Daybook Of The Excavations At Phylakopi In Melos 1896 1899

The excavations undertaken by the British School at Athens at the Bronze Age site of Phylakopi in the Cycladic island of Melos from 1896 to 1899, under the immediate supervision of Duncan Mackenzie, have been described (by no less an authority than Carl Blegen) as: 'the first really serious effort to understand stratification, the first really good excavation in Greece'. Since that time Phylakopi has been a key site both for the study of the Cycladic Bronze Age and of prehistoric Aegean interconnections. This volume completes the authoritative account of the excavations undertaken for the British School of Archaeology from 1974 to 1977 under the direction of Colin Renfrew. Leading specialists contribute full descriptions of the stratigraphy, of the pottery of successive phases and of the other finds, now making Phylakopi one of the most comprehensively documented and published sites of the Aegean Bronze Age. Phylakopi was a settlement in close touch with other areas, notably Minoan Crete and Helladic Greece, from the Early Bronze Age onwards, with a marked increase in Minoan imports during the Middle Bronze Age. The chronology of the fortifications is here re-assessed in the light of stratigraphic associations. The painted plasters, now assigned to the Late Bronze I period, are also re-evaluated, as is the important central building of the time (with the find of a tablet fragment in the Minoan Linear A script). Significant material of the Mycenaean period is described in detail and supplements finds from the 1974-77 excavations published in The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi. BSA Suppl. 18 (London 1985). The growth of settlement in Melos has been outlined in C. Renfrew and J.M. Wagstaff (eds.), An Island Polity: the Archaeology of Exploitation in Melos (Cambridge 1982). With this new volume publication of the project now reaches completion, offering the documentation upon which earlier and more recent conclusions must rest. This work should stand for many years as the definitive account of this important Bronze Age site, one of the first proto-urban centres of the prehistoric Aegean. It offers much of the evidential basis needed for assessing the role of the Cyclades in the developing field of Aegean Bronze Age studies.

The mid second millennium BC material record of the southern Aegean shows evidence of strong Cretan influence. This phenomenon has traditionally been seen in terms of ‘Minoanisation’, but the nature and degree of Cretan influence, and the process/processes by which it was spread and adopted, have been widely debated. This new study addresses the question of ‘Minoanisation’ through a study of the adoption of Cretan technologies in the wider southern Aegean: principally, weaving technology. By the early Late Bronze Age, Cretan-style discoid loom weights had appeared at a number of settlements across the southern Aegean. In most cases, this represents not only the adoption of a particular type of loom weight, but also the introduction of a new weaving technology: the use of the warp-weighted loom. The evidence for, and the implications of, the adoption of this new technology is examined. Drawing upon recent advances in textile experimental archaeology, the types of textiles that are likely to have been produced at a range of sites both on Crete itself and in the wider southern Aegean are discussed, and the likely nature and scale of textile production at the various settlements is assessed. A consideration of the evidence for the timing and extent of the adoption of Cretan weaving technology in the light of additional evidence for the adoption of other Cretan technologies is used to gain insight into the potential social and economic strategies engaged in by various groups across the southern Aegean, as well as the motivations that may have driven the adoption and adaptation of Cretan cultural traits and accompanying behaviors. By examining how technological skills and techniques are learned and considering possible mechanisms for the transmission of such technical knowledge and know-how, new perspectives can be proposed concerning the processes through which Cretan techniques were taken up and imitated abroad.

Prologue -- About the Aegean Bronze Age -- About the Palace of Nestor -- Mycenaean origins and the Greek nation-state -- Farm, field, and Pylos -- A truly prehistoric archaeology of Greece -- Preserving and conserving Nestor -- Science and the mortuary landscape of Pylos -- Minoan missionaries in Pylos / with Sharon R. Stocker -- Epilogue / with Sharon R. Stocker.

The case of Melos is relevant to the understanding of the processes of early state-formation and of the integration of small-scale societies into larger political units. As the contributors to this volume show, a small island provides a very suitable area in which to examine the processes of social, cultural and economic change and the forces.

This volume explores the myriad ways in which pottery was created, utilized, and experienced in the prehistoric Aegean, across a period of more than 4000 years between the Middle Neolithic and the Early Iron Age transition.

"A short history of the British school at Athens. 1886-1911", by G. A. Macmillan: no. 17, p. [ix]-xxxviii.

The sculpture of the early bronze age Cyclades has been systematically studied since the time of Christos Tsountas at the end of the 19th century. But that study has been hampered by the circumstance that so many of the subsequent finds come from unauthorised excavations, where the archaeological context was irretrievably lost. Largely for that reason there are still many problems surrounding the chronology, the function and the meaning of Early Cycladic sculpture. This lavishly illustrated and comprehensive re-asssement sets out to rectify that situation by publishing finds which have been recovered in controlled excavations in recent years, as well as earlier finds for which better documentation can now be provided. Using the material from recent excavation projects, and drawing on the papers presented at a symposium held in Athens in 2014, it is possible now to undertake a fresh overview of the entire body of sculpture from the Cycladic islands which has been found in secure archaeological contexts. Beginning with early examples from Neolithic settlement sites and extending into a consideration of material found in later contexts, the 35 chapters are divided into sections which examine sculpture from settlements, cemeteries and the sanctuary at Kavos, concluding with a discussion of material, techniques and aspects of manufacture.