Search results for ""British School at Athens""

History of British archaeology in the Mediterranean, from Evans to Payne of Pendlebury.

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When Sir Arthur Evans was establishing the chronology of the Minoan period at Knossos in the early twentieth century, Robert Carr Bosanquet and his team from the British School at Athens began to define the contemporary sequence at Palaikastro in eastern Crete.

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Markiani in Amorgos is the first rural settlement of the Early Cycladic period to be excavated systematically and published comprehensively.

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The excavations undertaken by the British School at Athens at the Bronze Age site of Phylakopi in the Cycladic island of Melos from 1896 to 1899, under the immediate supervision of Duncan Mackenzie, have been described (by no less an authority than Carl Blegen) as: 'the first really serious effort to understand stratification, the first really ...

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A huge four volume work that documents and discusses the excavations that took place between 1967 and 1979 of more than a hundred Early Iron Age tombs from the cemetery one kilometre north of the palace of Knossos.

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In the 1960s a great new barrier dam was built across the Peneios Valley in Elis in the N.W. Peloponnese to create an artificial lake for irrigation purposes. In 1967 the Greek Archaeological Service organised a preliminary survey of the areas to be affected and also asked all the Foreign Archaeological Schools to assist and allocated specific sections to each. The British School at Athens sent a small team in late 1967 to survey part of the south-west fringes of the area to be flooded; this team identified many sites and opened test-trenches at six of them. In 1969 further work was undertaken in that area for the British School: a small team from Birmingham University and from Bangor undertook excavations at two of the identified sites, ‘Kostoureika’ and ‘Keramidia’. This account describes the results in detail. ‘Kostoureika’, identified as a likely Hellenistic ‘villa’ proved structurally disappointing (the 1967 test-trench had located the only surviving wall), but revealed a deposit of Early Helladic pottery, which supplements very usefully evidence for early occupation in the north-west Peloponnese. ‘Keramidia’ proved to be a site occupied, at least at times, from the Hellenistic to the late Roman imperial period.

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Butrint, an Epirote port on the southern Albanian coast, was a cultural and political centre throughout classical antiquity and into the middle ages. The Italian Archaeological Mission, directed by Luigi Maria Ugolini, undertook major excavations of the Hellenistic and Roman theatre between 1928 and 1932. The original reports and surveys are published here for the first time and provide a significant contribution to our knowledge of the development of Butrint. Contents List of illustrations Introduction and acknowledgements, by Oliver J. Gilkes Foreword, by Lord Rothschild Part 1 Luigi Maria Ugolini and the Italian Archaeological Mission to Albania Chapter 1 Luigi Maria Ugolini and the Italian Archaeological Mission to Albania, by Oliver J. Gilkes Chapter 2 Ugolini and Aeneas: the story of the excavation of the theatre at Butrint, by Lida Miraj Chapter 3 The Ugolini manuscripts in the Museo della Civiltà Romana, Rome, by Anna Maria Liberati

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Sir. Arthur Evans only ever published around a tenth of the sealings he found during excavations of the destruction levels at the Palace of Knossos. Moreover the drawings that he and other scholars did of the sealings are scattered over the four volumes of his Palace of Knossos and in obscure publications. All the sealings of known and unknown context are illustrated here. Margaret Gill's original study of the sealings made in the 1960s has been updated following more recent work on material in the Heraklion Museum. This is the first publication in a new scholarly series from the British School, and will be followed later this year by conference proceedings on Post-Minoan Crete and on Palaeolithic Greece.

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The papers in this volume, which have sprung from collaboration between archaeologists and seismologists, investigate the social, historical and physical effects of ancient earthquakes.

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From 1957 to 1961 the British School at Athens undertook an extensive programme of stratigraphical excavations at Knossos under Sinclair Hood, then Director of the School. This report publishes in detail the results of investigations into Early Minoan levels, which shed much new light on the era before the "Old Palace" was established. The three excavations comprised: an Early Minoan I deep well, the oldest at Knossos; trials on the north side of the Royal Road, with Early Minoan II-III house remains; and similar trials in the Early Houses below the South Front of the Palace, which included investigation of the South Front House of Early Minoan III.The volume provides invaluable data on the types and phased development of pottery in this major settlement site of the third millennium BC, a period when much of our Cretan evidence derives from tombs. It also helps to chronicle the expansion of Knossos during the Early Bronze Age and offers new insights into the material cul

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The site of Karphi, high above the Lasithi plateau, remains one of the most extensively investigated settlements of Early Iron Age Greece; it was excavated by the British School at Athens under the direction of John Pendlebury in 1937-39. In the report that swiftly followed the pottery was not presented in detail, though much was discussed in a later article by Mercy Seiradaki. Consequently there existed serious problems in dating the remains and understanding their meaning. This volume now presents a thorough study of the Karphi pottery, much hitherto unpublished, accompanied by copious new drawings and photographs. The author's expertise with material from contemporary Cretan sites, especially from the Kavousi excavations, provides major insights. Moreover, thanks to careful recording by the excavators and the survival of the excavation notebooks, the material can be presented here by context, which permits the date of the settlement to be clarified and its history to be re-evaluated. While early pottery appears as small fragments from under floors, streets, and courts, later LM IIIC whole vessels seem to have been abandoned on floors. The tombs continued in use long after the abandonment of the settlement. Ceramic assemblages also help to determine room and building functions, leading to a reconstruction of social practices at this key site. A chapter by Eleni Nodarou and Ioannis Iliopoulos presents the results of petrographic and SEM analyses. Thus, this study serves as a significant contribution to our overall understanding of Early Iron Age Crete.

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How do the cultures of Crete and Cyprus, the two great islands of the eastern Mediterranean, compare in their history and development from the 3rd millennium to the 1st millennium BC? What was similar and what was different in their social and political, economic and technological, and religious and mortuary practices and behaviours, and in the natural settings and choices of places for settlements? Why, and how, did convergences and divergences come about? Why for instance did monumental buildings appear in Cyprus several centuries after they had emerged in Crete? And what was the impact on Cypriot society of the island's rich copper resources, while Crete as a rule had to import the metal? How and why did Cyprus manage an apparently much more peaceful transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age than Crete? These are among the important questions that a leading group of experts on the two islands addressed at Parallel Lives, a pioneering conference in Nicosia organised by the British School at Athens, the University of Crete and the University of Cyprus, to compare and discuss the islands' cultural trajectories diachronically from c. 3000 BC through their Bronze Ages and down to their loss of independence in 300 BC for Cyprus and 67 BC for Crete. Papers given then are now presented in fully revised form as chapters in this book, which is the first to bring together the study of Crete and Cyprus in this way, while starting with their insular geo-cultural identities. It will be a valuable resource for students of both islands, for all who are interested in ancient material cultures and mentalities in the Mediterranean, as well as those engaged in island studies across the world.

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The site of Karphi, situated in the Lasithi mountains of eastern Crete and occupied from c. 1200-1000 bc, provides a rare example of a large-scale creative response to the economic and political crisis that swept the Mediterranean c. 1200 bc. Other settlements established in this period indicate community fragmentation, relocation and defensive planning; but most excavated examples are small, while deposits at larger sites are masked by later remains. Excavations at Karphi in the 1930s undertaken by John Pendlebury for the British School at Athens uncovered roughly one-fifth of the settlement.The present volume publishes in full the data from excavation and survey work carried out at Karphi and in its surrounding area from 2008 to 2012, helping to confirm the complexity and coherence of this large crisis-period community. Key features include a new public building (differing from the Temple explored by Pendlebury); a hitherto unknown district or sub-settlement on Megali Koprana to the south (with evidence for selective re-use later in the Iron Age); and a fortification system (documented and explored for the first time).The project revealed that the site ended in a burnt destruction, suggesting that conflict accompanied territorial expansion as political conditions changed during the formation of Cretan polis-type states from c. 1000 bc. The first scientific studies, including soil and historic land-use surveys, reconstruct the landscape around this new community, together with its subsistence and exchange practices. Understanding of the Middle Bronze Age use of the Karphi peak as a sanctuary is also enhanced by the discovery of associated material, likely from an auxiliary area, under crisis-period buildings

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This is the account of an excavation by the British School at Athens at the major Mycenaean settlement in the central Eurotas valley of Laconia, close to the site of ancient and modern Sparta, in the south-central Peloponnese. The site was first identified and partly explored by the British School (under its sixth Director, R. M. Dawkins) in 1909-10. This volume presents the results of fieldwork undertaken by the School in 1973-77, 1980 and 1985, led by the then Director, H. W. Catling. Excavation of the Mycenaean settlement concentrated on the upper part of the Menelaion ridge - comprising the North Hill, the Menelaion and Prophitis Elias Hills, and Aetos - covering an area of not less than 10 hectares. The ridge may have been first occupied during the Final Neolithic; there had certainly been a small Early Helladic settlement. All three hilltops had traces of Middle Helladic use, including several burials. Reinvestigation of the 1910 complex on the Menelaion Hill revealed superimposed 'Mansions', the earlier built in the 15th c. BC (LH IIB), the later in the earlier 14th c.(LH IIIA1). Their plans suggest prototypes for the much larger 13th c. palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns and Epano Englianos (Pylos). On the North Hill remains were damaged by severe erosion, but on Aetos a 15th-13/12th c. building sequence was associated with a ruined, once massive terrace wall. The present volume presents an exhaustive account of the Bronze Age structures (ca 50 in all) spread across the Menelaion Ridge. Detailed considerations of the stratigraphy and architecture are supported by approximately 175 plans and sections; a further 25 in-text illustrations elucidate specific features. The pottery from each deposit is presented in catalogue format, supported by statistical analyses, drawings and photographs. In addition, there is an overall appraisal of the ceramic finds, in relation to those attested elsewhere in mainland Greece and beyond. Also catalogued and discussed are 'small finds', including objects of metal, terracotta figurines, spinning and weaving equipment, and objects of stone. The few seals and sealings are described by H. Hughes-Brock. Painted wall plasters and architectural stone are also fully treated. A final chapter considers topographical and environmental issues, and places the Menelaion within the context of both Laconian and wider Aegean developments Much further information is gathered in CD-Rom form, including the 1910 excavation records and commentary; and full qualitative and quantitative tabulations of uncatalogued pottery. Appendices by R. E. Jones present technical analyses of plasters and pigments; XRF analysis of bronzes; the proton magnetometer survey; and chemical analyses of pottery (with J. Tomlinson). Further appendices concern human skeletal material (N. Brodie); and animal bone (G. Jones).

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Erected in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Crete’s coastal cities during the Thera eruption, Building 1, with its two-storeyed ashlar façades, must have been one of the finest at Palaikastro. Two conflagrations during the LM IB period largely obscured its original function and brought down much of the ashlar masonry. This was re-used in the substantial LM II and LM IIIA re-occupation phases, which ended with the widespread, perhaps natural, destruction that affected the entire town. The building’s last incarnation in LM IIIB contains the strongest evidence for ritual at its core with industrial and domestic activities in adjacent rooms in an otherwise largely abandoned coastal town

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The volume contains fifteen papers. Ten of them record the genesis and the development of archaeological survey in Cyprus; they also discuss the reasons why the twentieth century ended with serious set-backs in the protection of cultural landscapes, despite the fact that in Cyprus survey was conducted in the name of archaeological resource management as early as 1955. The credit for this accomplishment goes to Hector Catling, who had envisioned the island-wide Cyprus Survey Project, and was instrumental in establishing the Survey Branch in the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. The 'biographies' of eight very different projects offer a representative sample of survey archaeology in Cyprus in the last quarter of the 20th century. The inclusion of four geographically and methodologically diverse projects from Israel, Libya, Italy and Greece provide a trans-Mediterranean perspective against which survey archaeology in Cyprus can be measured. The keynote paper (John Cherry)

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From at least 1700 BC, and for several centuries thereafter, a city of substantial houses flanked the palace of Knossos in north-central Crete. Those immediately adjacent to it, like the Royal Villa or the South House, excavated by Sir Arthur Evans, are well known, as are the Little Palace and Unexplored Mansion to the north-west. In fact the whole lower western hill-slope (Bougadha Metochi, the modern village) was terraced with fine, ashlar masonry buildings, served by well-engineered paved roads. The present volume publishes part of one such building, excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service. The pottery within it — as always at Knossos astonishing in quantity and excellent in quality — is particularly important for the first stage of these large buildings, Middle Minoan IIIA (Early and Late), the 17th century BC. One piece also throws light on bull sacrifice at Knossos. Another object, a stone weight, confirms the close relationship of the Minoan, Theran and West Syrian systems of mensuration. A later pottery deposit adds to evidence of wide destruction at Knossos at the final moment of independent Minoan civilisation, Late Minoan IB c. 1440 BC. The history of the building is also set within that of the wider Cretan and southern Aegean regions during the Bronze Age.

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This volume presents the pottery from a series of deposits excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in the palace at Knossos and assigned by him to the last part of the Middle Bronze Age or Middle Minoan III. The substantial architectural modifications seen in this period are examined along with stratigraphy to give proper context to the pottery deposits. Middle Minoan III was the time when Knossos appeared to expand its reach across Crete: from the First Palace Period, when palaces at Malia and Phaistos rivalled Knossos, to the Second Palace Period, when seemingly they diminished and other smaller palaces were built. These changes unfolded over the course of the Middle Minoan III period, divided by Evans into two sub-phases, MM IIIA and MM IIIB. He used many palatial deposits to define these phases. However, he did not present the pottery, stratigraphy and architecture in full, leading eventually to some ambiguity over the status of the period. This detailed study revisits more than a dozen of these contexts, to provide a more solid footing for the phasing and use of the Middle Minoan III palace. The investigation confirms that it is possible to distinguish not only between MM IIIA and MM IIIB, but also between early and late MM IIIA; this distinction enables a more nuanced understanding of the significant changes in architecture and material culture that were taking place. Furthermore, ceramic analysis highlights some of the functions of the palace at this time, with a plethora of conical cups and very few fine tablewares suggesting particular kinds of feasting; and a large number of imported transport and storage wares from off-island locales in the Aegean, such as the Cyclades, Dodecanese, and coastal Anatolia, pointing to a level of connectivity and exchange not previously recognised. This volume demonstrates that much new information can be extracted from legacy material excavated more than a century ago, through the use of a methodology that integrates ceramic, stratigraphic and architectural evidence.

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Block M is a substantial architectural complex comprising three large buildings at the heart of the Minoan town of Palaikastro. With traces of activity stretching back to the Prepalatial period, and occupation in the Protopalatial period, Block M sees its most intensive use in the Neopalatial period, in the 17th century BC. This period sees widespread construction, followed by two severe destruction horizons: the first seismic, the second associated with the Theran eruption, by which time the Block may already have been in ruins. Its subsequent history is very different from that usually encountered elsewhere in the town - it became an open area used only for the dumping of refuse in two abandoned wells, without widespread reoccupation in the LM II-III periods. This volume presents the results of excavations conducted by the British School at Athens, which uncovered these extensive remains in the late 1980s, 1990s and 2003. These investigations have helped to elucidate the character of this important town during the Middle and early Late Bronze Ages, and offer valuable evidence for relations between eastern Crete and sites in the centre of the island such as Knossos.

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The signs known as ‘masons’ marks’ were carved on blocks of stone in Bronze Age Crete over a period of some 500 years from around 2000 BC until the middle of the 15th century bc. The earliest examples seem to occur at Knossos, dating from the time when the so-called Early Palace was constructed there. Soon thereafter blocks with comparable signs were incorporated in the palatial centres at Phaistos and Malia. In due course, the practice spread elsewhere in Crete and to Akrotiri on the island of Thera, but is only rarely attested on the Greek mainland. By far the greatest number of these signs occurs at Knossos, making this site of unique importance for their study and interpretation.Volume I presents a typology and chronology of the signs, considers their distribution beyond Knossos, examines comparanda in other media and in cultures beyond Crete, and provides a detailed discussion of their purpose. It also offers a full catalogue of some 1600 signs in the Palace of Knossos and surrounding buildings. The commentary provides invaluable evidence for the architectural history of the Palace, drawing on copious unpublished observations made by Evans during the excavations and the work of later scholars.Volume II presents a complete photographic record of the Knossian signs, numerous line drawings, as well as plans and elevations showing their location. Much of the field work for this volume was undertaken from 1978-81, following the realization that many signs were disappearing rapidly, owing to weathering and flaking away of surfaces on which they had been cut. In the years since, further losses have occurred. Thus this monumental study provides crucial documentation, never to be repeated, for the major palatial site of Minoan Knossos and will serve as a key research tool for students and scholars of Bronze Age Crete.

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The archaeological sites on the Monastiriako Kephali hill analysed in this volume include the earliest known mortuary activity at the key Minoan centre of Knossos on the island of Crete. Two Bronze Age sites are presented, known as the ‘Tomb’ and the ‘Deposit’, originally excavated in the 1930s but until now never published in detail.The ‘Tomb’ represents the earliest known funerary site at Bronze Age Knossos, established in the late Prepalatial period and continuing in use until the Neopalatial. The function of the nearby ‘Deposit’ site is more ambiguous, but a mortuary interpretation is also possible for the phases contemporary with the ‘Tomb’, and is almost certain for the subsequent Late Minoan II–III era.This volume presents the excavated material held principally in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos. The stone artefacts, human remains, faunal remains, glyptic material and ceramics are described and discussed by Don Evely, Rebecca Gowland, Valasia Isaakidou, Olga Krzyszkowska and Laura Preston respectively, and the sites are placed within the broader framework of Minoan mortuary practices at Knossos during the second millennium BC.

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In 1999 a collection of documents were found in the archives of the Italian Institute of Human Palaeontology belonging to Luigi Cardini, one of the founders of the Institute. These documents included site notebooks, photographs, drawings and maps relating to work carried out in Albania from 1930-39 where he was sent on a governmental mission to `reinforce Italian supremacy in Albania through archaeological research'. This monograph publishes extracts from these notebooks within a historical, political and archaeological context. The work he carried out is synthesised and a report is included on survey work carried out in 2000 and 2001 to attempt to relocate many of Cardini's cave sites described in his notebooks.

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A report on excavations at the Neolithic-Early Bronze Age site of Servia in Thessaly. The main part of the report deals with the rescue excavation carried out in 1971-73 prior to the flooding of the dam, and also reflcts on earlier investigations in the early-mid 1900s by J.B. Wace, M.S. Thompson and W.A. Heurtley. Sections are given on the stratigraphy of the site, which includes five successive building levels, chronology, small finds and the environmental evidence. Includes a CD-Rom with colour photographs of aspects of the site and small finds. A separate forthcoming volume will deal with the Neolithic pottery in detail.

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The crucial earliest phases of palatial Knossos are not well known, in part due to over-building by neopalatial structures and floors. This volume represents the first complete publication of substantial deposits dating to this period, specifically the Middle Minoan IB and IIA phases. This is a first not only for Knossos but for Crete as a whole, and will act as a crucial point of reference for future work on these key phases in the islands prehistory. The five Protopalatial deposits in question, excavated in 1973, 1987 and 199293, are fully published with their contexts, the stratified pottery and small finds including the earliest inscribed clay document from Crete, clay sealings, horn-cores and chipped stone; radiocarbon dates are also presented. The deposits come from the south-west of the palace area, and provide evidence for a range of activities such as ceremonial feasting, workshop production and administration, as well as showing the early development of individual town dwellings on terraces just a few metres from the palace. The volume concludes with a full discussion of the form and function of the Old Palace, stressing that the plans laid down in the first 150 years were far more closely followed over the next 400 years than has hitherto been suspected.

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Over the past 30 years many hundreds of small rural sites have been identified in Greece (and throughout the Mediterranean) through intensive field survey. Their exact nature and function is still a matter of hot contention.

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The South House, located immediately south of the Palace of Knossos was first excavated by Arthur Evans in 1908, with subsequent work carried out in 1924, but was never published. This volume pieces together evidence from the finds from the excavation housed in the Stratigraphical Museum, as well as the Daybooks of Duncan Mackenzie, to form an overview of the excavation and the history of the building. Contributions from a number of specialists assess the architecture of the South House and especially the entrance system (Jan Driessen) , the fresco fragments (P A Mountjoy) , the fragments of Early, Middle and Late Minoan pottery (C Knappett, P A Mountjoy) , pithoi and storage (K S Chrsitakis) , silver vessels (P A Mountjoy) , stone, bone, ivory, bronze and clay finds (R D G Evely) , loomweights (B Burke) and seals

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This supplementary volume reports on investigations carried out on a small fortified site on a hill near to the village of Phylla in central Euboea. A topographical survey and subsequent excavations aimed to provide evidence for the date and nature of the occupation of the site, and the function of the buildings there. As well as the architectural sequence, the contributors report on the ceramic vessels and lamps (in German), the environmental remains and the function of the site within the local district (both in English), assessing the likelihood of it having been a defensive fort during the late Archaic period.

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This book has its origin in a conference held at the British School at Athens in 2011 which aimed to explore the range of new archaeological information now available for the seventh century in Greek lands. It presents material data, combining accounts of recent discoveries (which often enable reinterpretation of older finds), regional reviews, and archaeologically focused critique of historical and art historical approaches and interpretations. The aim is to make readily accessible the material record as currently understood and to consider how it may contribute to broader critiques and new directions in research. The geographical focus is the old Greek world encompassing Macedonia and Ionia, and extending across to Sicily and southern Italy, considering also the wider trade circuits linking regional markets. The book does not aim for the pan- Mediterranean coverage of recent works: given that much of the latest innovative and critical scholarship has focused on the western Mediterranean in particular, it is necessary to bring old Greece back under the spotlight and to expose to critical scrutiny the often Athenocentric interpretative frameworks which continue to inform discussion of other parts of the Mediterranean.

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Winifred Lamb was a pioneering archaeologist in the Aegean and Anatolia. She studied classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and subsequently served in naval intelligence alongside J. D. Beazley during the final stages of the First World War. As war drew to a close, Sydney Cockerell, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, invited Lamb to be the honorary keeper of Greek antiquities. Over the next 40 years she created a prehistoric gallery, marking the university’s contribution to excavations in the Aegean, and developed the museum’s holdings of classical bronzes and Athenian figure-decorated pottery. Lamb formed a parallel career excavating in the Aegean. She was admitted as a student of the British School at Athens and served as assistant director on the Mycenae excavations under Alan Wace and Carl Blegen. After further work at Sparta and on prehistoric mounds in Macedonia, Lamb identified and excavated a major Bronze Age site at Thermi on Lesbos. She conducted a brief excavation on Chios before directing a major project at Kusura in Turkey. She was recruited for the Turkish language section of the BBC during the Second World War, and after the cessation of hostilities took an active part in the creation of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.

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A Classical Archaeologists’s Life: The Story so Far shows that a scholar’s life is not all scholarship, though much of this book is devoted to the writing of books and, especially, travel to classical and other lands. Boardman is a Londoner, born in Ilford and attending school in Essex (Chigwell). His teenage years were spent often in air raid shelters rather than with ‘mates‘ (all evacuated). There are distinctive ‘aunties’, the rituals of daily life in a London suburb. The non-scholarly figures live large in this account of his life, marriage, children, new houses. At Cambridge he learned about classical archaeology as a necessary addition to reading Homer and Demosthenes, even being obliged to recite the latter. And those were the days of Bertrand Russell’s lectures in a university reawakening after the war. Thence to the British School at Athens to learn about excavation (Smyrna, Knossos, later Libya). His return from Greece was to Oxford, not Cambridge, at first in the Ashmolean Museum, then as Reader and Professor. A spell in New York gives an account of the city before the troubles, when Petula Clark’s Down Town was dominant. There is much here to reflect on university life and teaching, and on the reasons for and problems with the writing of his many books (some 40), with reflection on the university, colleges and their ways. Travels are well documented – a notable trip through Pakistan and China, in Persia, Egypt, Turkey – with comment on what he saw and experienced beyond archaeology. A lecture tour in Australia provides comment beyond the academic. He visited Israel often, lecturing and publishing for the Bible Lands Museum. Several tours in the USA took him to most of their museums and universities as well as many other sights, from glaciers to alligators. This book is a mixture of scholarly reminiscence, reflection on family life, travelogue, and critique of classical scholarship (not all archaeological) worldwide, illustrated with pictures of travels, friends, home life, and, for a historian, a reflection on experiences of over 90 years.

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