Keos: Results of Excavations Conducted by the University of Cincinnati under the Auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens – serie

This is the first volume in the final publication of the University of Cincinnati's investigations on the island of Keos. It describes the excavation of a small site on the headland of Kephala, about one kilometer north of the Bronze Age site of Ayia Irini. Remains of both a settlement and its cemetery were uncovered, unusual in excavated Aegean sites earlier than the second millennium B.C. Although doubt is expressed about its exact date, the site definitely falls into the period between the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, when evidence of a hierarchical, more developed society emerges. Occupied for less than a century by a community of fewer than 100 people, the settlement was probably abandoned around the end of the fourth millennium B.C., perhaps because a worsening climate could no longer support early agriculture on the barren rocks around the site. The report concludes with specialist studies on the different classes of artifact found, including some of the earliest evidence for copper-working in the Aegean.

This volume presents the remarkable terracotta statues excavated at the site of Ayia Irini in the 1960s. Beginning with the first trench and continuing through three more campaigns, these figures were recovered in fragments from almost all rooms of the temple; they now represent 40 statues by conservative estimate; all women, they wear short-sleeved jackets, heavy girdles, and full skirts. Some are as large as life size, and most wear necklaces or garlands. The date (Late Minoan IB/Late Helladic II, with a single Mycenaean exception) is earlier than that of any known, other than a few Cretan fragments of large scale but different construction. The author describes the discovery and construction of the statues and then presents a catalogue of the fragments in detail and fully illustrated. Five stratigraphic sections accompany the tables of findspots. The fragments are divided into nine groups according to form and construction, followed by five groups of unassigned fragments (heads, torsos, skirts, arms, various). The life-size Mycenaean statue, constructed in a more familiar coil technique used for pithoi, is catalogued separately. At the end is a group of terracotta feet (Late Minoan IA or earlier), found outside the temple and originally complete in themselves.

The iconography of Late Bronze Age wall paintings is presented in their social context within the Cycladic island of Kea and the wider Aegean world. Town, land, and seascapes illustrate the community of this harbor. This book is lavishly illustrated with many color drawings, visualizations, and photographs.

The prehistoric settlement of Ayia Irini on Kea, one of the Cyclades islands of Greece, is the site of an ancient settlement dating back to the late Neolithic Age.Area B, in the southeastern part of the Bronze Age town of Ayia Irini, preserves evidence for human activity from the mid-Early Bronze Age to the mid-Late Bronze Age, or Periods III-VII in the parlance of the site.This volume summarizes the results of excavation in the area and provides an overview of the stratigraphy, architecture, and artifacts found in it.Owing to its status as one of the best-excavated and best-documented sectors of the site, Area B also provides an excellent opportunity to consider diachronic changes in the ceramic assemblage through time. Analysis of macroscopic and petrographic fabrics and evaluation of how fabric, ware, and shape categories intersect enables a detailed, diachronic study of changes in pottery production, trade, and consumption patterns at the site in view of broader shifts in Aegean economy and society.