James C. Wright - Böcker

A hill dominating the Nemea Valley, Tsoungiza is located only 10 kilometers northwest of the citadel of Mycenae. Excavations there have uncovered the remains of a Late Helladic settlement that stood at its southern end. This two-volume set presents the results of these investigations with an unprecedented study of a small settlement's economy and society in the Mycenaean period. Through an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates a wide variety of general and specialist studies, the authors demonstrate how agricultural production, craft activities, and ceremonial practices integrated the inhabitants of Tsoungiza into a regional exchange system within the Bronze Age world.The books include contributions by P. Acheson, S. E. Allen, K. M. Forste, P. Halstead, S. M. A. Hoffmann, A. Karabatsoli, K. Kaza-Papageorgiou, B. Lis, R. Mersereau, H. Mommsen, J. B. Rutter, T. Theodoropoulou, and J. E. Tomlinson.

The large-scale, formal consumption of huge quantities of food and drink is a feature of many societies, but extracting evidence for feasting from the archaeological record has, until recently, been problematic. Now new techniques of scientific analysis are being combined with greater theoretical sophistication to shed exciting new light on this conspicuous social practice. This collection of essays, also published as a special issue (73:2) of the journal Hesperia, investigates the rich evidence for the character of the Mycenaean feast. While much of the evidence discussed comes from the Palace of Nestor near Pylos, the authors also present new material from Tsoungiza near Nemea, and from other Bronze Age sites on mainland Greece and Crete. Textual evidence (from Linear B tablets) for the collection of raw materials, and the stocktaking of equipment, is complemented by discussions of the faunal and artifactual assemblages feasts left behind. Specially commissioned papers put Mycenaean practice in context by comparing it to contemporary activities on Cyprus and in Minoan Crete, while a final chapter compares Bronze with Iron Age Greece, especially as seen through the lens of Homeric epic. While not claiming to be a comprehensive survey of the practice of feasting, this volume offers, nonetheless, a rich and detailed collection of evidence, from a variety of sources, for conspicuous consumption in the Mycenaean period. As well as being core reading for Aegean prehistorians, it will be of interest to students of later Greek culture, anthropologists, and other scholars interested in the wider social aspects of eating and drinking.

The numerous rescue excavations conducted in Athens and Attica by the Archaeological Service during and after the major construction projects of the 2004 Olympic Games brought to light significant new prehistoric finds which have transformed our understanding of the region in prehistory. However, despite their importance, the new discoveries had remained mostly unnoticed by the international community, as the results were scattered in various publications, and no synthesis was ever attempted. The goal of the 2015 international conference Athens and Attica in Prehistory, which was organized by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the University of Athens (Department of Archaeology and History of Art), the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Ephorate of Antiquites of East Attica (Hellenic Ministry of Culture) was to gather scholars working in the region and present for the first time a survey of Attic prehistory which would include the most recent discoveries and integrate over a century of scholarship. The 668- page conference proceedings include over 66 papers in Greek and English with sections dedicated to topography, the palaeo-environment, the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic transition, the Early Bronze Age, the Middle and Late Bronze Age, as well as the contacts between Attica and its neighbouring regions. A series of new detailed maps, derived from an exhaustive GIS-related database, provide the most up to date topographical and archaeological survey of Prehistoric Attica. Athens and Attica in Prehistory provides the most complete overview of the region from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Bronze Age. Its importance goes beyond the field of Aegean prehistory, as it paves the way for a new understanding of Attica in the Early Iron Age and indirectly throws new light on the origins of what will later become the polis of the Athenians.