Greek Prehistory Through the Bronze Age

Classics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Burke
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
History Of ◽  
Epic Poems ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Of Greece

The history of archaeology of Greece as we know it today begins with prehistoric investigations that took place in the 19th century. Early excavations by Heinrich Schliemann, Arthur Evans, and Wilhelm Dörpfeld, along with Greek colleagues like Christos Tsountas, Panagiotis Stamatakis, Valerios Stais, and Antonios Keramopoulos laid the foundation for systematic, stratigraphic excavations. Research was heavily directed by ancient Greek texts, primarily the epic poems of Homer. Efforts to find archaeological truth to the legendary tales of the ancient heroes continue to be problematic, but, to a degree, early excavations revealed a rich and fascinating period of Greece’s development. Although the archaeological discoveries of Greek prehistory date to an age centuries older than Homer, the discoveries shed light on a vast, rich archaeological history, one upon which the Homeric tales were, at least partially, based. Early discoveries of prehistoric texts, especially on Crete with scripts in Hieroglyphic Minoan, Linear A (non-Greek), and Linear B (Greek), along with the enigmatic Phaistos disc, have expanded our understanding of the history of the Greek language and Greek people.

SOME COMMENTS ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OXUS CIVILIZATION IN THEARABIAN GULF

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Khayitmurod Khurramov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Arabian Gulf ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Unique Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
Marine Shell

It is known that the Oxus civilization in the Bronze Age, with its unique material culture, interacted with a number of cultural countries: the Indian Valley, Iran, Mesopotamia, Elam and other regions. As a result of these relationships, interactions and interactions are formed. Archaeologists turn to archaeological and written sources to shed light on the historiography of this period. This research is devoted to the history of cultural relations between the Oxus civilization and the countries of the Arabian Gulf in the Bronze Age. The article highlights cultural ties based on an analysis of stamp seals and unique artifacts.Key words: Dilmun, Magan, marine shell, Arabian Gulf, Bahrain, Mesopotamia, Harappa, Gonur, Afghanistan

A NEWLY DISCOVERED MINOAN FAIENCE PLAQUE FROM THE KNOSSOS TOWN MOSAIC IN THE BRISTOL CITY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY: A TECHNOLOGICAL INSIGHT

2014 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Momigliano ◽  
Laura Phillips ◽  
Michela Spataro ◽  
Nigel Meeks ◽  
Andrew Meek
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
British Museum ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Art Gallery ◽  
History Of Collecting ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological Study ◽  
Museum Study ◽  
The Town ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article presents the curatorial context of a newly discovered fragment of Minoan faience, now in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery (BCMAG), and the technological study conducted on this piece at the British Museum. It also discusses the British Museum study of comparable fragments, now in the Ashmolean Museum, belonging to the Town Mosaic from Knossos, an important and unique find brought to light during Sir Arthur Evans's excavations of the ‘Palace of Minos’ at the beginning of the twentieth century. Both the stylistic study and the analytical results suggest that the Bristol fragment is genuine, and most likely belonged to the Town Mosaic. The Bristol piece does not possess features that can advance our understanding of Crete in the Bronze Age, but its curious biography adds something to the history of collecting and the history of archaeology.

Athens in the Late Bronze Age

Antiquity ◽  
1956 ◽  
Vol 30 (117) ◽  
pp. 9-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Broneer
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Of Greece

The Athenians of the classical era were deeply conscious of the fact that the history of their city was different from that of the rest of Greece. They were the autochthonous settlers of the land, and their orators and writers kept forever reminding them that Athens and Attica were not subdued when the Dorian invaders gained possession of most of the Peloponnesus at the end of the Bronze Age. Was this an empty boast, the kind of historical error that Thucydides (1, 20) attributes to a people's readiness to accept uncritically the old traditions about their own country or those of others? The historian (1, 2) makes it clear that he himself believed in the tradition that Attica was the original home of the Athenians of his day, and he found an explanation for this phenomenon in the poverty of the soil which made the conquerors pass by Attica for richer sections of the country. Archaeological research has confirmed Thucydides' conclusions.

scholarly journals Pathological evidence reveals cattle traction in North China by the early second millennium BC

The Holocene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (8) ◽  
pp. 1205-1215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minghao Lin ◽  
Fengshi Luan ◽  
Hui Fang ◽  
Hong Xu ◽  
Haitao Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
North China ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Pi Method ◽  
The Past ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Development Trajectories ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Shed Light

The use of cattle labour in antiquity is a worldwide well-discussed topic among researchers as it can shed light on the possible development trajectories of our communities over the past several millennia. Zooarchaeology can play a vital role in illuminating the history of cattle traction through observed pathologies on cattle bones linked to traction activity. Systemic zooarchaeological investigation is still underdeveloped in China, one of the likely early beneficiaries of animal labour exploitation in the world. Here, we apply the pathological index (PI) method, first developed by Bartosiewicz et al. on European assemblages, to Chinese Bronze Age cattle bones. Our results first confirm the wide applicability of the PI method with the involvement of Chinese control samples, which holds the potential to be applied as an effective tool in a larger geographical region. Our results also confirm the importance of cattle traction for the Late Shang states ( c. 1300–1046 BC) as previously proposed on the basis of disputed interpretations of oracle bone inscriptions as showing cattle ploughing, but also show that light cattle traction practices likely developed in China in the Bronze Age Erlitou ( c. 1750–1530 BC) and Early Shang ( c. 1600–1300 BC) periods. Cattle traction use in the Chinese Bronze Age may have facilitated the introduction and subsequent cultivation in China of wheat, an exotic cereal.

scholarly journals Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-139
Author(s):  
Jerneja Kavčič ◽  
Brian Daniel Joseph ◽  
Christopher Brown
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
History Of ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
The 19Th Century

The ideology of decline is a part of the history of the study and characterization of the Greek language from the Hellenistic period and the Roman Atticist movement right up to the emergence of katharevousa in the 19th century and the resulting modern diglossia. It is also clear, however, that there is an overwhelming presence of Ancient Greek vocabulary and forms in the modern language. Our position is that the recognition of such phenomena can provide a tool for introducing classicists to the modern language, a view that has various intellectual predecessors (e.g., Albert Thumb, Nicholas Bachtin, George Thomson, and Robert Browning). We thus propose a model for the teaching of Modern Greek to classicists that starts with words that we refer to as carry-overs. These are words that can be used in the modern language without requiring any explanation of pronunciation rules concerning Modern Greek spelling or of differences in meaning in comparison to their ancient predecessors (e.g., κακός ‘bad’, μικρός ‘small’, νέος ‘new’, μέλι ‘honey’, πίνετε ‘you drink’). Our data show that a beginners’ textbook of Ancient Greek may contain as many as a few hundred carry-over words, their exact number depending on the variety of the Erasmian pronunciation that is adopted in the teaching practice. However, the teaching of Modern Greek to classicists should also take into account lexical phenomena such as Ancient-Modern Greek false friends, as well as Modern Greek words that correspond to their ancient Greek predecessors only in terms of their written forms and meanings.

Clarence Bicknell: archaeology and science in the 19th century

Antiquity ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 58 (224) ◽  
pp. 185-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chippindale
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Regional Research ◽  
Maritime Alps ◽  
Intrinsic Interest ◽  
New Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Bronze Age

The Italian resort of Bordighera, on the Riviera close by the French border, still has a little to show from the time, a century ago, when its British population-at least in the winter ‘invalid season’- ran to more than 3,000 and outnumbered the native Italians. The Hotel T. Windsor (‘T’ stands for tennis; the Bordighera tennis club, founded by the British, is the oldest in Italy) flourishes; prim municipal notices-‘A polite behaviour will be enjoyable for everybody’ and ‘Free bathing, clean holidays’-assert Edwardian proprieties. And tucked away in a side-street among the villas, its pink-washed facade frothing with wisteria, stands the Museo Bicknell, built in 1886 by an English amateur botanist, Clarence Bicknell. His foundation continues as the regional research institute, the Istituto lnternazionale di Studi Liguri. Clarence Bicknell (1842-1918) appears in none of the histories of archaeology, but his work deserves to be remembered. His study of the bronze age rockengravings of Mont BCgo, in the Maritime Alps above Bordighera, was the first adequate work on an Alpine rock-art tradition, and the forerunner of the astonishing discoveries over the last 30 years in Valcamonica (Anati, 1961; 1980), at Sion (Gallay, 1972) and now in the Aosta valley (Daniel, 1983). Bicknell's life and work, beyond its intrinsic interest, is an illuminating case-study in the history of the discipline, during that crucial late 19thcentury period when antiquarianism was everywhere giving way to the new science-based archaeology. Finally, Bicknell-though not in the major league with Buckland or Petrie-in his quiet way deserves a place in the gallery of archaeological characters.

The Boat of the Dead in the Bronze Age

Antiquity ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 15 (60) ◽  
pp. 360-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. V. Grinsell
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Bronze Age

In many parts of the world and at many periods the practice has prevailed of depositing boats, or models or other representations of them, with the dead, either as a means of facilitating his supposed voyage to another world, or as a symbol of his maritime activities during his lifetime.That the former is generally the correct explanation of the custom there can be no doubt. This is shown by the evidence of the belief in a voyage to a future world, and the customs to which it has given rise, among living primitive peoples in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, so well collected and presented by the late Sir J. G. Frazer. It is shown also by traditions such as that of our own king Arthur's journey by barge to ‘the island valley of Avilion, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow’ It is shown also by the ancient Greek and Roman custom of placing a coin in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon's fee for ferrying him across the Styx.

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