Author: Christopher Andrew TenWolde Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 227
Book Description
The topic of Cretan state formation has attracted some attention over the past decade in the form of papers, however it has been over twenty years since the last monographs touching on the subject were published: Branigan's The Foundations of Palatial Crete in 1970 and Renfrew's The Emergence of Civilisation in 1972. It is thus hoped that this study comes at an opportune time, as it seems appropriate to reconsider the process of state formation on Crete in the light of new developments both in published data and in methodological perspective over the last generation. In order to provide a perspective on the influence of past works on current views of state formation in the Cretan Bronze Age, the first section of this work will present a historiography of works which have formed milestones in the topic's history. The identification of some effects of this long process is the goal of this section, and it will be concluded with the presentation of an investigative model which will be followed in the hopes of providing a methodological alternative to some of these long held assumptions. The second section of this work follows the investigative model which has been suggested, concentrating on integrating contextual site analyses to produce a model of intra-site organization and inter-site relations in the Early Bronze Age, coupled with a reconsideration of the character of the first palatial centers themselves. The result of this study will be the presentation of a model for Cretan state formation which stresses the roles which resource management, the exploitation of unusual status, and the effects of community interaction had on the development of the first Cretan state system, which is presented as a core-periphery system based on the elaboration of long standing cultural traits rather than a cultural invention stratified over old beliefs. Note: This dissertation was originally completed in 1994 and defended in 1995, although it was only processed and published in electronic form in 2008.
Author: Ilse Schoep Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited ISBN: 9781842174319 Category : Bronze Age Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Ever since their first discovery, more than a century ago, the Minoan Palaces have dominated scholarship on the Cretan Bronze Age. Opinion long held that their first appearance, seemingly at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, marked a pivotal transformation point, during which the simple, egalitarian societies of the Early Bronze Age were transformed into something significantly more complex, hierarchical and civilized. Over the last three decades, however, theoretical developments, together with new research and discoveries, have so thoroughly undermined this conceptualization of the Early and Middle Bronze Age that it seemed advisable to go back to the beginning, reevaluate our theories and models and ask anew what we really know about social and political complexity on Crete from the end of the Neolithic to Middle Minoan II (c.3600-1750/00 BC). Back to the Beginning explores this theme through fifteen papers. They cover both the principal central Cretan urban centuries of Knossos, Malia and Phaistos and the smaller communities that lay beyond them in central and eastern Crete. Many present significant new bodies of settlement and cemetery data, whether recently acquired or reinterpreted from older excavations. All place a clear and concerted emphasis on breaking down complexity into different social processes and relations and building up an understanding of society, from the bottom up, as a host of interacting and potentially conflicting agents or scales of identity. All too are concerned with addressing long-standing and fundamental research questions. When, in fact, does the Bronze Age begin in real terms? How did socioeconomic diversity play out across the Cretan landscape? When and where did the monumental Court Complexes, which convention terms Palaces, emerge; how did they function and how did this vary? Were the Court Complexes entirely new phenomena or were they rooted more firmly in preexisting traditions and practices? What happened in MM I and how, more generally, might we frame and explain the Early and Middle Bronze Age in more inclusive terms? How were different communities structured and how did this vary? Is it appropriate to talk of urbanism and state formation during this period and if so, when and where? By taking us significantly closer to resolving these questions, Back to the Beginning ushers in a new era of understanding for the Early and Middle Bronze Age on Crete.
Author: William A. Parkinson Publisher: School for Advanced Research on the ISBN: 9781934691205 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
In current archaeological research the failure to find common ground between world-systems theory believers and their counterParts has resulted in a stagnation of theoretical development in regards to modeling how early state societies ititeracted with their neighbors. This book is an attempt to redress these issues. By shifting the theoretical focus away from questions of state evolution to state interaction, the authors develop anthropological models for understanding how ancient states interacted with one another and with societies of scales of economic and political organization. One of their goals has been to identify a theoretical middle ground that is neither dogmatic nor dismissive. The result is innovative approach to modeling-social interaction that will he helpful in exploring the relationship between Social processes that occur at different geographic scales and over different temporal durations. The scholars who participated in the SAR advanced seminar that resulted in this hook used a Particular geographic and temporal context as a case study for developing anthropological models of interaction that are cross-cultural in scope but still deal well with the idiosyncrasies of specific culture histories. Advance praise for Archaic State Interaction "An excellent example of a meeting of the minds to hammer at an interesting and current set of problems affecting archaeologists around the world...It is not necessary for the reader to be a 'believer' in world-systems theory to benefit from these essays."-Thomas F. Tartaron, University of Pennsylvania
Author: Jack L. Davis Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520387252 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Although the Mycenaean civilization of the Greek Bronze Age was identified 150 years ago, its origins remain obscure. Jack L. Davis, codirector of excavations at the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, takes readers on a tour of the beginnings of Mycenaean civilization through a case study of this important site. In collaboration with codirector Sharon R. Stocker, Davis demonstrates that this ancient place was a major node for the exchange of ideas between the already established Minoan civilization, centered on the island of Crete, and the residents of the Greek mainland. Davis and Stocker show how adoption of Minoan culture created an ideology of power focused on a single individual, celebrating his military prowess, investing him with divine authority, and creating a figure instantly recognizable to readers of Homer and students of Greek history. A Greek State in Formation makes the powerful case that a knowledge of the Greek Bronze Age is indispensable to the classics curriculum.
Author: Kōstēs Davaras Publisher: Adolf M. Hakkert ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 268
Book Description
Costis Davaras is not the first scholar to compare the Bronze Age cultures of Crete and India. Prompted by an invitation to attend the World Archaeological Congress in New Delhi in 1994, he takes an eclectic look at parallels and affinities' between the two cultures, especially with regard to art and religion. With no physical or factual evidence that Cretans, or Cretan objects, ever reached this far into Asia, Davaras' suggestions are purely hypothetical and at best speculative, but they may achieve some heightened understanding of aspects of either culture. The fact that these are two cultures at the geographical extremes of the same Oriental cultural continuum' may not convince everyone that they remain worthy of comparison.
Author: Guy D. Middleton Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 110715149X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 463
Book Description
In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted.
Author: Kostandinos S. Christakis Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press ISBN: 1623030781 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
The pithos is one of the most distinctive utilitarian forms of the Cretan Bronze Age ceramic repertoire. Because of its use as a storage container, a pithos is the foremost parameter for the evaluation of the economic organization of palatial and domestic sectors of Cretan Bronze Age society. The pithoi as pottery and their significance for the understanding of the Cretan Bronze Age economy has been the focus of a research project carried out from 1989 to 1999. This book is not a pithos handbook in the narrow sense, although the study offers a typological division of the data with comments on chronology and spatial distribution. It integrates stylistic considerations with broad fabric and technological observations in order to understand the production and consumption of pithoi.
Author: Florence Gaignerot-Driessen Publisher: Presses universitaires de Louvain ISBN: 287558328X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 184
Book Description
This volume brings together a series of papers reflecting a number of lectures given at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in 2010-2012 in the frame of a seminar entitled La naissance des cités crétoises. Eight Cretan sites (Axos, Phaistos, Prinias, Karphi, Dreros, Azoria, Praisos, and Itanos), recently excavated or re-excavated, are considered in their regional and historical context in order to explore the origin and early development of the Greek city-state on the island.
Author: Susan Evasdaughter Publisher: Heart of Albion ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
Between about 3000 and 1400 BC one of the world's great civilizations flourished on the island of Crete. The distinctive characteristic of this civilization was that it was dominated by an elite of women.
Author: Ellen Adams Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 110719752X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 365
Book Description
A comprehensive account of the Palaces, control networks and spatial dynamics of Neopalatial Crete, the floruit of the Minoan civilization.
Author: Christopher Andrew TenWolde
Author: Ilse Schoep
Author: William A. Parkinson
Author: Jack L. Davis
Author: Kōstēs Davaras
Author: Guy D. Middleton
Author: Kostandinos S. Christakis
Author: Florence Gaignerot-Driessen
Author: Susan Evasdaughter
Author: Ellen Adams