Description
Book SynopsisThe island of Melos in the Cyclades has a rich archaeology having played an important part in prehistory and throughout history. But owing to its unique geology it is also home to a wide array of rocks and minerals which have been exploited since the first human occupation of the island. This book is about the archaeology of the minerals industries of Melos in antiquity. The localities of their extraction and the type of processing they may have been subject to have been reconstructed on the basis of archaeological evidence. At the site of Aghia Kyriaki, SE Melos, there is evidence for large-scale exploitation of alum in the Late Roman period, its processing in large shallow vessels and packaging into amphorae; there is also evidence for the use of geothermal energy there and in neighbouring Palaeochori Bay; there are phreatic explosions near the sulphur mines at Fyrlingos; finally, there are the egkoila of Melos, the rock-cut cavities carved out of the island's ubiquitous white altere
Table of ContentsPrologue. On tradesmen, bath-attendants and men-in-business; 1. Why earths, and why earths now?; 2. Nature's own material culture on Melos; 3. Earths, the name commonly given by all Greeks...; 4. 'A cluster of niches exploited with tenacity and ingenuity...'; 5. On earths and rock-cut features: the SE Melos Survey (SEMS) methodology; 6. Mining, farming and honouring the dead in SE Melos; 7. A tale of two sites; 8. The archaeology of minerals in SE Melos: facts and hypotheses; 9. From mineralogy to microbiology ...via phenomenology, a return journey
