INSTAP Academic Press – serie

This textbook is a compilation of the author's more than 35 years of teaching and excavation experience in the field of Aegean Bronze Age art history and archaeology. It is geared toward an audience of undergraduate and graduate students as an introduction to the Bronze Age art objects and architecture that have been uncovered on Crete, the Greek peninsula, and the Cycladic Islands.

This volume presents over fifteen years (1981-1996) of archaeometallurgy surveys and specifically the excavations of an Early Bronze Age miners' village, Göltepe and its associated tin mine, Kestel. The results of the surface surveys, test pit operations, profile trenches and excavation finds demonstrate that processing of cassiterite-rich ore was the primary function of activities at Göltepe. The variety and density of tin-rich vitrified crucibles as well as ground, powdered tin-rich ore from excavated contexts were only some of the several lines of evidence. Other finds indicated that the site was profoundly associated with metal production. Weighty evidence came in the numbers of multifaceted molds, ingots and tin bronze artifacts. Furthermore, 50,000 ground stone tools for ore dressing and vitrified material grinding were estimated on the site surface, while 5,000 came from excavated contexts. Early Bronze Age Göltepe and Kestel Mine represent the as-yet unique example of the highland production model, that is, the industrial tier 1 of the extraction and processing of raw materials for the production of metal artifacts. This model entails the mining and smelting operations in the metalliferously rich ore deposits and forests, usually located in the mountains, in this case, the central Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey.

In 1962, after a period of secret looting, the location of a shrine for the Greek Goddess Eileithyia was discovered by the police in south-central Crete at the modern town of Tsoutsouros, ancient Inatos. The cave dedicated to this ancient goddess of childbirth and motherhood was excavated that year by Nikolaos Platon and Costis Davaras on behalf of the Archaeological Museum in Herakleion.It was filled with remarkable votive gifts including over 100 items of gold along with Egyptian figurines and seal stones, bronze objects, and hundreds of clay figurines. The dates of the shrine's use extended from before 2000 B.C. to the Roman Imperial period. Many of the clay images are especially appropriate for this deity because they include pregnant women, embracing couples, figures in preparation for childbirth, mothers holding babies, and a young child in its crib. A Greek language book highlighting the shrine and its major discoveries is now translated into English. It provides images, catalog entries, and explanatory texts for the most important discoveries from this unique shrine.

This study presents evidence for restoring the fragmentary painting from the islet of Pseira, located just off the northeastern coast of Crete. It argues against previous reconstructions, finding errors including ignoring the fragments' scales. With the fragments' scales accurately recorded, the study reveals a large-scale goddess facing a smaller suppliant in a presentation scene on an incurved altar platform.The reconstruction is based on examinations, drawings and photographs taken to scale of the fragments and digital imaging. The painted garments are translated into modern cloth replicas that adorn live models that pose as goddess and suppliant.Virtually restored to the east wall of Room 6, the goddess positively establishes the building already conjectured as a shrine and identifies it as the religious centre of the community. The painting's Knossian style and technique, and imported Knossian ritual vessels, argue for a strong Knossian religious presence at Pseira. Religious processions likely culminated at the shrine to present offerings to the goddess.

This publication presents the collected scholarly contri­butions of Malcolm H. Wiener on the subjects of Aegean, Egyptian, and Near Eastern Bronze Age archaeology, chronology, and the collapse of civiliza­tions. The papers in volume I span over forty years (1984–2025) and cover a range of archaeological topics. A prominent theme is the nature and extent of the Minoan thalassocracy, with emphasis on the impor­tance of acquiring metals for Minoan palatial society and the use of ritual to secure influence and power. The realities of such power (warfare, conquest, slavery), Wiener contends, are sup­ported by wide-ranging research in the history of the Mediterranean and by an array of archaeological evidence. Various chapters argue for the preeminence of the palace at Knossos on Crete and its leading role in Minoan diplomatic ties and trade contacts with Cyprus, Egypt, and the Levant. Wiener’s influential concept of the “Versailles Effect”—the development of Mycenaean civilization through the adoption and adaptation of many aspects of Minoan elite culture—is another topic explored. Accounts of Myce­naean palatial society, including the Mycenaean conquest of Crete, international relations, administration and industry, and legacy for later Greece, are highlighted. Several chapters strike a reflective tone and focus on the history, current state, and future of the field of Aegean prehistory.

This book focuses on economic and social changes, particularly during the opening phase of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. New developments in ceramics that reached Crete at the end of the Neolithic period greatly contributed to the creation of economic, technological, social, and religious advancements we call the Early Bronze Age. The arguments are two-fold: a detailed explanation of the ceramics we call Early Minoan I and the differences that set it apart from its predecessors, and an explanation of how these new and highly superior containers changed the storage, transport, and accumulation of a new form of wealth consisting primarily of processed agricultural and animal products like wine, olive oil, and various foods preserved in wine, vinegar, honey, and other liquids. The increased stability and security provided by an improved ability to store food from one year to the next would have a profound effect on the society.

Since the inception of Minoan archaeology, studies pertaining to tombs and tomb deposits have played seminal roles in our understanding of Minoan culture and the reconstruction of Bronze Age society. For several geographical areas and chronological periods of Cretan history, tombs are the most abundant source of data. Each author in this volume takes a clear and distinct approach to the data, including some that emphasize political geography on multi-regional and multi-scalar levels, some that examine the commemoration of the dead and of the community for legitimizing purposes but also for maintaining and/or creating elite positions in social systems, and others that underline the overlap between mortuary rituals and religion. The aim of this volume is not to present all tombs in all periods on Crete comprehensively, but the breadth of these papers is intended to generate a discourse not just among archaeologists working in different areas and time periods on Crete but also among archaeologists in Greece and a broader anthropological audience.

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.

The Temple University Aegean Symposium was an annual event from 1976 until 1985 sponsored by the Department of Art History at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Each year, the symposium focused on a specific theme in Aegean Bronze Age art and archaeology. This book is a collection of the 10 volumes of articles that were published. Aside from incorporating errata, the articles are unchanged from the original publications. A new Preface and page numbering system are included in this compendium.

The papers published here are dedicated to the memory of Ellen N. Davis, one of the most valued and beloved Aegean scholars of her generation. All of the articles are in some way inspired or influenced by Davis' own contributions to the field. In the area of metalwork, several papers investigate interconnections within and around the Aegean during the Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Ages (Betancourt, Ferrence, and Muhly, Weingarten, Kopcke), while others examine metal ware in its social context (Wiener). Papers on wall painting range from studies of pigments and optical illusions (Vlachopoulos), to representations of water (Shank). Anthropomorphic representations, or their absence, of goddesses or priestesses (Jones), rulers (Palaima), or initiates (Koehl) are also studied here with new eyes and fresh insights.

The sixth edition of The Knossos Tablets brings for now to completion nearly 120 years of the study of the texts of the Linear B inscriptions from the preeminent Cretan palatial site of the late Minoan Bronze Age. Based on his career-long mastery of the many scholarly tools needed to interpret the contents and historical meaning of Mycenaean Greek clay tablet inscriptions, José L. Melena, with assistance on find-spots from Richard Firth and a check of the accuracy of each and every text by an editorial team of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, offers here definitive readings of these archaeologically, linguistically and historically important records. The book presents accurate information on tablet joins, find-spots, assignments of texts to scribes, sets of texts identified by subject matter and administrative purpose, and conjectural readings of partially preserved texts. The systems of reference to tablets by inventory numbers and to coherent sets of tablets by alphabetic prefixes have been streamlined. Helpful appendices make clear the classification of series and sets, tablet find locations, and the history of reconstruction of tablets through fragment joins. The volume closes with an up-to-date overall ground plan and close-up sector plans of the Palace of Minos at Knossos keyed to tablet find-spots.

This book brings together for the first time scholars working on the Bronze Age settlement patterns and material culture of the southern Ierapetra Isthmus, a region that actively participated in the coastal and maritime trade networks of East Crete. During the past few decades, while various archaeological projects focused on the northern isthmus, the Ierapetra area remained largely neglected and unknown, a terra incognita. Yet, new excavations at Gaidourophas, Anatoli Stavromenos, Chryssi Island, Bramiana, and the ongoing research at the site of Myrtos Pyrgos are showing that the coastal area of Ierapetra was a vibrant and thriving settlement landscape during the Bronze Age. Far from being simply on the periphery of the major Minoan centers, the southern Ierapetra Isthmus played important roles in the cultural dynamics of Crete. Aiming to be the first building block in the development of an archaeological understanding of the region of the southern Ierapetra Isthmus, this book presents the status of the discipline and indicates future research trajectories.