Search results for ""INSTAP Academic Press""

This is the first volume on the Late Minoan III necropolis of Armenoi in western Crete. It sets the scene, introduces the site and its topography, and offers the results of site surveys and their finds. A chapter on the Linear B discovery from the necropolis is also included. The necropolis is the most important and extensive, and the only intact, cemetery that dates to Late Bronze Age III on Crete. This publication will augment our knowledge of Minoan burial practices, craft production, and religion. It will elucidate Minoans as a people: what they ate and drank, how they lived their lives, what diseases caused them suffering, and how they died.

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This is the first volume on the Late Minoan IIIC settlement at Chalasmenos, located near Ierapetra in eastern Crete. The site was excavated (1992-2014), initially as part of a Greek-American project under the direction of Metaxia Tsipopoulou and the late William Coulson. House A.2 is a two-room structure on the southwestern edge of the site. The excavation and stratigraphy, architecture, pottery, small finds, and faunal material from the building are presented. The house was used for domestic purposes, serving as the home of an elite (or prospective elite) family, but it also was a meeting and dining place on certain occasions.

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This volume is the first of two that represent the final publication of Sector I of the Prepalatial to Postpalatial Minoan urban settlement and palace of Petras, Siteia, located in eastern Crete, and it presents the results of the excavations conducted there from 1985 to 2000. Individual chapters focus on the architecture (Tsipopoulou), cooking wares (Alberti), Early Minoan (EM) and Middle Minoan (MM) I pottery (Relaki), a unique example of an EM-MM amphora stamped with a seal prior to firing (Krzyszkowska), numerous miniature vessels and figurines (Simandiraki-Grimshaw), and a study of vessels (primarily Neopalatial) with potter's marks (Tsipopoulou). A subsequent volume will discuss in more detail the Neopalatial and Postpalatial pottery from Houses I.1 and I.2 and focus on the main Neopalatial period of the Petras settlement and its Postpalatial re-occupation.

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This book is the third volume in the final report of the cleaning and excavations at the Late Minoan IIIC settlement of Vronda-located near Kavousi in eastern Crete-that were conducted between 1983 and 1992. Detailed analyses of the architecture, pottery, other finds (including figurines and stone tools), and botanical and faunal remains are presented in this volume, along with a complete history of the site and an attempt to reconstruct the social, political, and religious organization of the settlement.

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This book is the first of a two-volume final report on the excavation of the Minoan cemetery and associated finds at Livari Skiadi in the southeastern end of Crete. This volume deals with the excavation of the site and its architecture, pottery, and other small finds, dating to the Prepalatial, Neopalatial, and Late Hellenistic/Early Roman periods.

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The site of Knossos on the Kephala hill in central Crete is of great archaeological and historical importance for both Greece and Europe. Dating to 7000 B.C., it is the home of one of the earliest farming societies in southeastern Europe, and, in the later Bronze Age periods, it developed into a remarkable center of economic and social organization within the island, enjoying extensive relations with the Aegean, the Greek mainland, the Near East, and Egypt. After the systematic excavation of the deep Neolithic occupation levels by J.D. Evans in the late 1950s and later and more limited investigations of the Prepalatial deposits undertaken primarily during restoration work, no thorough exploration of the earliest occupation of the mound had been attempted. This monograph fills the gap, detailing the recent studies of the stratigraphy, architecture, ceramics, sedimentology, economy, and ecology that were a result of the opening of a new excavation trench in 1997. Together, these studies by 13 different contributors to the volume re-evaluate the importance of Neolithic Knossos and place it within the wider geographic context of the early island prehistory of the eastern Mediterranean.

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Ke-ra-me-ja is a woman's name that appears on a Linear B tablet from Knossos. It means "potter" (Κεράμεια, from Greek κέραμος, "potter's clay") and combines two major strands of Cynthia Shelmerdine's scholarly pursuits: Mycenaean ceramics and Linear B texts. It thereby signals her pioneering use of archaeological and textual data in a sophisticated and integrated way. The intellectual content of the essays presented to her in this volume demonstrate not only that her research has had a wide-ranging influence, but also that it is a model of scholarship to be emulated.

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This volume is based on material from an intensive and systematic field survey of Halasarna (modern Kardamaina), located on a coastal plain in the southern part of the Dodecanesian island of Kos, and a study of settlement patterns across the Aegean. It provides a new corpus of data on the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods, presents a material sequence based on stylistic analysis, and develops a diachronic understanding of settlement dynamics within a wider regional context.

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This book completes the two-part series that serves as the final report for the excavation of the Cave of the Cyclops on the island of Youra in the Northern Sporades of Greece, a site that was occasionally occupied from the Mesolithic through Roman period. The second volume contains the results of detailed studies on the archaeological material, organic remains, and archeometric analyses that complete the image of this significant archaeological site. These studies help to further distinguish the main characteristics of the Mesolithic culture in the Aegean basin, including: the intense exploitation of sea resources, limited hunting activities, the collection of native fruits and land snails to supplement the diet, and attempts at domestication by isolated island communities.

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Excavations carried out at two Late Minoan III sites at Mochlos in eastern Crete yielded a pottery assemblage from 31 tombs and 11 houses, which are cataloged, discussed, and illustrated together with petrographic analyses. The cemetery remains mirror the settlement remains, and the conclusions discuss how the two sites reflect each other. Rarely in Crete are a settlement and its cemetery both preserved, and it is extremely fortunate to be able to document both in a series of scientific excavation reports (Mochlos vols. IIA-IIC).

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This book focuses on economic and social changes, particularly during the opening phase of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. New developments in ceramics that reached Crete at the end of the Neolithic period greatly contributed to the creation of economic, technological, social, and religious advancements we call the Early Bronze Age. The arguments are two-fold: a detailed explanation of the ceramics we call Early Minoan I and the differences that set it apart from its predecessors, and an explanation of how these new and highly superior containers changed the storage, transport, and accumulation of a new form of wealth consisting primarily of processed agricultural and animal products like wine, olive oil, and various foods preserved in wine, vinegar, honey, and other liquids. The increased stability and security provided by an improved ability to store food from one year to the next would have a profound effect on the society.

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The University of Pennsylvania owns the largest collection of Minoan artifacts outside of Europe. The objects were acquired legally from the nation of Crete after it became independent from the Ottoman Empire and before its request was accepted to become a part of Greece, whose laws forbade such gifts to institutions that had sponsored archaeological expeditions. This third volume about the Cretan Collection in the Penn Museum presents the Minoan metal artifacts. They provide primary evidence for the early history of metallurgy in southeastern Europe during the second millennium B.C. This is a rich and varied assemblage of objects, with a large number of different classes. It is especially rich in items from the preliminary stages of metalwork (including oxhide ingot fragments, cut preliminary strips, and small cast strips used as early stages in the manufacture of artifacts). The study using modern techniques of examination-including scientific analyses-both documents the museum's holdings and provides new information on Minoan metalworking. Two important metallurgical techniques are documented: eutectic bonding of silver-capped rivets on daggers and "casting on" repairs to an existing object, which has not been noted previously in Minoan metalwork. The assemblage is remarkable for the light its objects shed on the history of technology.

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In 1962, after a period of secret looting, the location of a shrine for the Greek Goddess Eileithyia was discovered by the police in south-central Crete at the modern town of Tsoutsouros, ancient Inatos. The cave dedicated to this ancient goddess of childbirth and motherhood was excavated that year by Nikolaos Platon and Costis Davaras on behalf of the Archaeological Museum in Herakleion. It was filled with remarkable votive gifts including over 100 items of gold along with Egyptian figurines and seal stones, bronze objects, and hundreds of clay figurines. The dates of the shrine's use extended from before 2000 B.C. to the Roman Imperial period. Many of the clay images are especially appropriate for this deity because they include pregnant women, embracing couples, figures in preparation for childbirth, mothers holding babies, and a young child in its crib. A Greek language book highlighting the shrine and its major discoveries is now translated into English. It provides images, catalog entries, and explanatory texts for the most important discoveries from this unique shrine.

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The 27 papers in this volume harken to the themes that Jeffrey Soles has influenced during his illustrious career in Aegean Bronze Age archaeology: ancestry, burial customs, religion, trade, jewelry, the development of the Minoan settlement of Mochlos in eastern Crete, and the rise and fall of the Minoan civilization.

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Rhyta are among the most appealing yet enigmatic classes of artefacts from the Aegean Bronze Age. They were produced in a wide range of forms and media with a consistently high degree of craftsmanship. This comprehensive study of Bronze Age rhyta from the Aegean builds on nearly a century of discoveries and scholarly contributions, and addresses questions of typology, function, context, and the uses of these vessels. The volume includes a thoroughly illustrated catalogue, an index of sites and the present locations of rhyta.

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Mochlos is a Minoan town set on a fine harbour at the eastern side of the Gulf of Mirabello, in northeast Crete. It was first inhabited during the Neolithic period, and it had an important Minoan settlement during most of the Bronze Age. Mochlos I, to be published in three volumes, presents the results of the excavations in the Neopalatial levels of the Artisans' Quarter, and at the farmhouse at Chalinomouri. The Artisans' Quarter consisted of a series of workshops with evidence for pottery manufacture, metalworking, and weaving. Chalinomouri, a semi-independent farmhouse with strong connections to the nearby island settlement at Mochlos, was engaged in craftwork and food processing as well as agriculture. This volume, Mochlos IA, presents the process of excavation and the architecture; volume IB presents the pottery, and volume IC will publish the small finds.

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This volume of the report on excavations at Marsa Matruh on Bates's Island, which is located on the seacoast at the north of Egypt's western desert, publishes the local and imported pottery, the crucibles and other evidence for metalworking, the organic finds (including ostrich egg shells), and the other discoveries made at the site. The pottery found in the excavations indicates that this small Late Bronze Age settlement had links to several cultures: Cyprus, the Aegean, Egypt, the coast of western Asia, and the local Marmarican people.

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This two-volume set presents the results of the excavation of two cemeteries at the site of Vronda Kavousi in East Crete: the cemetery of tholos tombs belong to the Subminoan to Protogeometric periods (with some use in the eighth century B.C.) and the cemetery of enclosure graves with cremation burials belonging to the Late Geometric to Late Orientalizing periods. A discussion of individual graves (including the stratigraphy, architecture, human remains, faunal and botanical remains, pottery, and other finds) is followed by the analysis of the cremation process and human remains, the faunal and botanical remains, the pottery, the petrographic analysis of the pottery, the metals and other finds, the burial customs, and the history and society of the burying population. A study of the capacities of some of the pottery vessels and a metallurgical analysis of the iron objects appear in appendices.

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The sixth edition of The Knossos Tablets brings for now to completion nearly 120 years of the study of the texts of the Linear B inscriptions from the preeminent Cretan palatial site of the late Minoan Bronze Age. Based on his career-long mastery of the many scholarly tools needed to interpret the contents and historical meaning of Mycenaean Greek clay tablet inscriptions, José L. Melena, with assistance on find-spots from Richard Firth and a check of the accuracy of each and every text by an editorial team of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, offers here definitive readings of these archaeologically, linguistically and historically important records. The book presents accurate information on tablet joins, find-spots, assignments of texts to scribes, sets of texts identified by subject matter and administrative purpose, and conjectural readings of partially preserved texts. The systems of reference to tablets by inventory numbers and to coherent sets of tablets by alphabetic prefixes have been streamlined. Helpful appendices make clear the classification of series and sets, tablet find locations, and the history of reconstruction of tablets through fragment joins. The volume closes with an up-to-date overall ground plan and close-up sector plans of the Palace of Minos at Knossos keyed to tablet find-spots.

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This handsome volume describes and illustrates the excavation of an artificial rock shelter in Crete, Greece. Minoan pottery and small finds such as stone tools, loomweights, and ecofactual remains were recovered. The ceramics elucidate the style and chronology of East Cretan White-on-Dark Ware, which dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age.

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This volume is the final publication of the results of excavation of six Mycenaean chamber tombs in the Late Bronze Age cemetery of Ayia Sotira within the Nemea Valley of the Argolid region of Greece. The work presented includes artifactual and ecofactual remains such as pottery, jewelry, figurines, metal objects, human skeletons, and botanical remains. The book is richly illustrated with maps, plans, drawings, photos, and tables of data.

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This is the first of five planned volumes to present the primary archaeological report about the excavation of the cave of Hagios Charalambos in eastern Crete. The Minoans used this small cavern as an ossuary for the secondary burial of human remains and grave goods, primarily during the Early and Middle Bronze Age. The geography and geology surrounding the cave is discussed along with the methodology of the excavation. A portion of the pottery and all of the small finds are presented with many illustrations.

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The Temple University Aegean Symposium was an annual event from 1976 until 1985 sponsored by the Department of Art History at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Each year, the symposium focused on a specific theme in Aegean Bronze Age art and archaeology. This book is a collection of the 10 volumes of articles that were published. Aside from incorporating errata, the articles are unchanged from the original publications. A new Preface and page numbering system are included in this compendium.

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The goal of this book is to trace the development of elite Minoan architectural forms that arose during the late Protopalatial (Middle Minoan II) and early Neopalatial periods (Middle Minoan III). The study of this architectual development concentrates on the older, larger sites of Knossos, Malia, and Phaistos where those very forms seem to have originated. Other Minoan towns and palaces in Crete are referenced when appropriate.

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Contributions by 37 scholars are brought together here to create a volume in honor of the long and fruitful career of Costis Davaras, former Ephor of Crete and Professor Emeritus of Minoan Archaeology at the University of Athens. Articles pertain to Bronze Age Crete and include mortuary studies, experimental archaeology, numerous artifactual studies, and discussions on the greater Minoan civilization.

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House X is by far the largest and best appointed of the Minoan houses excavated at Kommos in south-central Crete, a Minoan harbor and settlement that later became the site of a Greek sanctuary. Situated on the seacoast of the western Mesara Plain, Kommos faces west toward the Libyan Sea. House X stands on the southern edge of the Minoan town, separated by a large slab-paved road from the monumental civic buildings built and used between the Protopalatial and Postpalatial periods. The description of the stratigraphic excavation of this elite house is published with numerous architectural plans along with the catalogued small finds and tables of data on the floral and faunal materials. The excavated fresco fragments are also discussed and illustrated.

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A regional survey was undertaken in the central part of the Mirabello Bay area: along the northeastern coast of Crete in the Gournia Valley and the northern half of the Isthmus of Ierapetra, ending in the valley of Episkopi, to provide a regional context for the Bronze Age palace and settlement of Gournia. As this survey was the last and geographically most central compared to three other surveys (Vrokastro, Pseira, and Kavousi), conducted in the Mirabello region, it ties together the data from all four surveys regarding the environment, population(s), and social organization of an entire region. Furthermore, this volume goes beyond the survey data to consider, at some length, the evidence from local excavations, so as to provide an in-depth and integrated picture of the regional socio-economic development. It is meant as a regional archaeological study of the Mirabello Bay area.

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The publication of the Hagia Photia Cemetery is planned in three volumes. The first volume, which has already been published (Davaras and Betancourt 2004), presented the tomb groups and the architecture. The second volume about the excavation of the Hagia Photia cemetery focuses on the pottery. The third volume will present the obsidian, stone finds, metal objects, and other discoveries. The Early Minoan I tombs at Hagia Photia included the largest assemblage of vessels in Cycladic style known from Crete as well as vases from production workshops in Crete. The pottery is extremely important for several reasons, including the definition of the EM I ceramic styles that were being used as funerary offerings in this part of Crete, the establishment of the chronological synchronisms between Crete and the Cyclades, and information on the history of the Minoan pottery industry. When compared with other deposits from EM I Crete, the pottery helps to establish a better understanding of the ceramic development within the first Minoan time period.

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The transport stirrup jar was a vessel type used extensively in the Late Bronze Age III Aegean world. Found in a variety of contexts, the type was used both to transport and to store liquid commodities in bulk. The peak of the production and exchange of this jar corresponded with the time of economic expansion on the Greek mainland. On Crete, stirrup jars appeared at most major centers on the island. Their presence in large numbers in storerooms indicates the movement of commodities and the centralized storage and control of goods. The broad distribution of stirrup jars at coastal sites in the eastern Mediterranean and their presence in the cargoes of the Uluburun, Gelidonya, and Iria shipwrecks clearly shows their role in the extensive exchange networks within the Aegean and beyond. Because they represent significant Aegean exchange, tracing their origins and movement provides information regarding production centers and trade routes. This study concentrates on determinating of provenance of the jars and the subsequent tracing of exchange routes. The fully integrated research design is an interdisciplinary, collaborative archaeological project that embraces typological, chemical, petrographic, and epigraphic approaches in order to shed light on the jars' classification and origin. The results of the chemical and petrographic work constitute primary parts of the study. By establishing the origins and distribution of the jars, these vases are placed within their historical context. The identification of production centers and export routes is critical for a full understanding of the economic and political conditions in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.

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Prof. James D. Muhly has enjoyed a distinguished career in the study of ancient history, archaeology, and metallurgy that includes an emeritus professorship at the University of Pennsylvania and a term as director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens as well as receiving the Archaeological Institute of America's Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology. In Muhly's honor, a total of 38 eminent scholars have contributed 30 articles that include topics on Bronze and Iron Age metallurgy around the Eastern Mediterranean in such places as Crete, the Cyclades, Cyprus, and Turkey.

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This volume is the second in the series of final reports on the work of the Kavousi Project and the first volume on the cleaning (1982-1984) and excavations (1987-1992) at the mountain sites located above the modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete. These sites, Vronda and the Kastro, shed light on the Early Iron Age, the transitional period in Cretan history known popularly as the Dark Ages, thereby elucidating the way of life of the people who lived in the area of Kavousi during that period and how their culture changed over time. Kavousi IIA is devoted to the excavation of material from the Late Minoan IIIC settlement at Vronda, particulary the houses on the summit of the Vronda ridge (Buildings A-B, C-D, J-K, and Q), along with earlier (Building P) and later (Building R) structures around them.

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The excavation of a Minoan shipwreck dated to 1725/1700 BC is described. The cargo includes the largest known corpus of complete and almost complete clay vessels from a single Middle Minoan IIB deposit. The transport boat provides interesting information on a society that revolved around seafaring.

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The results of excavations carried out at two Late Minoan III sites at Mochlos in eastern Crete are presented. The stratigraphy and architecture of a total of 31 tombs and 11 houses are discussed together with a complete list of artifacts, ecofacts, and skeletal remains from each context. The cemetery remains mirror the settlement remains, and the conclusions discuss how the two sites reflect each other. Rarely in Crete are a settlement and its cemetery both preserved, and it is extremely fortunate to be able to excavate both.

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Kavousi I is the initial volume of the Kavousi Excavation Series, which presents the final report of the Kavousi Project, a program of archaeological investigation near the modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete. Subsequent volumes will publish the results of the 1987-1992 excavations at the Vronda and Kastro sites in the Siteia Mountains overlooking Kavousi and of the cleaning and new study of the excavations of Harriet Boyd in 1900 and 1901. This volume, Kavousi I: The Archaeological Survey of the Kavousi Region, provides a comprehensive look at the topography of the area, its natural resources, and the way in which the local people interacted with them over time, as shown in the changing pattern of settlement. It sets the stage for the report on the excavations and provides an introduction to the local soils and to the pottery classification used by the excavators.

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The pithos is one of the most distinctive utilitarian forms of the Cretan Bronze Age ceramic repertoire. Because of its use as a storage container, a pithos is the foremost parameter for the evaluation of the economic organization of palatial and domestic sectors of Cretan Bronze Age society. The pithoi as pottery and their significance for the understanding of the Cretan Bronze Age economy has been the focus of a research project carried out from 1989 to 1999. This book is not a pithos handbook in the narrow sense, although the study offers a typological division of the data with comments on chronology and spatial distribution. It integrates stylistic considerations with broad fabric and technological observations in order to understand the production and consumption of pithoi.

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In this book Michael Morris presents a detailed study of the prehistoric landscape in three regions of Crete. He examines the development, stability, and physio-chemical composition of selected soils near three archaeological sites: Karphi, a Late Minoan IIIC "refuge site"; Chrysokamino, a Final Neolithic to Late Minoan IIIB farmhouse; Vronda and Kastro near Kavousi, two Late Minoan IIIC to Geometric sites. Morris offers conclusions on the history of the Cretan landscape and its formation processes, and how those processes contribute to our understanding of the human use of the landscape. The book will interest anyone involved with the archaeology of Minoan Crete, as well as those who study the pedological history of other regions.

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This is primarily a book on architecture, and as such it seeks to bring forward the deeper forces that guide the work of all the sons and all the daughters of Daidalos. Architecture is the protagonist, whereas the prehistoric time of this architecture is as important as any other historical time. This book is firmly based on the realities of a long-silenced world available to us today through the agency of archaeology. In that sense, it addresses archaeologists, architectural historians, and architects alike, in the hope that it will prove useful to those interested in understanding the Minoan world through its architecture as much as those interested in exploring architecture through the Minoan paradigm. This dual goal emanates from my deep belief in the timeless and universal values of architecture. As a teacher of (history of) architecture, the challenge has been to bring history into the studios where future architecture is formulated, to engage history in the discourse on current architectural ethos and practices, and to show that an analytical and critical approach to the past is a potent tool for advancing architectural awareness and educating future architects. I am equally confident that such an approach will return its benefits back to history, for it will provide new tools of thought and methods of interpretation of the relics of the past. Having set the scope of this book, it is only fair to add what is not included in its goals: the reader will not find a descriptive account of Minoan buildings and sites nor a list of the major architectural achievements in chronological order. This is due not only to the enormous amount of relevant information that has been accumulated to date, but also to an altogether different interest in the subject, as described above. Time, however, is crucial: "We have a mental need to grasp that we are rooted in the continuity of time, and in the man-made world it is the task of architecture to facilitate this experience" (Pallasmaa 2005b, 32). Time-related issues, therefore, such as permanence and change or tradition and innovation, will concern us.

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The finds from the cave at Hagios Charalambos in the Lasithi Plain illustrate secondary burial practices in Early and Middle Bronze Age Crete. The cavern adds to our knowledge of Early and Middle Minoan Lasithi and illuminates the function of the cave at Trapeza, which has close parallels for most classes of objects found at Hagios Charalambos. Most of the pottery from the site is made locally, but a selection of imports from elsewhere in Crete ranges in date from EM I or earlier to MM IIB. The pottery shows a shift in the use of imports during the site's history, reflecting a change in economic and/or political dominance and influence in Lasithi. Typical of pottery associated with burials, the types of vessels were mostly used for pouring and drinking liquids. Other small vessels probably contained precious oils, liquids, and unguents. The local offering tables would have been carried by a short stem and could hold a liquid or solid offering. The pottery shows that the people who deposited their dead in the secondary burial cave at Hagios Charalambos were in contact with ceramic production centers in East Crete, the Mesara, Knossos, the Pediada, and Malia. This range of influences speaks not only of trade relations and political spheres of influence but also of tastes in pottery production and consumption.

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The papers published here are dedicated to the memory of Ellen N. Davis, one of the most valued and beloved Aegean scholars of her generation. All of the articles are in some way inspired or influenced by Davis' own contributions to the field. In the area of metalwork, several papers investigate interconnections within and around the Aegean during the Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Ages (Betancourt, Ferrence, and Muhly, Weingarten, Kopcke), while others examine metal ware in its social context (Wiener). Papers on wall painting range from studies of pigments and optical illusions (Vlachopoulos), to representations of water (Shank). Anthropomorphic representations, or their absence, of goddesses or priestesses (Jones), rulers (Palaima), or initiates (Koehl) are also studied here with new eyes and fresh insights.

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The archaeological remains of Pre- and Protopalatial (Early Minoan I to Middle Minoan IIB) Crete include a large number of tombs and cemeteries dating to the third and second millennium B.C.E. These periods constitute a distinct cycle in terms of mortuary customs that was clearly defined by two significant attributes: the use of similar types of tombs and the deposition of significant amounts of material, objects that must be considered socially valuable. This mortuary cycle corresponded with dynamic social changes on Crete that ended in the appearance of a state society. Cemeteries and funerary rituals were central social arenas in Pre- and Protopalatial Crete. The study of the mortuary record therefore can elucidate dynamic history of Cretan communities during the Pre- and Protopalatial periods. This book constitutes an effort to reach a better understanding of a key period in Cretan and European history by a clear and concise approach to the funerary evidence: it is a comprehensive study of the totality of the known Cretan mortuary record during the Pre- and Protopalatial periods. Cemeteries and funerary rituals were central social arenas in Pre- and Protopalatial Crete. The study of the mortuary record therefore can elucidate dynamic history of Cretan communities during the Pre- and Protopalatial periods. This book constitutes an effort to reach a better understanding of a key period in Cretan and European history by a clear and concise approach to the funerary evidence: it is a comprehensive study of the totality of the known Cretan mortuary record during the Pre- and Protopalatial periods.

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The results of two related fieldwork projects are presented: a brief salvage excavation at Plakari (a Final Neolithic site near the modern town of Karystos) and a survey of prehistoric sites on the Paximadi peninsula (the western arm of the Karystos bay), both located in southern Euboea. These ventures were part of the larger mission of the Southern Euboea Exploration Project (SEEP), a multidisciplinary research program dedicated to the study of the Karystian past and which maintained a presence in southern Euboea for over 25 years. These projects have found that, contrary to what archaeologists once believed, southern Euboea was hardly an uninhabited and isolated region in prehistory. The inhabitants actively participated in the expanded maritime and social landscape that characterized the later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Aegean, taking part in exchange networks of stone, ceramics, marble figurines and vessels, and possibly agricultural goods and metalwork.

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This volume presents the final report on the excavation of two Prepalatial tholos tombs and their associated remains at Chatzinas Liophyto near the Moni Odigitria (monastery) in south-central Crete. The grave goods and burial remains include pottery, metal objects, chipped stones, stone vases, gold and stone jewelry, sealstones, and human skeletal material. The results of the associated survey of the upper catchment of the Hagiopharango region are also reported. The book finishes with a reappraisal of our understanding of the early settlement of the Hagiopharango and a Greek summary.

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Excavation of an important site for the early history of dyeing in Minoan Crete revealed a Middle Bronze Age natural dye workshop with several basins carved into bedrock, pottery and stone vessels, stone tools, and animal and plant remains. The evidence contributes new information on the Minoan trade in textiles during the Old Palace period.

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An Early Bronze Age cemetery with 37 tombs shows strong relations with the Cyclades during the time of the Kampos Cultural Group, as exemplified by distinctive pottery, obsidian, and metal items. A dense social network included the Cycladic islands and contacts with distant areas of Crete.

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At first sight, the cliffside site of Katalimata looks like an extreme refuge place where one might expect small groups of people hiding for a brief time during the most serious period of threat. Excavation of the largest of the terraces, however, has shown that use of the place was often long-lasting and more complex. The most interesting result of the project was the identification at Katalimata of almost all the same phases known from elsewhere in Crete as periods of disturbances, relocations, and destructions. This monograph provides a detailed discussion of the six occupational phases recorded on the largest of Monastiraki Katalimata's terraces and offers a reconstruction of the site's role in the context of Cretan history.

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This publication includes a detailed discussion of the pottery, the finds and their parallels, and a reconstruction of both the excavation and stratigraphy of Tholos Gamma in the Bronze Age cemetery of Phourni at Archanes. This evidence is used to give the historical outline of the tomb from its foundation in Early Minoan IIA until its excavation in 1972. Several problems concerning Prepalatial mortuary practices are discussed, with particular reference to Tholos Gamma and the new evidence resulting from the study of this funerary assemblage. The artifacts from the tomb include pottery, metal objects, marble figurines, other small finds, and skeletal remains.

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Richard B. Seager excavated the Minoan town and cemetery at Pseira in 1906-1907, but the work was not fully published. The Temple University excavations (1985-1994) under the direction of Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras conducted an intensive surface survey of the island. The results of the survey on the small island off the northeast coast of Crete are published in two volumes. Pseira VIII presents the results from the corollary studies that accompany the surface survey. Pseira IX presents the results from the intensive surface survey.

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Richard B. Seager excavated the Minoan cemetery at Pseira in 1907, but the work was never published. The Temple University excavations (1985-1994) under the direction of Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras conducted an intensive surface survey of the cemetery area, cleaned and drew plans of all visible tombs, and excavated tombs that had not been previously excavated. The results of the cemetery excavations on the small island off the northeast coast of Crete are published in two volumes. Pseira VII presents the results from the excavation and cleaning of the 19 tombs that still exist at the Pseira cemetery. The cemetery is remarkable for the diversity of its tomb types. Burials were in cist graves built of vertical slabs (a class with Cycladic parallels), in small tombs constructed of fieldstones, in house tombs, and in jars. Burials were communal, as is usual in Minoan cemeteries. Artifacts included clay vases, stone vessels, obsidian, bronze tools, jewelry, and other objects.

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