Cultural Identity in Minoan Crete


Book Description

A comprehensive account of the Palaces, control networks and spatial dynamics of Neopalatial Crete, the floruit of the Minoan civilization.




Restoring the Minoans


Book Description

How do archaeologists and artists reimagine what life was like during the Greek Bronze Age? How do contemporary conditions influence the way we understand the ancient past? This innovative book considers two imaginative restorations of the ancient world that test the boundaries of interpretation and invention by bringing together the discovery of Minoan culture by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) and the work of the Turner Prize–winning video artist Elizabeth Price (b. 1966). Featured essays examine Evans’s interpretation and restoration of the Knossos palace and present fresh photography of Minoan artifacts and archival photographs of the dig alongside beautiful, previously unpublished watercolors and drawings by the archaeological illustrators and restorers who worked on the site: Émile Gilliéron père(1850–1924), Émile Gilliéron fils (1885–1939), Piet de Jong (1887–1967), and others. An interview with Price explores how her attraction to the Sir Arthur Evans Archive became the basis for her commissioned video installation at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum and offers insight into her creative practice. Exhibition dates: October 5, 2017–January 7, 2018




Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism


Book Description

In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans’s excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After the World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in the concrete labyrinth—pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic—seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists, and thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Graves, and Hilda Doolittle. Assembling a brilliant, talented, and eccentric cast at a moment of tremendous intellectual vitality and wrenching change, Cathy Gere paints an unforgettable portrait of the age of concrete and the birth of modernism.




A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean, 2 Volume Set


Book Description

A Companion that examines together two pivotal periods of Greek archaeology and offers a rich analysis of early Greek culture A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean offers an original and inclusive review of two key periods of Greek archaeology, which are typically treated separately—the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. It presents an in-depth exploration of the society and material culture of Greece and the Mediterranean, from the 14th to the early 7th centuries BC. The two-volume companion sets Aegean developments within their broader geographic and cultural context, and presents the wide-ranging interactions with the Mediterranean. The companion bridges the gap that typically exists between Prehistoric and Classical Archaeology and examines material culture and social practice across Greece and the Mediterranean. A number of specialists examine the environment and demography, and analyze a range of textual and archaeological evidence to shed light on socio-political and cultural developments. The companion also emphasizes regionalism in the archaeology of early Greece and examines the responses of different regions to major phenomena such as state formation, literacy, migration and colonization. Comprehensive in scope, this important companion: Outlines major developments in the two key phases of early Greece, the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age Includes studies of the geography, chronology and demography of early Greece Explores the development of early Greek state and society and examines economy, religion, art and material culture Sets Aegean developments within their Mediterranean context Written for students, and scholars interested in the material culture of the era, ACompanion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean offers a comprehensive and authoritative guide that bridges the gap between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Winner!




Minoan Realities


Book Description

What is the social role of images and architecture in a pre-modern society? How were they used to create adequate environments for specific profane and ritual activities? In which ways did they interact with each other? These and other crucial issues on the social significance of imagery and built structures in Neopalatial Crete were the subject of a workshop which took place on November 16th, 2009 at the University of Heidelberg. The papers presented in the workshop are collected in the present volume. They provide different approaches to this complex topic and are aimed at a better understanding of the formation, role, and perception of images and architecture in a very dynamic social landscape. The Cretan Neopalatial period saw a rapid increase in the number of palaces and 'villas', characterized by elaborate designs and idiosyncratic architectural patterns which were themselves in turn generated by a pressing desire for a distinctive social and performative environment.




Mysteries Of The Snake Goddess


Book Description

Not only is one of the most famous pieces of ancient Greek art-the celebrated gold and ivory statuette of the Snake Goddess-almost certainly modern, but Minoan civilization as it has been popularly imagined is largely an invention of the early twentieth century. This is Kenneth Lapatin's startling conclusion in Mysteries of the Snake Goddess-a brilliant investigation into the true origins of the celebrated Bronze Age artifact, and into the fascinating world of archaeologists, adventurers, and artisans that converged in Crete at the turn of the twentieth century. Including characters from Sir Arthur Evans, legendary excavator of the Palace of Minos at Knossos, who was driven to discover a sophisticated early European civilization to rival that of the Orient, to his principal restorer Swiss painter Emil Gillieron, who out of handfuls of fragments fashioned a picture of Minoan life that conformed to contemporary taste, this is a riveting tale of archeological discovery.




The Mosaics of Roman Crete


Book Description

This book examines the rich corpus of mosaics created in Crete during the Roman and Late Antique eras. It provides essential information on the style, iconography, and chronology of the material, as well as discussion of the craftspeople who created them and the technologies they used. The contextualized mosaic evidence also reveals a new understanding of Roman and Late Antique Crete. It helps shed light on the processes by which Crete became part of the Roman Empire, its subsequent Christianization, and the pivotal role the island played in the Mediterranean network of societies during these periods. This book provides an original approach to the study of mosaics and an innovative method of presenting a diachronic view of provincial Cretan society.




Knossos


Book Description




Knossos, the Little Palace


Book Description

The Little Palace at Knossos, excavated by Evans and Mackenzie from 1905 - 10, remains the largest neo-palatial building within the Minoan town of Knossos, and to a large extent mirrors the history of the Palace itself. The present work effectively constitutes an excavation report of the LP, publishing for the first time entries from the daybooks of Evans and Mackenzie and many original excavation photographs. The volume provides an extremely detailed architectural account, supported by numerous plans and elevations. It incorporates the results of the 1995 restoration programme carried out by the 23rd Ephoreia and publishes sherd material then collected. A lengthy pottery chapter presents the LP sherd material from Evans's excavations, housed in the Stratigraphical Museum, and also complete vases in Herakleion. Clay tablets and sealings are discussed; small finds presented (many for the first time). The final chapter offers a thorough appraisal of the LP's history, and, in particular, deals with the thorny issue of 're-occupation' and the final destruction of the building in LM IIIA2 (i.e. contemporary with the Palace itself).




Women in Mycenaean Greece


Book Description

Women in Mycenaean Greece is the first book-length study of women in the Linear B tablets from Mycenaean Greece and the only to collect and compile all the references to women in the documents of the two best attested sites of Late Bronze Age Greece - Pylos on the Greek mainland and Knossos on the island of Crete. The book offers a systematic analysis of women’s tasks, holdings, and social and economic status in the Linear B tablets dating from the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, identifying how Mycenaean women functioned in the economic institutions where they were best attested - production, property control, land tenure, and cult. Analysing all references to women in the Mycenaean documents, the book focuses on the ways in which the economic institutions of these Bronze Age palace states were gendered and effectively extends the framework for the study of women in Greek antiquity back more than 400 years. Throughout, the book seeks to establish whether gender practices were uniform in the Mycenaean states or differed from site to site and to gauge the relationship of the roles and status of Mycenaean women to their Archaic and Classical counterparts to test if the often-proposed theories of a more egalitarian Bronze Age accurately reflect the textual evidence. The Linear B tablets offer a unique, if under-utilized, point of entry into women’s history in ancient Greece, documenting nearly 2000 women performing over fifty task assignments. From their decipherment in 1952 one major gap in the scholarly record remained: a full accounting of the women who inhabited the palace states and their tasks, ranks, and economic contributions. Women in Mycenaean Greece fills that gap recovering how class, rank, and other social markers created status hierarchies among women, how women as a group functioned relative to men, and where different localities conformed or diverged in their gender practices.