Early Iron Age Greece and Greek communities overseas

https://www.habelt.de
Nováková, L. 2019. Greeks who dwelt beyond the sea: people, places, monuments.  Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie 333. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt. ISBN 978-3-7749-4216-5.
The Greek civilization, whose legacy remains visible to the present day, developed in several places on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Greeks often came into contact with different, sometimes significantly older and more developed cultures that helped them to advance in the sciences, arts and trade. One such crossroads of civilizations was Anatolia, a land that was the literal meeting place of east and west with an incredibly diverse population. This was reflected in the diversity of its cultures, languages and religions. There is a growing volume of new research – papers, articles and monographs – aimed at determining at least in part how these ancient societies defined themselves. The answer to this relatively complex question can only be sought in the written and archaeological evidence. We can get to know the Hellenes from written sources and their unique artistic heritage, while grave art helps to fill in the rich mosaic of their Anatolian neighbors. The term “Greeks dwelling beyond the sea” is a paraphrase of the name for the Greeks in foreign sources (Yaunā), which referred to the inhabitants of the distant lands beyond the western frontier of the Persian Empire. In this case, the term refers to the Greeks who crossed the Aegean Sea and settled on the Anatolian mainland and nearby islands.
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2020/2020.09.34/

The article takes a look at some historiographical perspectives that have conditioned the studies on the Greek polis during the last decades, paying particular attention to the concept of consumption city impelled by Moses Finley, following Werner Sombart and Max Weber, and the criticisms on this notion elaborated by Mogens Hansen within the Copenhagen Polis Center. A review of Sombart’s formulation on the consumption city, which is Weber’s point of departure taken up by Finley in proposing that the ancient city was a city of consumers, allows Hansen to conjecture that the polis does not fit into this model. Indeed, it is based on a distribution of the population between countryside and town that is not in line with what recent archaeological surveys have shown in relation to the polis. On the basis of this, the notion of Normalpolis, promoted by John Bintliff but originally enunciated by Eberhard Ruschenbusch, and certain ideas of Aristotle, on the inclusion of peasant population in the politeia, are reconsidered to understand the relationships between population, territory, and political models that were probably characteristic of the structure of most poleis.

Among the different burial customs existing in the necropolis of Orthi Petra, including pyres with tumuli, chamber tombs, rock-cuts, and open-air graves, the use of burying within big pithoi or into smaller vessels is not of secondary relevance. The presence of enchytrismoi is not heterogeneously widespread at the entire excavated area of the necropolis. A vast concentration of pithos burials is located in the North area, lesser at the North-East and increasing to the North-West, where the terracing land slopes. Few others are situated towards South as well. An amount of around fifty enchytrismoi comprises pithoi and other wares in little number. A good quantity is well-preserved, some are in situ not excavated yet and few more are not possible to be properly examined due to their delicate conditions. Moreover, it is worth mentioning the so-called ‘pseudotholos’, an area featured by a series of three pithoi partially sheltered in a rock-cut, oriented East-West and flanked by worked stones at its westernmost side, as a way of access.
This paper examines some preliminary aspects of these burials, as a start of my Ph.D. research, where I try to focus on their typological aspects, aiming at delineating the shapes of the pithoi and other vessels, decorations, production techniques, and eventually, further specific characteristics to determine their classification. Additionally, another objective is to find comparanda within the Cretan island and in the rest of the Greek world.

Βασιλείου-Δαμβέργης, Αλέξανδρος-Νεκτάριος, Ιω. «Η σημασία των θαλάσσιων περασμάτων προς τον Β. Ευβοϊκό κόλπο (Δίαυλος Τρικερίου, Δίαυλος Κνημίδας) από τους μυθικούς χρόνους μέχρι τα μέσα του 5ου αι. π.Χ.», στο: Πρακτικά Ε΄ Συνεδρίου Αλμυριώτικων Σπουδών, επιμ. Βίκτωρ Κοντονάτσιος, Χρυσούλα Κοντογεωργάκη, Αλυρός Βόλου 14-16 Οκτωβρίου 2016, Αλμυρός 2019, σ. 179-212.

In this book, Catherine E. Pratt explores how oil and wine became increasingly entangled in Greek culture, from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period. Using ceramic, architectural, and archaeobotanical data, she argues that Bronze Age exchange practices initiated a strong network of dependency between oil and wine production, and the people who produced, exchanged, and used them. After the palatial collapse, these prehistoric connections intensified during the Iron Age and evolved into the large-scale industries of the Classical period. Pratt argues that oil and wine in pre-Classical Greece should be considered 'cultural commodities', products that become indispensable for proper social and economic exchanges well beyond economic advantage. Offering a detailed diachronic account of the changing roles of surplus oil and wine in the economies of pre-classical Greek societies, her book contributes to a broader understanding of the complex interconnections between agriculture, commerce, and culture in the ancient Mediterranean.

Donja Dolina has occupied a prominent place in the study of late prehistoric archaeology in this part of Europe ever since the first excavations there in the early 20th century. Research has always placed greater emphasis on the graves discovered at the site, because the material found in the graves at Donja Dolina is of such importance to the understanding of Early Iron Age culture in this part of the Western Balkans. In addition to showing us connections to remote areas, the site has yielded objects that express local material culture and beliefs in
original and innovative ways. This paper presents unpublished graves excavated during the 1982 excavation campaign at Šokića bašta in Donja Dolina. The weapons, jewellery, and other goods found in graves give evidence of a high standard of living and the personal-social
prestige of the site’s occupants. A total number of 5 graves were found during this campaign, which can be dated from the 6 th century BC up to the 4 th century BC.

Este libro propone un estudio de la pólis griega indagando los problemas conexos de los orígenes de la ciudad y sus estructuras de funcionamiento, así como los diversos enfoques forjados por los especialistas para dar cuenta de estos aspectos. Se analiza la pólis en el marco general de la historia grecorromana, apelando al modelo de la ciudad antigua, su formación, su funcionamiento político-institucional y sus condiciones agrarias, económicas y sociales. Se estudia asimismo el papel de la aldea, abordando el problema de cuáles son los conceptos más adecuados para interpretar a los labradores helénicos, así como los vínculos entre la aldea y la ciudad y el lugar que la primera pasa a ocupar una vez ocurrido el surgimiento de la pólis. Por último, se indaga la invención de la política y la democracia, dando un encuadre diferente, y a la vez complementario, de la emergencia de la pólis como forma estatal cuyas prácticas se organizan bajo una lógica política.

Abstract: Literary and archaeological research of Homeric Greece continues to deepen and offers new possibilities for supplementing the mosaic of information. This study has considered and discussed some
cases of houses of the Early Greece, when the direct knowledge of environments that constitute the living
space is more noticeable, especially through the echo of the rhapsodic tradition expressed in the Homeric poems. The first written works of Greek literature became the basis of the then education and knowledge. Some salient passages, taken above all the Odyssey and limited to the descriptions of domestic space, are presented. The main attention is paid to the geographic area that goes from the Greek peninsula to the insular areas up to the island of Crete

Collected scientifi c papers of B. A. Shramko (1921–2012), devoted to the 95th anniversary of a famous archaeologist. Th e publication contains printed in diff erent years articles, thesis and abstracts, which presents the results of years research of Kharkiv scientist at Bilsk hillfort (7th –4th centuries BC.). Papers of B. A. Shramko placed in the collection according to chronology which makes it possible to trace the development of the conceptual view of the researcher to the place and role of Bilsk hillfort in the system of common ethnic and cultural processes that took place in Eastern Europe in the Early Iron Age. For historians, archaeologists, museum professionals, teachers, local historians, university students and all those interested in ancient history.

Understanding that Homeric epic is the product of a long-standing oral tradition facilitates its use as a source for early Greek history. Oral tradition constantly evolves as poets interact with their audiences, retaining only such intangible elements of culture and society as remain relevant to its contemporary world. Although Homeric epic is of limited utility for understanding the Late Bronze Age, the Iliad and Odyssey constitute an invaluable source for the beliefs, institutions, and ideologies of the eighth century B.C. Homeric epic illuminates, for example, the beginnings of Panhellenism. Built through the extension of local identities, proto-Panhellenism was aggregative in nature. Yet it was oppositional in origin, spurred by intensifying contact between Greeks and the outside world. Homeric proto-Panhellenism reflected the cosmopolitan worldview of eighth century elites at the expense of the more parochial outlook of "middling farmers" like Hesiod. Such insights into the "Dark Age" would be impossible without recourse to Homeric epic as a historical source.

Early Greek alphabetic writing has received extensive attention in the literature. Yet such writing is often treated as immaterial, both literally and metaphorically. My study addresses this problem by offering a systematic investigation of the material properties of nearly 300 inscribed objects, mostly ceramic, that date from ca. 750-600 BCE and originate from seven sites across the Greek world. Inspired by work on classical art and text, and on the materiality of writing, I use a quantitative approach to investigate the ways in which early inscriptions interact with the fabric, the shape, and the decoration of the vessels on which they are rendered, reflecting also on the ramifications of this interaction for the socialization of early Greek inscribed objects in diverse contexts. The investigation exposes a range of hitherto neglected patterns attesting to the preferential inscribing and use of particular types of vessels in specific sites or contexts, and to the association of certain types of text with the material properties of the medium that carries it. More broadly, I argue that Greek epigraphy would benefit from methodologies that promote the documentation and interpretation of not only the textual but also the material properties of inscribed objects.

"This paper starts with a critical assessment of the ‘wanax  to basileus model’. I demonstrate that it contains certain internal inconsistencies, and present material and literary evidence that contradict the validity of the model. I then introduce and discuss archaeological data in order to substantiate my claim that the model has prevented us from appreciating two important aspects of the post-palatial period and the Early Iron Age, namely the diversity in local or regional responses to the collapse of the palatial societies in both the short and the long term, and the considerable degree of continuity in socio-economic complexity and socio-politicalstructures in certain regions."

This dissertation employs aspects of network theory to study social complexity in the Euboean Gulf from the Mycenaean Palatial period through the Protohistoric Iron Age (c. 1400-700 BCE).  The Euboean Gulf and its surrounding lands were unique in the Mediterranean during this time span with respect to their social and geographical context, connectivity with the wider world, and changes in societal organization. In particular, this study focuses on the inter-relationship of conceptual, social, and technological networks on multiple scales (local, regional, and trans-Mediterranean).

The first part of the dissertation (Chapters 1-4) introduces the project and discusses current disciplinary issues, its theoretical framework, and its geographical context. The second part (Chapters 5-9) provides a diachronic explication of network dynamics in the Euboean Gulf, ranging across local, regional, and trans-Mediterranean scales. These chapters provide synthesis, analysis, and interpretation of a variety of related, though seemingly divergent, social phenomena, including the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces and the eighth-century political revolution, the disappearance of Linear B and adaptation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician script, the technological transition from bronze to iron as the dominant utilitarian metal, and a major shift in the nature of maritime interactions – from being predominantly eastern Mediterranean phenomena to encompassing nearly all the shores of the Middle Sea.

In sum, I argue first that human interactions across multiple scales feed into one another to shape the major social, political, and technological changes seen throughout the period in question, and second that networks provide a strong means of modeling and explaining these changes. In particular, the networks in which the Euboean Gulf operated increasingly exhibit characteristics of “small worlds” and “the strength of weak ties,” where the addition of even a single connection into a wider system can result in the relatively rapid diffusion of political, cultural, and technological ideas. At the same time, these networks go through phases of higher and lower degrees of centrality and stability, resulting in occasional societal upheaval and restructuring in explainable (though not necessarily predictable) patterns in the dynamics of social complexity.

Book 1
THESE are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds. According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria. They landed at many places on the coast, and among the rest at Argos, which was then preeminent above all the states included now under the common name of Hellas. Here they exposed their merchandise, and traded with the natives for five or six days; at the end of which time, when almost everything was sold, there came down to the beach a number of women, and among them the daughter of the king, who was, they say, agreeing in this with the Greeks, Io, the child of Inachus. The women were standing by the stern of the ship intent upon their purchases, when the Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon them. The greater part made their escape, but some were seized and carried off. Io herself was among the captives. The Phoenicians put the women on board their vessel, and set sail for Egypt. Thus did Io pass into Egypt, according to the Persian story, which differs widely from the Phoenician: and thus commenced, according to their authors, the series of outrages

At a later period, certain Greeks, with whose name they are unacquainted, but who would probably be Cretans, made a landing at Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, and bore off the king’s daughter, Europe. In this they only retaliated; but afterwards the Greeks, they say, were guilty of a second violence. They manned a ship of war, and sailed to Aea, a city of Colchis, on the river Phasis; from whence, after despatching the rest of the business on which they had come, they carried off Medea, the daughter of the king of the land. The monarch sent a herald into Greece to demand reparation of the wrong, and the restitution of his child; but the Greeks made answer that, having received no reparation of the wrong done them in the seizure of Io the Argive, they should give none in this instance.

In the next generation afterwards, according to the same authorities, Alexander the son of Priam, bearing these events in mind, resolved to procure himself a wife out of Greece by violence, fully persuaded, that as the Greeks had not given satisfaction for their outrages, so neither would he be forced to make any for his. Accordingly he made prize of Helen; upon which the Greeks decided that, before resorting to other measures, they would send envoys to reclaim the princess and require reparation of the wrong. Their demands were met by a reference to the violence which had been offered to Medea, and they were asked with what face they could now require satisfaction, when they had formerly rejected all demands for either reparation or restitution addressed to them.
Book 2
After the death of Cyrus, Cambyses inherited his throne. He was the son of Cyrus and of Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, for whom Cyrus mourned deeply when she died before him, and had all his subjects mourn also. [2] Cambyses was the son of this woman and of Cyrus. He considered the Ionians and Aeolians slaves inherited from his father, and prepared an expedition against Egypt, taking with him some of these Greek subjects besides others whom he ruled. 2.

Now before Psammetichus became king of Egypt,1 the Egyptians believed that they were the oldest people on earth. But ever since Psammetichus became king and wished to find out which people were the oldest, they have believed that the Phrygians were older than they, and they than everybody else. [2] Psammetichus, when he was in no way able to learn by inquiry which people had first come into being, devised a plan by which he took two newborn children of the common people and gave them to a shepherd to bring up among his flocks. He gave instructions that no one was to speak a word in their hearing; they were to stay by themselves in a lonely hut, and in due time the shepherd was to bring goats and give the children their milk and do everything else necessary. [3] Psammetichus did this, and gave these instructions, because he wanted to hear what speech would first come from the children, when they were past the age of indistinct babbling. And he had his wish; for one day, when the shepherd had done as he was told for two years, both children ran to him stretching out their hands and calling “Bekos!” as he opened the door and entered. [4] When he first heard this, he kept quiet about it; but when, coming often and paying careful attention, he kept hearing this same word, he told his master at last and brought the children into the king's presence as required. Psammetichus then heard them himself, and asked to what language the word “Bekos” belonged; he found it to be a Phrygian word, signifying bread. [5] Reasoning from this, the Egyptians acknowledged that the Phrygians were older than they. This is the story which I heard from the priests of Hephaestus'2 temple at Memphis; the Greeks say among many foolish things that Psammetichus had the children reared by women whose tongues he had cut out. 3.

This book examines foundation myths told about the Ionian cities during the archaic and classical periods. It uses these myths to explore the complex and changing ways that civic identity was constructed in Ionia, relating this to the wider discourses about ethnicity and cultural difference that were current in the Greek world at this time. The Ionian cities seem to have rejected oppositional models of cultural difference which set in contrast East and West, Europe and Asia, Greek and Barbarian, opting instead for a more fluid and nuanced perspective on ethnic and cultural distinctions. The conclusions of this book have far-reaching implications for our understanding of Ionia, but also challenge current models of Greek ethnicity and identity, suggesting that there was a more diverse conception of Greekness in antiquity than has often been assumed.

This study charts and interprets the fluctuation in the number of sanctuaries, and also of temples and altars, in different phases of the EIA and in different regions of Greece and the Aegean. The basis for this update is the database of the project “The Social Archaeology of Early Iron Age and Early Archaic Greece”

In The Rise of the Greek Aristocratic Banquet, Wecowski offers a comprehensive account of the origins of the symposion and its close relationship with the rise of the Greek city-state or polis. Broadly defined as a culture-oriented aristocratic banquet, the symposion—which literally means 'drinking together'—was a nocturnal wine party held by Greek aristocrats from Homer to Alexander the Great. Its distinctive feature was the crucial importance of diverse cultural competitions, including improvising convivial poetry, among the guests. Cultural skills and abilities were a prerequisite in order for one to be included in elite drinking circles, and, as such, the symposion served as a forum for the natural selection of Greek aristocracy.