The Aegean From Bronze Age To Iron Age

Following Oliver Dickinson’s successful The Aegean Bronze Age, this textbook is a synthesis of the period between the collapse of the Bronze Age civilization in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC, and the rise of the Greek civilization in the eighth century BC. With chapter bibliographies, distribution maps and illustrations, Dickinson’s detailed examination of material and archaeological evidence argues that many characteristics of Ancient Greece developed in the Dark Ages. He also includes up-to-date coverage of the 'Homeric question'. This highly informative text focuses on: the reasons for the Bronze Age collapse which brought about the Dark Ages the processes that enabled Greece to emerge from the Dark Ages the degree of continuity from the Dark Ages to later times. Dickinson has provided an invaluable survey of this period that will not only be useful to specialists and undergraduates in the field, but that will also prove highly popular with the interested general reader.

The years c. 1250 to 1150 BC in Greece and the Aegean are often characterised as a time of crisis and collapse. A critical period in the long history of the region and its people and culture, they witnessed the end of the Mycenaean kingdoms, with their palaces and Linear B records, and, through the Postpalatial period, the transition into the Early Iron Age. But, on closer examination, it has become increasingly clear that the period as a whole, across the region, defies simple characterisation – there was success and splendour, resilience and continuity, and novelty and innovation, actively driven by the people of these lands through this transformative century. The story of the Aegean at this time has frequently been incorporated into narratives focused on the wider eastern Mediterranean, and most infamously the ‘Sea Peoples’ of the Egyptian texts. In twenty-five chapters written by 25 specialists, Collapse and Transformation instead offers a tight focus on the Aegean itself, providing an up-to date picture of the archaeology ‘before’ and ‘after’ ‘the collapse’ of c. 1200 BC. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean regions, as well as providing data and a range of interpretations to those studying collapse and resilience more widely and engaging in comparative studies. Introductory chapters discuss notions of collapse, and provide overviews of the Minoan and Mycenaean collapses. These are followed by twelve chapters, which review the evidence from the major regions of the Aegean, including the Argolid, Messenia, and Boeotia, Crete, and the Aegean islands. Six chapters then address key themes: the economy, funerary practices, the Mycenaean pottery of the mainland and the wider Aegean and eastern Mediterranean region, religion, and the extent to which later Greek myth can be drawn upon as evidence or taken to reflect any historical reality. The final four chapters provide a wider context for the Aegean story, surveying the eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus and the Levant, and the themes of subsistence and warfare.

Oliver Dickinson has written a scholarly, accessible, and up-to-date introduction to the prehistoric civilizations of Greece. The Aegean Bronze Age, the long period from roughly 3000 to 1000 BC, saw the rise and fall of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. The cultural history of the region emerges through a series of thematic chapters that treat settlement, economy, crafts, exchange and foreign contact (particularly with the civilizations of the Near East), and religion and burial customs. Students and teachers will welcome this book, but it will also provide the ideal companion for amateur archaeologists visiting the Aegean.

This research, a unique compilation of scattered material, focused on a reconstruction of the sources of the European system of values embedded in the philosophy of Greco-Roman culture. The author is convinced that the Aegean cultures of the Bronze and Iron Ages are to be seen as the dissociated links in a long historical chain uniting an infant Europe with the maternal womb of Eurasia. He carried out on the spiritual world of the Bronze Age man, his relation to nature, his notions of life and death, space and time, his critical values and aesthetic tastes. A detailed description of Greek society and its culture during the period of the so-called Dark Ages is given, and finally special attention has been paid to the critical 8th century BC, the century of Homer, which marks the actual starting point of the history of Ancient Greece. The significance of this manuscript is that all evidence that excavations have revealed, has been incorporated.

The end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age was the period of a historical turning point for the relationship of the Aegean and the Levant. THe two regions were closely related to each other and benefited mutually in this period. THe transmission of the alphabet from the East to Greece and the appearance of Mycenaean-style pottery in the East illustrate the cultural borrowings in both directions. The volume presents updated studies on both regions and questions of bilateral relationships regarding archaeological, historical and linguistic aspects. THese studies shed light on the pivotal periods of both regions: when Greek poleis were formed, with the culture related to it, and when the political and social situation in the Levant took its form, influencing the entire first millennium BCE. In the linguistic part, the volume includes papers showing possible linguistic relations and mutual borrowings in the triangle of Semitic, Greek and Anatolian languages. IN the archaeological and historical parts, the studies deal both with case studies from Anatolia, Greece and Palestine and the synthetic issues regarding the 'big' questions. THe book also presents the possible benefits of the usage of scientific methods in historical reconstruction - analysis of isotopes and ancient DNA samples. THese new techniques offer a useful tool, expanding our way of exploring the past.

Offers an innovative theory for ancient art and its creativity, demonstrated through the rich material and visual culture of the protohistoric Aegean.

This book is a comprehensive up-to-date survey of the Aegean Bronze Age, from its beginnings to the period following the collapse of the Mycenaean palace system. In essays by leading authorities commissioned especially for this volume, it covers the history and the material culture of Crete, Greece, and the Aegean Islands from c.3000–1100 BCE, as well as topics such as trade, religions, and economic administration. Intended as a reliable, readable introduction for university students, it will also be useful to scholars in related fields within and outside classics. The contents of this book are arranged chronologically and geographically, facilitating comparison between the different cultures. Within this framework, the cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age are assessed thematically and combine both material culture and social history.