early iron age Greece

This volume is the edited collection of the papers from a conference we hosted in Oxford in 2017, drawing together specialists from the United Kingdom, continental Europe and the United States, to examine afresh the relationship between early Greece and the civilisations of the ancient Near East. This is one of the most controversial and rapidly developing research topics in Classics, and the aim of the conference was to bring together Classicists and non-Classicists in a truly interdisciplinary environment, in which specialists from several different fields could observe and draw upon one another’s discoveries and knowledge. It was the first time that all major scholars who have so far contributed to the debate were assembled at a conference, a fact that was reflected by large crowd of over seventy participants at the Ioannou Centre in Oxford, over two full days. Our hope was that the resulting interchange would reflect on the disparate methodologies which have developed in these distinct fields, and move towards a new consensus. In order to achieve this, we limited the papers to the presentation of narratives to do with the gods; this led to a clear cross-fertilisation between papers (both in the general discussion and in the presentations), and a movement away from a narrow concern with the question of direct influence towards a more truly comparative perspective, in which the individual dynamics of the Greek and Near Eastern traditions help to illuminate what is distinctive about each of them. This represents a paradigm shift in a field once concerned solely with collecting literary parallels and letting them ‘speak for themselves’ (in Martin West’s famous words), and this is one of the major reasons why we think the resulting volume will cohere both thematically and as articulating a crucial moment in the history of scholarship on this question.

The volume serves two interconnected purposes. The first is that the book is an illustrative, handbook-like overview of the history and current state of the discussion, an aspect to be supported by an extensive Introduction to the volume, to be written by the editors. The second is that it offers new material and fresh approaches formulated by the leading scholars in the field. The volume will thus capture the state of the current discussion and shape the future debate. In keeping with the theme and discoveries of the conference, the chapters are not simply lists of parallels, but attempts to consider the processes of interaction and their significance for the texts being discussed.

The cast list of contributors is, as one should expect in a volume with this kind of ambition, international: Angus Bowie (Oxford), Yoram Cohen (Tel Aviv), Bruno Currie (Oxford), Andrew George (SOAS), Amir Gilan (Tel-Aviv), Johannes Haubold (Durham), Adrian Kelly (Oxford), Andre Lardinois (Nijmegen), Carolina Lopez-Ruiz (Ohio State), Christopher Metcalf (Oxford), Bernardo Petrella (Oxford), Fran Reynolds (Oxford), Ruth Scodel (Michigan), Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck), Ian Rutherford (Reading), Sylvie Vanséveren (Brussels), and Mark Weeden (SOAS).

The comprehensive excavation at Nichoria in Messenia, Greece, as part of an extensive land survey carried out by the University of Minnesota Messenia Expedition (UMME), and the macro-, semimicro-, and micro-spatial analyses of the site were important to evidence the domestic context of the Mycenaean sites as well as to understand the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Greece.

This paper looks at the chronological and geographical context of “killed” weapons, their relationships to the types of burial in which they appear, and the other grave goods which accompany these burials. It suggests that the swords “killed” in the period ca. 950-825 are the result of societal conditions relating to the value of iron, the exclusivity of warfare, and conscious acts of destruction in burials at this time. On the other hand, the later burials in Eretria relate to changing factors in the deposition of weapons, new ideas about exclusivity and value, and reflecting the way in which warfare changed in the late eighth century. It also suggests that arguments so far have ignored important metallurgical observations about “killed” swords, and what they reveal about sword use and ownership in the EIA Aegean.

C'est tout cela, bienveillance, soutien, sollicitude, partage des connaissances, qui a créé des liens forts avec tant de jeunes chercheurs qui sont passés par ses cours : philologues, historiens, épigraphistes, archéologues … Ils sont nombreux, et aujourd'hui dispersés, eux aussi, sur des rivages variés, mais ils savent ce qu'ils doivent à Maria Giulia, les Miriam, Sara, Nicola, Bruno, Adriano, Alessandro, et tant d'autres ; il n'est donc pas étonnant, mais très bienvenu qu'ils aient souhaité offrir ce beau cadeau à une personne qui leur est chère, qui est un point de référence pour eux, et un modèle pour nous tous. Tout au long de sa carrière, en effet, Maria Giulia a formé de jeunes esprits en leur enseignant les langues sémitiques, l'épigraphie, la rigueur d'une approche attentive aux menus détails, mais aussi aux contextes historiques dans lesquels le plus modeste graffito peut prendre son sens. On lui doit d'ailleurs, sur les écritures ou sur Carthage, des synthèses éclairantes, sobres et documentées, solides et brillantes à la fois. C'est donc une joie d'écrire ces quelques phrases sans doute trop personnelles, entre souvenir et hommage, un bonheur d'être associé à ce cadeau d'amitié et d'estime pour Maria Giulia que nous fêtons aux quatre coins de l'Europe et au-delà.

In The Rise of the Greek Aristocratic Banquet, Wecowski offers a comprehensive account of the origins of the symposion and its close relationship with the rise of the Greek city-state or polis. Broadly defined as a culture-oriented aristocratic banquet, the symposion—which literally means 'drinking together'—was a nocturnal wine party held by Greek aristocrats from Homer to Alexander the Great. Its distinctive feature was the crucial importance of diverse cultural competitions, including improvising convivial poetry, among the guests. Cultural skills and abilities were a prerequisite in order for one to be included in elite drinking circles, and, as such, the symposion served as a forum for the natural selection of Greek aristocracy.

The evidence for cremation burials in the LH/LM IIIC
period is re-evaluated. It can be concluded that the widely
held view, according to which the custom of cremation was
introduced to the Aegean from Asia Minor, no longer applies.
It is necessary to differentiate between cremation as
a minority rite in ordinary chamber tomb cemeteries and
cremation as a majority rite in tumuli in order to understand
the cultural affiliation of the custom. Cremation as a minority
rite in chamber tomb cemeteries probably derives from
Italian influence. The tumuli with inurned cremations in the
Argolid seem to be connected to the Western Balkans. There
was no direct or continuous development that led directly
from the occasional LH IIIC cremation burials to cremation
as the almost exclusively practiced type of burial in
Attica and Euboea during the Early Iron Age. Cremations
during the LH IIIC period and during the Early Iron Age
are two separate phenomena, each having a different cultural
and social background.

The contextual study of the oriental imports and their local imitations discovered in the Early Iron Age cemeteries at Knossos is of great importance, as it reveals the ways in which imported commodities were manipulated to create or enhance social identity. It is argued that the oriental imports and their close copies were used by those different elite groups in order to mark political and ideological differences. The main argument of this thesis is that there were different elite groups at Knossos which were in competition with each other and, for this reason, used different clusters of tombs and/or cemeteries. Another important part of this study is a coherent analysis of the distribution of the fully published tombs and cemeteries.

The area of East Phokis examined here mostly consists of the north and central parts of the valley of Kephissos, flanked by the two mountain ranges of Parnassos to the south and Kallidromo to the north and is complemented by the pass of Kalapodi towards East Lokris and the Euboean Gulf. Since the 1980s, East Phokis has produced rich evidence dating to the transitional period from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age, thanks to rescue excavations carried out by the Greek Archaeological Service as well as to systematic research by the University of Salzburg at Elateia-Alonaki and the German Archaeological Institute at Kalapodi, both in collaboration with the Greek Service. From the start, fascinating finds from the above excavations led to a number of discussions on issues of continuity in terms of habitation, burial customs, material culture and religion over the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age divide in this particular area. The resumption of excavations at Kalapodi in 2004 and the recent publication of material from past research in the area call for a review of the evidence from East Phokis and a new approach to its development in the crucial period of transition.

ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001 Conceptions of individual and community identity correspond substantially, but not wholly, with functional social groups in literary evidence from early Archaic Greece (800--650 BC). Dialogues about identity that populate face-to-face encounters in the Iliad and Odyssey follow closely the military, political, and territorial arrangements found in the catalogues of Iliad, Book II. Indeed, a remarkably consistent terminology of social division is used throughout Homer, and continues in large part through Hesiod and Archilochos. The political-military band ( 4ṽlon, 49h́t 9h or , 3́ jnov ), defined by allegiance to a particular leader whose rule is personal rather than institutional, recurs throughout the sources examined here. Furthermore, frequent references to geographic features and places of origin combined with repeated use of gaĩa (land), pat9í vgaĩ a (fatherland), and related terms reflect the importance of territoriality, not only to functional social groups but also to individuals' sense of their own origins. Community and territory combine to form the largest functional intra-Hellenic political unit, the dh̃mov , the totality of the people and their land. The dh̃mov , is the "public" entity; it is what the basil3vv́ (king) rules and the body from which people are exiled. Foreignness begins at the edge of the dh̃mov , in both a terrritorial and a communal sense. The póliv (town), however, is of limited importance, representing only the physical town itself. Superceding the individual dh̃mov , gaĩa , or , 3́ jnov is a strong Panhellenic sentiment, highly developed even as early as Homer. The entity invoked by the terms Achaian, Danaan, and Argive is treated as a political reality in Homer, represented by the entire force beseiging Troy, with its single leader and shared homeland.

During the second half of the eighth century BC, we witness a strong growth in the dedication of foreign objects in Greek sanctuaries. Until now no satisfactory answers have been given to the question how and why these foreign objects arrived in these cult places. In this paper I aim explore a new approach to these foreign dedications by focusing my attention on two categories of goods made in the Near East, namely metal basins and their supports, and horse trappings. I make a reconstruction of their social lives by examining these objects’ context of production, circulation and consumption, as well as their meaning, symbolism and functioning at specific social levels and in specific cultural contexts before they were dedicated as votives. A comparison of the use of these categories of objects during distinct stages of their social lives makes it possible to reconstruct processes of adoption and adaptation (including reinterpretation and recontextualization), by which objects or categories thereof are given new meanings according to local value systems. Such a comparison can also tell us more about the different kinds of agents involved in transactions and dedications, as well as about their motives, which may be related to religious piousness but also to socio-political strategies, self-realization and self-advertisement.

Despite its ubiquity in historical and mythological narratives, the ancient region of southern Phokis in central Greece has been approached primarily as a backdrop for more prominent neighbors (e.g. Delphi, Boiotia), whose roles have been codified in extant histories. Archaeological research has been likewise limited, with the result that southern Phokis has remained largely untouched and unintegrated into the larger narratives of each of the major periods of antiquity. Recent work by the Southern Phokis Regional Project (SPRP) in the Desfina Plain is correcting this lacuna. SPRP is blending the strongest attributes of several disciplinary approaches (e.g. classics, archaeochemistry, digital humanities) to produce a comprehensive transdisciplinary study of the natural and cultural landscape of the region, thereby illuminating the important role of southern Phokis during some of the richest epochs of human history.<br> Our 2018 study of Desfina's natural and cultural enviro...

The role of fishing in the Aegean LBA has until now been addressed with respect to its peripheral character within food-producing activities, as it is commonly accepted that affluent LBA societies were strictly oriented towards surplus strategies. A growing body of zooarchaeological data adds new evidence to the available poor record, hitherto based on Linear B texts and artistic representations. The potential and limitations of these research tools are presented in this paper, and an overview of old and new data is attempted, with the aim of re-addressing the role of fishing activities during this period. What stems from this study is the need to reassess the expected vs. contradictory evidence between different records, especially in the light of variable social contexts..

While most scholars generally are in agreement regarding the origin of the alphabet among the Phoenicians, the debate regarding exactly how, when and where the alphabet was transmitted to the Greeks is far from settled. In this paper, I examine the past and current theories regarding the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet with a consideration of the earliest evidence of Greek alphabetic writing in sites where Euboean and Phoenician traders were active. I argue that a better understanding of the links between the different nodes in the Greek-Phoenician network of the Early Iron Age will yield a more complex-and at the same time more complete-picture of how the Greeks were exposed to the Phoenicians and their writing system.

A necessidade de concisão dos agradecimentos apresentados para a publicação não faz jus à gratidão às pessoas aqui mencionadas que desempenharam, por um lado, um papel fundamental na execução prática de um trabalho imenso, difícil e, à primeira vista, impossível; e, por outro lado, em diferentes momentos, proporcionaram formas diversificadas de apoio emocional, igualmente vitais para a realização de uma tese de doutorado. Meu profundo agradecimento à Profa. Dra. Haiganuch Sarian, minha orientadora, que me acompanhou, auxiliou e abriu portas para que eu conseguisse desenvolver tal pesquisa. Da mesma forma, agradeço imensamente a pessoa que considero meu co -orientador, responsável pela escolha do tema, que, desde o início, incentivou e colaborou intensamente para que sua própria pesquisa tivesse continuidade. Ao Prof. Dr. Robin Hägg meus sinceros agradecimentos repletos de admiração profissional e de carinho pessoal. À Profa. Dra. Elaine F. V. Hirata pela formação acadêmica, pela confiança e incentivo e pelas contribuições críticas ao trabalho, inclusive pelos comentários apresentados na defesa do doutorado, pelos quais agradeço também o Prof. Dr. . Vlachos, V. Kosmopoulos, V. Giannopoulos, M. Palaiodimou e V. Mavroth pelo apoio e contribuições à pesquisa das formas mais variadas, de um lado, discussões acadêmicas, críticas, comentários e sugestões, fornecimento de artigos, troca de informações e análises inéditas e, de outro, todo auxílio e a viabilização burocrática prestados no estudo de material inédito nas reservas técnicas dos museus, arquivos manuscritos e bibliotecas e em questões práticas fundamentais na realização da pesquisa de doutorado durante os estágios no exterior, como hospedagem. Particularmente, sou grata à gentileza dos pesquisadores e seus respectivos centros de pesquisa que forneceram os negativos para a presente publicação, incluindo os responsáveis pelos arqui-

EXTENDED CALL FOR PAPERS - 19th OF MAY

The University of Bradford is proud to host the 20th Iron Age Student Research Symposium (IARSS). The symposium will be held between the 31st of May and the 2nd of June, with papers, posters and presentations, followed by a guided visit to the Hull Museum on the 3rd of June.
IARSS is a research student focused conference, providing an opportunity for students to share their work, network and collaborate with others. This event is open for contributions from postgraduate research students and new researchers, however, Master students are also welcome to submit and participate in the conference. Although IARSS is promoted as an Iron Age conference, contributions from colleagues studying or working within related periods, such as the Late Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age are also welcome. IARSS has traditionally focused on Iron Age Britain, however we welcome contributions from those colleagues examining the Iron Age elsewhere in the world, including, but not limited to, Ireland, the European continent and the Near East.

For colleagues interested in participating, please submit an abstract between c.250-300 words and 5 keywords related to your research. Presentations should be 15-20 minutes long and in English. Posters may be bilingual but they must be understandable to English speakers and an abstract in English must be provided.

Abstracts should be sent to:
[email protected] until the 19th of May.

The animal bones show a predominance of adult sheep and goats, which is probably related to the local availability of animals. The presence of mostly females, including perhaps some pregnant animals, provides tentative evidence for the worship of a female goddess.

The 12 th-11 th century BC marks the transition between the Late Bronze Age (LBA) occupation of Cyprus and the very different social world of the Early Iron Age. The final phase of the LBA is marked by a series of violent destructions, the abandonment of major urban centres and rural communities throughout the island, and a subsequent dramatic shift in settlement pattern. Alongside this there is a clear break in material production on the island – in particular within the field of pottery production, and significant changes in funerary and ritual practice. Within the wider East Mediterranean context the period is characterized by a breakdown in international maritime trade, the disappearance of the major palace economies and overarching empire states, and significant population movement. The extent to which Cyprus was directly affected by these changes is debated, in particular the presence of Mycenaean colonising communities; certainly there is some evidence that the island's significant copper trade persisted, albeit not at the same scale as during the LBA, and there is evidence for continued cultural and trading links with the island of Crete and the Philistine communities of the southern Levant. By the end of the 11th century the surviving communities occupied a very different social and economic world. This chapter will explore the context of these changes on Cyprus: the evidence for the establishment of new communities ancestral to the Iron Age city kingdoms using settlement and cemetery archaeology, the changing material world of the new settlements, external contact beyond the island and evidence for the earliest Phoenician trading and/or colonising activity on the island. In particular it will examine the degree to which the island might be considered to be a part of the emerging world of Iron Age Greece. Cyprus, Part 2: 10 th-7 th century BC Dr Louise Steel (TSD) The 10 th-7 th centuries BC see the establishment of the Cypriot Iron Age city kingdoms and the gradual emergence of the island on the international stage of the ancient Near East within the sphere of the Phoenicians, Assyrians and Egyptians. Later tradition attributes the foundation of most of the city kingdoms to Greek heroes, such as Teucros of Salamis, with an indigenous stronghold at Amathus and a Phoenician colony at Kition. Inscriptions support this picture of three distinct population groups resident on Cyprus, each preserving their individual language heritage. Archaeological evidence reveals very little of the Cypriot way of life during these centuries within the settlements – for the most part we are dependent on funerary remains and the evidence from religious sanctuaries; however the material culture from these sites sheds some light upon the concerns of the inhabitants and how they chose to express their diverse identities. The funerary record also reveals the emergence of an elite group who buried their dead in elaborate built tombs – such as those at Tamassos – and who manipulated imagery from Egypt and the East in the construction of royal ideologies. Most spectacular are the wealthy burials from Salamis. This chapter will explore how we might

256 sont normalement applicables à des séries dont les conditions de prélèvement sont connues, ce qui n'est pas le cas de notre assemblage. D'un autre côté, malgré ses imperfections, ce matériel reste le seul témoignage de l'exploitation des faunes aquatiques dans le sanctuaire d'Apollon durant la période géométrique. Il se pose donc la question de savoir comment l'étudier sans aller trop loin dans l'emploi des méthodes et dans les interprétations qu'on en tire, mais aussi sans sousestimer l'information fournie. A notre avis, la solution se trouve dans la sensibilité de l'interprétation appliquée aux résultats obtenus. Pour cette étude, nous avons opté pour un traitement des données dit standard, consistant à appliquer les méthodes archéozoologiques de base. Malgré leurs limites, nous estimons que ces méthodes peuvent être utiles dans la mesure où elles désignent des tendances générales, à condition que ces dernières ne soient pas prises pour des réalités archéologiques fixes. C'est en gardant ces réserves à l'esprit que nous présenterons les résultats obtenus grâce à l'analyse archéozoologique. proFil deS FauneS aquatiqueS le spectre représenté Le tableau 1 (voir aussi pl. 123a) indique les espèces représentées par phase du sanctuaire. L'assemblage est assez varié. Les restes étudiés se répartissent sur trois grands embranchements d'animaux marins : Cnidaires (dont les Coraux), Mollusques (dont les Bivalves, les Gastéropodes et les Céphalopodes) et Poissons (dont les Poissons osseux) 10 . Plus particulièrement,