Seventh-Century Material Culture in Boiotia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Larson
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Early Writing ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Artistic Production

This chapter briefly discusses aspects of the material culture of seventh-century bce Boiotia in general and makes specific reference to sites and areas of relevance in studying Hesiod, in particular Askra, Thespiai, the Valley of the Muses, Thebes, Plataiai, and Akraiphnia. It pays special attention to the sanctuary of Apollo on the Ismenion hill and to the Herakleion in Thebes, the sanctuary of the hero Herakles, who was worshipped there as an epichoric figure, and discusses inscriptions and finds from these two sites. The chapter also offers a view of Boiotia and of the environs of Thebes in particular as an early Greek center for artistic production during the time of Hesiod, as shown through vase painting, figurines, early writing, sculpture, and an artist’s signature.

scholarly journals Wild Goat style ceramics at Troy and the impact of Archaic period colonisation on the Troad

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn C. Aslan ◽  
Ernst Pernicka
Keyword(s):  
Neutron Activation Analysis ◽  
Activation Analysis ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Ceramic Production ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
New Information ◽  
Gallipoli Peninsula ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe establishment of colonies along the Hellespont by inhabitants of Ionia, Athens and Lesbos is well-known from historical texts. Recently, stratified contexts at Troy as well as other surveys and excavations have yielded new information about the chronology and material markers of Archaic period settlements in the Troad and the Gallipoli peninsula. The archaeological evidence for colonisation in this region is not clearly seen until the late seventh to early sixth century BC when there is a dramatic change in the material culture. Destruction evidence from Troy indicates that the new settlers probably entered a weakened and depopulated region in the second half of the seventh century BC. The Ionian colonists transplanted their pottery traditions and started production of East Greek style ceramics in the Troad. Neutron Activation Analysis of Wild Goat style ceramics found at Troy offers further confirmation for the existence of Hellespontine Wild Goat style ceramic production centres. The Wild Goat style examples from Troy help to define the characteristics of the Hellespontine group, as well as the chronology and impact of colonisation in this area.

Roman Knossos: Discovering the City through the Evidence of Rescue Excavations

2010 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 339-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca J. Sweetman
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Industrial Areas ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City ◽  
Do So

Thus far, much of the analysis of Roman and Late Antique Knossos has been based on the material culture produced through research excavations such as the Villa Dionysus and the Unexplored Mansion. Such excavations provide a tantalizing view of select aspects of the community and city and are essential for an understanding of the chronology of much of the material culture. However, these excavations cannot provide a complete picture of the character and diachronic range of the entire city. To do so, it is necessary to turn to the hitherto unpublished rescue excavations undertaken in dispersed locations of the valley. These range from the many graves located on the slopes of the surrounding hills, to monumental architectural remains in the area to the east of the Villa Dionysus, and to mundane features such as cisterns and roads in the modern village. In this paper, within the context of the published Roman material and with a focus on mosaics and ceramics, the evidence of the rescue material is used to develop a better perception of the city and all its residents, including the layout in terms of administrative, residential, and industrial areas from the first to the seventh centuryad.Μέχρι σήμερα ένα μεγάλο μέρος της εξέτασης της Κνωσού κατά τη ρωμαϊκή περίοδο και την ύστερη αρχαιότητα έχει βασιστεί στα υλικά κατάλοιπα από συστηματικές ανασκαφές, όπως στην Έπαυλη του Διονύσου και την Ανευξερεύνητη Οικία. Αυτές οι ανασκαφές παρουσιάςουν μία δελεαστική όψη επιλεκτικών εκφάνσεων της κοινότητας και της πόλης. Επιπλέον είναι σημαντικές για την κατανόηση της χρονολόγησης ενός μεγάλου μέρους των υλικών καταλοίπων. Ωστόσο, δεν μπορούν να παρουσιάσουν μία συνολική εικόνα του χαρακτήρα και της διαχρονικής αλληλουχίας όλης της πόλης. Για να γίνει κάτι τέτοιο είναι απαραίτητο να στρέψουμε την προσοχή μας στο μέχρι σήμερα αδημοσίευτο υλικό των σωστικών ανασκαφών που έχουν πραγματοποιηθεί σε διάφορες θέσεις στην πεδιάδα. Αυτές οι ανασκαφές ποικίλλουν: από τους πολλούς τάφους στις πλαγιές των γειτονικών λόφων, στα μνημειακά αρχιτεκτονικά κατάλοιπα στην περιοχή ανατολικά της Έπαυλης του Διονύσου και τα κοινότοπα στοιχεία, όπως δεξαμενές και δρόμοι στο σύγχρονο χωριό. Στο άρθρο αυτό, μέσα στο πλαίσιο του δημοσνευμένου ρωμαϊκού υλικού και με έμφαση στα ψηφιδωτά και την κεραμεική, τα δεδομένα από το υλικό των σωστικών ανασκαφών χρησιμοποιούνται για την καλύτερη κατανόηση της πόλης και όλων των κατοίκων της συμπεριλαμβανομένης της διάρθρωσής της ως προς τις περιοχές διοίκησης, κατοίκησης και βιοτεχνικής παραγωγής από τον πρώτο μέχρι τον έβδομο αιώνα μετά Χριστόν.

Representations of Children in Ancient Greece

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olympia Bobou
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Funerary Reliefs ◽  
The Relationship

Children’s representations appear early in the Greek visual material culture: first they appear in the large funerary vases of the geometric period, while in the archaic period they appear in funerary reliefs and vases. To the representations in vase painting, those in terracotta statuettes can be added in the fifth century, but it is in the fourth century bc that children become a noteworthy subject of representation, appearing both in small- and large-scale objects in different media. This chapter considers the relationship between changing imagery of children in ancient Greece and social and religious developments from the geometric period, through the Hellenistic period and into the Roman period in Greece.

ACROSS THE HELLESPONT: MAYDOS (ANCIENT MADYTOS), TROY AND THE NORTH-EASTERN AEGEAN IN THE LATE EIGHTH TO EARLY SIXTH CENTURY BC

2016 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 121-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn C. Aslan ◽  
Göksel Sazcı
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Aegean Region ◽  
Regional Centre ◽  
Early Archaic ◽  
The North ◽  
Eastern Aegean ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Gallipoli Peninsula

This article presents new excavation results from three oval or apsidal houses discovered at the site of Maydos-Kilisetepe (ancient Madytos), which is located near the coast of the Hellespont on the Gallipoli peninsula. The houses date to the late eighth to early sixth century bc. The material from Maydos is evaluated in comparison with the nearby site of Troy (Ilion) and situated within the wider context of developments in the north-eastern Aegean region during the Late Geometric to Early Archaic periods. From the mid-eighth to the mid-seventh century, a cultural koine existed in the north-eastern Aegean, shown by the strong similarities in material culture among the sites in the region. Troy was most probably a large regional centre, while Maydos functioned as a smaller settlement within this network. The power and influence of this koine declined or was replaced in the mid-seventh century, when there was a sudden influx of Ionian-style ceramics at Maydos, around the same time that Troy experienced a destruction. The patterns of cultural interactions changed with the establishment of Greek (primarily Ionian and Athenian) colonies on both sides of the Hellespont during the second half of the seventh to the early sixth century.

Britain and Ireland, 100–700 CE

2019 ◽  
pp. 601-622
Author(s):  
David Petts
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Burial Rites ◽  
Stone Carving ◽  
Church Structures ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reviews the evidence for the archaeology of early Christianity in Britain and Ireland. Here, the church had its origins in the areas that lay within the Roman Empire in the fourth century but rapidly expanded north and west in the early fifth century following the end of Roman rule. The evidence for church structures is limited and often ambiguous, with securely identifiable sites not appearing to any extent until the seventh century. There is a range of material culture that can be linked to the early church from the fourth to the seventh centuries; in particular, there are strong traditions of epigraphy and increasingly decorative stone carving from most areas. The conversion to Christianity also impacted burial rites, although the relationship between belief and mortuary traditions is not a simple one.

Envoi

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hinton
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
Political Units

The significance of material culture, and the portable objects that are part of it, is dictated by people’s economic and social power, and their need to give physical expression to their status and aspirations. As in any society, the ability and wish to acquire, display, and use metals, glass, gems, or pots depended in the Middle Ages upon the supply of raw materials and finished products, and the demand that their availability might meet or create. The island of Britain had never been united by the Romans, and different reactions to their army’s withdrawal were only to be expected. Generally, however, power-seeking leaders establishing petty and impermanent fiefdoms relied largely upon being able to demonstrate their success by the acquisition of booty that could be profligately consumed, shown off, or distributed to families and supporters. Swords, brooches, or drinking-vessels symbolize how these social affinities were created and maintained, whether recorded in graves, hoards, and other deliberate deposits, or in accidental loss or intentional jettisoning of what was beyond reuse. The precise meanings that were given to gold and silver, glass and garnets, changed according to their contexts; some gave physical expression to an ambition to inherit the prestigious authority of Rome, others gave credence to stories of descent from far-travelling heroes, while others stressed a person’s place within their own immediate society. Yet artefacts such as pottery show that even people whose priority was subsistence were part of a wider network of contact. External factors influenced behaviour: no leader of a group in Britain could negotiate directly with the Byzantine emperor for the subsidies that brought gold into western Europe, so none could take action to ensure its continuing availability during the seventh century. Its relative value changed as it became rarer, so that it had to be used sparingly if at all; consequently, for some people the display of access to it became even more important. Contemporaneously, however, Christianity’s infiltration changed beliefs about what happened after death, and how people should use and dispose of their worldly goods. In bigger political units, using symbols to show origins and allegiances mattered less, but the large numbers of artefacts now known show that prosperity was not confined in the eighth and ninth centuries to the royal families.

Regionality under the new order: The seventh to tenth centuries

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
New Material ◽  
Grave Goods

Around the late sixth century dress styles and burial practices started to change, with regionally distinctive sets of grave goods giving way initially to the greater uniformity seen in ‘final phase’ cemeteries before the regular deposition of artefacts ceased altogether in the late seventh century. It has been argued that this reflects how a common identity had started to emerge across Anglo-Saxon society, and that the change in the character of grave goods away from those expressing a strongly Germanic identity to ones with a more Romano-Byzantine character reflects how kings sought to legitimize their power through association with the Roman world (e.g. Geake 1997, 133–5; 1999b). This hypothesis, however, presents something of a paradox because, just as the archaeologically visible and regionally distinctive group identities expressed in material culture such as dress accessories disappeared, a new form of territoriality was emerging in the form of relatively stable kingdoms within which one might imagine the expression of identity was just as important. Indeed, many have argued that changes in the character of grave goods being deposited in ‘final phase’ cemeteries had less to do with secular identity and kingship and was instead associated with the spread of Augustinian Christianity, which was both a unifying cultural tradition and one with strong associations with the Roman world (e.g. Crawford 2004; Hoggett 2010, 107). It seems inherently unlikely that group identities will have disappeared just as stable kingdoms started to emerge, and it is therefore likely that identity was expressed in other ways. This is in fact exactly what we see if we look beyond the burial record: while eighth-century and later graves contain few expressions of identity, as Christianity dictated a uniform burial practice, the circulation of new forms of material culture, such as coinage and mass-produced pottery, was closely tied to particular political territories. This new material culture was associated with specialist forms of settlement that were closely involved in the circulation of coinage both in coastal emporia and in inland places that archaeologists have termed ‘productive sites’.

The hidden material culture of the Dark Ages. Early medieval ceramics at Sagalassos (Turkey): new evidence (ca AD 650–800)

2009 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios K. Vionis ◽  
Jeroen Poblome ◽  
Marc Waelkens
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
General Decline

AbstractOn the basis of recent archaeological evidence unearthed in the course of systematic excavations by the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in southwestern Turkey, this paper attempts to pull together different strings of ceramic data in order to bridge the era between late antiquity and the Middle Ages (mid seventh century to ninth century AD). Our aim is to present samples of the ceramic assemblages excavated at the site of ancient Sagalassos from layers that are most probably dated to the late seventh and eighth centuries. An attempt has been made to examine rigorously the stratigraphy and its contents that are admittedly completely different to the known ceramic forms of the late Roman/early Byzantine (fourth century to mid seventh century) and middle Byzantine (early tenth century to mid 13th century) periods at Sagalassos. Five different pottery types are presented, both kitchenwares and tablewares. The fact that all the ware types presented here are local products should not be seen necessarily as a result of a general decline in trade, rural and/or urban life, but rather as a local response to a generally changing economic system and an emerging local pottery tradition based on household-organised production. The shift from the Roman mass-produced and customised wares (that started to disappear from the market) to non-specialised local/regional production (that started to satisfy basic household needs) need not have been a sudden one. Our ultimate aim is to contribute to recent attempts to throw more light on the archaeologically ‘hidden’ material culture of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’.

Becoming Messenian

2002 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 45-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nino Luraghi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Significant Extent ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will

AbstractThe article is an enquiry into the identity of two groups who called themselves Messenians: the Helots and perioikoi who revolted against Sparta after the earthquake in the 460s; and the citizens of the independent polity founded by Epameinondas in 370/69 bc in the Spartan territory west of the Taygetos. Based on the history of the Messenians in Pausanias Book 4, some scholars have thought that those two groups were simply the descendants of the free inhabitants of the region, subdued by the Spartans in the Archaic period and reduced to the condition of Helots. According to these scholars, the Helotized Messenians preserved a sense of their identity and a religious tradition of their own, which re-emerged when they regained freedom. One objection to this thesis is that there is no clear archaeological evidence of regional cohesiveness in the area in the late Dark Ages, while the very concept of Messenia as a unified region extending from the river Neda to the Taygetos does not seem to exist prior to the Spartan conquest. Furthermore, evidence from sanctuaries dating to the Archaic and Early Classical periods shows that Messenia was to a significant extent populated by perioikoi whose material culture, cults and language were thoroughly indistinguishable from those documented in Lakonia. Even the site where Epameinondas later founded the central settlement of the new Messenian polity was apparently occupied since the late seventh century at the latest by a perioikic settlement. Some of these perioikoi participated with the Helots in the revolt after the earthquake, and the suggestion is advanced, based on research on processes of ethnogenesis, that they played a key role in the emergence of the Messenian identity of the rebels. For them, identifying themselves as Messenians was an implicit claim to the land west of the Taygetos; therefore the Spartans consistently refused to consider the rebels Messenians, just as they refused to consider Messenians – that is, descendants of the ‘old Messenians’ – the citizens of Epameinondas' polity. Interestingly, the Spartan and the Theban-Messenian views on the identity of these people agreed in denying that the ‘old Messenians’ had remained in Messenia as Helots. Messenian ethnicity is explained as the manifestation of the will of perioikoi and Helots living west of the Taygetos to be independent from Sparta. The fact that most Messenian cults attested from the fourth century onwards were typical Spartan cults does not encourage the assumption that there was any continuity in a Messenian tradition going back to the period before the Spartan westward expansion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document