PREHISTORIC SOCIETIES OF THE AEGEAN AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN IN THE BRONZE AGE

Specific Foundation / Core

The course is also offered to exchange programme students.

Students are expected to: - obtain a good knowledge and thorough comprehension of the socio-political and ideological developments taken place in the Aegean during the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC - to be able to approach in a critical way particular aspects of material culture in association with special issues related to technology, architecture and spatial organization, exchange networks and trading systems, administration, scripts and writing systems, death management, conspicuous consumption and feasting, iconography etc.

Week #1: Introduction: chronology, history of research, theoretical approaches, surface surveys, archaeology and sciences: bioarchaeology, geoarchaeology, ceramics, natural environment and resources in the Aegean. Week #2: Final Neolithic – Early Bronze Age (EBA) in the Greek mainland and Macedonia (mid 4th-3rd millennium BC): FN Neolithic (mid 4th millennium BC): settlement organization, technology, exchange networks – EBA in the Greek mainland: settlement organization, domestic architecture e.g. corridor houses, metallurgy, technology, practices of consumption and storage, sealings and administration, exchange networks, burial practices – Early Bronze Age (EBA) in Macedonia: spatial organization, the household, metallurgy, ceramics, burial practices. Economy and social structure: new ideas and social practices. Week #3: Early Bronze Age (EBA) in the NE Aegean, Troy and the Cyclades (3rd millennium BC): domestic architecture and settlement patterns, subsistence strategies, raw materials and technology: metallurgy, pottery, lithics. Cycladic figurines and burial practices. Exchange networks: the social role of metallurgy and seafaring to exchange networks and new forms of social complexity. Week #4: Prepalatial Crete Ι (3rd millennium BC): spatial organization, household units and domestic architecture: Myrtos Fournou Korifi, Vasiliki. Death management and tomb architecture. Public gatherings and feastings. Week #5: Prepalatial Crete Ι (3rd millennium BC): technology: pottery production and mobility of ceramics, metallurgy and the role of metallurgy in exchange systems in the Aegean: raw materials, metallurgical sites. Exchange systems. Seals and sealings. Emergence of competing elite groups and social complexity. Week #6: Protopalatial Crete II (early 2nd millennium BC): formation of the first palaces: old and new approaches. Settlement organization and palatial architecture (Knossos, Faistos, Malia), public areas, storage, ritual space: conspicuous consumption, ceramic technology e.g. Kamares ware, craftsmanship, workshops and prestige items manufacture e.g. Quartier Mu, Malia, small-scale courtyard compounds e.g. Petras, Monastiraki, , scripts (Linear A, Cretan Hieroglyphic) and administration. Week #7: Protopalatial Crete (early 2nd millennium BC): burial practices and death management: Archanes and Malia. The sacred landscape: peak sanctuaries, sanctuary caves, shrines. Technology and craftsmanship: stones vases, seals. Exchange networks in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean: short- and long-scale seafaring. Week #8: Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and the shaft grave period in central and southern Greek mainland (2000-1600 BC): settlement organization and domestic architecture: simple versus complex household, egalitarian versus hierarchical social complexity: the case of Argos and Asine in the Argolid. Pottery production and mobility. Burial practices and differentiation (burial tumuli in Messenia, intramural burials in the Argolid, Argos tumuli). The shaft grave phenomenon in the Greek mainland: theoretical approaches and emergence of elite groups. Week #9: Neopalatial Crete I (1750-1500 BC): the new palaces and novelties: public areas, ritual space, shrines, residential compartments, public and domestic use of space: courtyard compounds, villas, farmsteads, towns, ports. The socio-political organization on Crete during the neopalatial period: theoretical approaches. Week #10: Neopalatial Crete II (1750-1500 BC) and the Minoan influence in the southern Aegean: frescoes: iconography and symbolic expression. Ritual and ritual space: sanctuary caves, peak sanctuaries, palatial shrines, votive items, ritual objects: relief vases, figurines, iconographic representations on seals and seal rings. Metallurgy and utility tools, craftsmanship, ceramics. Burial practices and mortuary differentiation (Knossos cemeteries, the Temple tomb etc.) – Minoan “thalassocracy”? Minoan influence in the southern Aegean from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age: Phylakopi, Melos, Ayia Eirini, Kea, Kythera. Akrotiri, Thera: architecture and frescoes. Week #11: Mycenaean period in the Greek mainland I: early Mycenaean (1700-1400 BC) and palatial periods (1400-1200 BC): settlement organization and tomb architecture in the early Mycenaean period. The emergence of palatial systems in the southern and central Greek mainland. Mycenaean citadels and states. The palace and the anax: their role in the Mycenaean palatial systems, public gatherings and rituals, frescoes. The palace and the town. Public works. Tomb architecture. The Mycenaean landscape in symbolic terms: the case of Mycenae. Week #12: Mycenaean period in the Greek mainland II (1400-1200 BC): Linear B tablets and administrative organization, production and craftsmanship, networks and trading systems in the Aegean and the broader Mediterranean, LBA shipwrecks: cargo and sea routes in the eastern Mediterranean. Week #13: Mycenaean dominance in Crete and the islands (1500-1400 BC) – Late Bronze Age (LBA) Macedonia: Linear B tablets and administrative organization and production. Knossos “warrior graves” and chamber tomb cemeteries on Crete. The Mycenaean influence in the Cyclades and the Dodecanese. LBA Macedonia: alternative pathways in the Aegean. Spatial organization at the inter- and intra-level: the examples of Toumba Thessalonikis, Asssiros and Kastanas. Subsistence strategies and the role of storage. LBA cemeteries and death management. The adoption of Mycenaean-type cultural features: pottery production and consumption, perfume manufacture and consumption, public gatherings and feasting, exchange networks with central Europe and the Balkans.

Aegean, Bronze Age, Socio-political develpoments, Ideology, Architecture and domestic organisation, Administration, Exchange networks

22-11-2015