory and history, this book presents a new synthesis of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece, from the rise and fall of Mycenaean civilization to the emergence of city-states in the Archaic period. These centuries saw the growth and decline of varied political systems and the development of networks across local, regional, and Mediterranean scales. As a groundbreaking study of landscape, interaction, and sociopolitical change, Societies in Transition in Early Greece systematically bridges the divide between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic Greek world to shed new light on an often-overlooked period of world history. “This book reconfigures our understanding of early Greece on a regional level, beyond Mycenaean 'palaces' and across temporal boundaries. Alex Knodell's sophisticated arguments enable a fresh reading of the emergence of early Greek polities, revealing the microregions that put to the test overarching 'Mediterranean' models. His detailed study makes a convincing return to a comparative framework, integrating a 'small world' network and its trajectory with the larger picture of ancient complex societies.” SARAH MORRIS, Steinmetz Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture, University of California, Los Angeles “A comprehensive, thoughtful treatment of the time period before the crystallization of the ancient Greek city states.” WILLIAM A. PARKINSON, Curator and Professor, The Field Museum and University of Illinois at Chicago “An important and must-read account. The strength of this book lies in its close analysis of the important different regional characteristics and evolutionary trajectories of Greece as it transforms into the Archaic and, later, the Classical world.” DAVID B. SMALL, author Ancient Greece: Social Structure and Evolution.
In this innovative study, James Whitley examines the relationship between the development of pot style and social changes in the Dark Age of Greece (1100-700 BC). He focuses on Athens where the Protogeometric and Geometric styles first appeared. He considers pot shape and painted decoration primarily in relation to the other relevant features - metal artefacts, grave architecture, funerary rites, and the age and sex of the deceased - and also takes into account different contexts in which these shapes and decorations appear. A computer analysis of grave assemblages supports his view that pot style is an integral part of the collective representations of Early Athenian society. It is a lens through which we can focus on the changing social circumstances of Dark Age Greece. Dr Whitley's approach to the study of style challenges many of the assumptions which have underpinned more traditional studies of Early Greek art.
Classical archaeology probably enjoys a wider appeal than any other branch of classical or archaeological studies. As an intellectual and academic discipline, however, its esteem has not matched its popularity. Here, Anthony Snodgrass argues that classical archaeology has a rare potential in the whole field of the study of the past to make innovative discoveries and apply modern approaches by widening the aims of the discipline.
