Description
Book SynopsisDoes the "Minoan myth" still stand up to scientific scrutiny? Since the work of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos (Crete, Greece), the romanticized vision of the Cretan Bronze Age as an era of peaceful prosperity only interrupted by the catastrophic effects of natural disasters has captured the popular and scientific imagination. Its impact on the development of archaeology, archaeoseismology, and earthquake geology in the eastern Mediterranean is considerable. Yet, in spite of more than a century of archaeological explorations on the island of Crete, researchers still do not have a clear understanding of the effects of earthquakes on Minoan society. This volume, gathering the contributions of Minoan archaeologists, geologists, seismologists, palaeoseismologists, geophysicists, architects, and engineers, provides an up-to-date interdisciplinary appraisal of the role of earthquakes in Minoan society and in Minoan archaeology - what we know, what are the remaining issues, and where we need to go. Contributors Tim Cunningham (Universite catholique de Louvain), Jan Driessen (Universite catholique de Louvain), Charalampos Fassoulas (Natural History Museum of Crete, University of Crete), Christoph Grutzner (RWTH Aachen University, University of Cambridge), Susan E. Hough (U.S. Geological Survey), Simon Jusseret (The University of Texas at Austin, Universite catholique de Louvain), Colin F. Macdonald (The British School at Athens), Jack Mason (RWTH Aachen University), James P. McCalpin (GEO-HAZ Consulting Inc.), Floyd W. McCoy (University of Hawaii - Windward), Clairy Palyvou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Gerassimos A. Papadopoulos (National Observatory of Athens), Klaus Reicherter (RWTH Aachen University), Manuel Sintubin (KU Leuven), Jeffrey S. Soles (University of North Carolina - Greensboro), Rhonda Suka (Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii), Eleftheria Tsakanika (National Technical University of Athens), Thomas Wiatr (RWTH Aachen University, German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy)
Trade ReviewThe editors are to be warmly congratulated for bringing together a great set of specialists, and to produce a transdisciplinary collection that breaks refreshingly new ground in the archaeoseismology field. The impressive breadth and depth of this volume is testimony to how far the field has progressed in the past two decades. This volume deserves to be read widely by earthquake scientists and archaeologists, for the significance of its messages extends far beyond the Minoan arena.
Prof. Iain Stewart, Plymouth University
Above all, this innovative volume breaks new ground by gathering specialists from the fields of geology and archaeology in an attempt to shed some new light onto the effects of earthquake disasters on Cretan Bronze Age (hereafter Minoan) society. Stemming from the workshop 'Out of rubble: Interdisciplinary perspectives on Minoan earthquakes' (Leuven, November 2012),1 this collection represents a major advance in the field of archaeoseismology by addressing key issues in methodology and presenting new evidence and fresh interpretations of specific case studies. [...] If this discipline is "still in its infancy" (p. 393), as the editors admit, this book anticipates its imminent coming of age.Vassilis
Petrakis, Bryn Mawr
Classical Review, 6 July 2018
* Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
