Search results for ""Author James Whitley""

Knossos is one of the most important sites in the ancient Mediterranean. It remained amongst the largest settlements on the island of Crete from the Neolithic until the late Roman times, but aside from its size it held a place of particular significance in the mythological imagination of Greece and Rome as the seat of King Minos, the location of the Labyrinth and the home of the Minotaur. Sir Arthur Evans’ discovery of ‘the Palace of Minos’ has indelibly associated Knossos in the modern mind with the ‘lost’ civilisation of Bronze Age Crete. The allure of this ‘lost civilisation’, together with the considerable achievements of ‘Minoan’ artists and craftspeople, remain a major attraction both to scholars and to others outside the academic world as a bastion of a romantic approach to the past. In this volume, James Whitley provides an up-to-date guide to the site and its function from the Neolithic until the present day. This study includes a re-appraisal of Bronze Age palatial society, as well as an exploration of the history of Knossos in the archaeological imagination. In doing so he takes a critical look at the guiding assumptions of Evans and others, reconstructing how and why the received view of this ancient settlement has evolved from the Iron Age up to the modern era.

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What is Classical Archaeology’s place within the overall study of antiquity and the history of humanity? And what is its relationship to its kindred disciplines of ancient history, art history and Mediterranean prehistory? Forty or so years ago Classical Archaeology appeared to be a very conservative and rather niche area of scholarly endeavour.Then both prehistorians and ancient historians might have answered that Classical Archaeology had little to offer their respective fields of study. Since the late 1970s, however, the subject has been transformed, a transformation in which the example of Anthony Snodgrass has played a significant role. This volume brings together the work of Snodgrass’s former students; scholars who, while they could be variously classified as prehistorians, ancient historians, Classical archaeologists, Classical art historians, Classicists and modern historians, are internationally recognised scholars in their respective fields. Each contribution brings a unique perspective to bear on the current state of Classical archaeology and its place in not only Mediterranean but global history, art history and archaeology.

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