Land was the ideal store of wealth in the ancient Mediterranean world. It brought social respectability, and its possession allowed participation in the politics of the cities governed by landowning elites. Crucial defense of the interests of a given polity through armed services often involved the distribution of lands to laborers still not integrated in these societies. Mediterranean urban dynamics also involved paid labor and were always in need of short-contract manpower, including skilled soldiers and warriors. For short-time military services, lands were not always available so soldiers and warriors were paid with coins and riches.Because of their superior development, urban economies in the Mediterranean were able to attract migrant paid labor. When returning home, the migrant warriors carried coins and riches that would enable them to maximize the return that a homecoming entailed. Although difficult to prove whether these men were paid in advance or when discharged, it is an important issue as it shows the strength of one contractor over another and helps to better understand the construction of statehood in ancient and early medieval times.This collection of papers sheds light on how coins, riches, and lands were gained and distributed among soldiers, warriors, and mercenaries. Contributions cover a wide chronological span from Late Pharaonic to early medieval times, linking a well-defined core area, the Mediterranean basin, with its peripheries: Central Europe and Scandinavia to the north and the margins of the Sahara Desert and the Fertile Crescent to the south and the east.

This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasizes the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology. Symbols must not be conceived only as allegory but also, and perhaps mainly, as reason (raison d’être) and meaning (culture). They may be considered key elements leading to interpretation, not only in their physical manifestation but by being infused with the gestures, beliefs and intentions of their creators, created in a specific context and with a specific chaîne opératoire.In this volume a variety of case studies is offered, representing disparate ancient cultures in the Mediterranean and central Europe and the Near East. The thread that connects them revolves around the prominence of symbols and allegorical aspects in archaeology, whether they are considered as expressions of iconographic evidence, material culture or ritual ceremonies, seen from a multicultural perspective. This (and subsequent ICAS) volumes, therefore, aims to embrace all the different aspects pertaining to symbols in archaeology in a specific ‘place’, allowing the reader to deepen their knowledge of such a fascinating and multifaceted topic, by looking at it from a multicultural perspective.

The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi, Crete (ca. 1390–1190 BC) is the only intact, complete Late Minoan necropolis presently known, of which 232 tombs have been excavated. The research project was the first large-scale genomic sampling of skeletal material from a single site in Bronze Age Greece, as well as being the first time a multi-disciplinary approach with ancient DNA as its focus has been conducted on a large, well-curated necropolis assemblage. As such it provides a unique opportunity to answer archaeological questions, the most important of which are kinship, an analysis of the origin and ancestry of those buried in the tombs, the homogeneity of the population or otherwise, and diet. The analysis programme was only possible because the tombs had not been seriously disturbed, and human skeletal remains had survived and been expertly conserved. The results of ancient DNA, stable isotope analysis, osteological analysis, and radiocarbon dating are presented, providing the first detailed record of ancestry and kinship in this iconic period of Eastern Mediterranean prehistory.In addition, the long-debated problem of the location of the wealthy city of da-_22-to, referred to many times in the Linear B tablets, is addressed and key evidence is presented. The rich finds in the Necropolis, the town excavation, and in the environs, support the interpretation that the ‘city’ that built the Necropolis is da-_22-to.

This volume explores the part played by different metals in use from the fourth millennium BC to the Early Iron Age, not only in the Aegean but also in the wider Old World. It addresses the divergent uses and roles of different metals, the interrelationships of these roles and the changing values that may have been accorded to them at different times and in different places by producers and consumers. Individually, the papers in the volume contemplate the particular properties of different metals and the various issues concerning their frequent under-representation in the archaeological (but not necessarily textual) record, and also point out comparative and diachronic perspectives that may have the ability to offer insights into their important roles in wider cultural and historical changes over a period of several millennia. After the Introduction and Chapter 1, which reflects on some of the parameters involved in the term ‘precious’ as applied to metals, the remaining six chapters cover the Aegean and the networks that link the Aegean with Italy, Cyprus and the Near East more generally, and south-east Anatolia and the Caucasus. Between them they discuss the beginnings of regular iron metallurgy, the uses of and attitudes to gold, silver and bronze and other copper-based alloys at various times between the fourth millennium BC and the Early Iron Age.

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.

This book charts the rise of and interplay between the first Mediterranean civilisations – with particular reference to the Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean and Trojan – and on the causes of their decline, which are identified in a jumble of natural and human causes, and in a slow, but irreversible crisis. It takes into account that the Mediterranean Dimension of the Bronze Age is a garden in which many legends flourished, clearly distinguishing between myth and history. Using written sources and archaeological evidence, it charts these civilisations' fortunes and crises, and the wars and natural disasters that led to their decline. Chapters explore political geography, military and economic development, religion, monumental architecture and the rise and fall of the palatial dynasties and successive centralised governments, social life and material culture, with emphasis on the importance of commerce. A characterising element of Knossos, Mycenae, Troy is the wide use of the ‘historical present’ to represent events and construct the text. In doing so, it immerses the reader in the narrated events, facilitating our understanding. The result is a fascinating picture of the cultures that laid the foundations of Western civilisation.

Modern receptions of Graeco-Roman Antiquity are important ideological markers of the ways we envisage our own twenty-first-century societies. An urgent topic of study is: what kinds of narratives – sometimes controversial – about Antiquity do people create for themselves at this moment in time, and for what reasons? This volume aims to showcase a number of illustrative examples, and thus to provide a deeper understanding of twenty-first-century reception of Antiquity. After a general introduction in Part I, the volume focuses on two main fields: controversies referencing ancient and modern literary works; and controversies surrounding heritage ethics. Part II takes literary evidence from the USA to Italy as its starting point: it shows how metaphors about early Christianity find their way into American conservative discourse; how Sparta is evoked in right-wing thinking in the USA, Germany, France and Scandinavia; and how Aeneas plays a role in recent Italian debates on migrations. The last paper discusses the depiction of classicists in modern novels. Part III focuses on heritage ethics and material culture, in first instance taking practices at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) – on the display of death, queering and orientalism - as case studies. The last paper delves into the history of the Via Belgica to show how antiquity has been weaponised for political aims for many centuries. Together, these papers show that academics should engage with the receptions of antiquity in the recent past and present. If they want their research and museum displays to be part of current reception, they should make their voice heard.

This volume offers a valuable resource by compiling and interpreting high-resolution satellite images of all Old and Middle Kingdom pyramid sites in Egypt. The sites included in this Atlas represent to a large degree the principal sites of the third- through the thirteenth-Dynasty. Their particular characteristics mirror the specific periods of Egyptian history, providing a fascinating window into the incredible story of ancient Egypt. Sites covered include (starting in the north): Abu Rawash, Giza, Zawiyet el-Aryan, Abusir, Saqqara, Dahshur, Mazghuna, Lisht, Meidum, Lahun, Hawara and Abydos. Also featured is the site of Abu Ghurob, with the two sun temples of Userkaf and Nyuserra of the fifth-Dynasty and the so-called minor step pyramids dating from the late third- to the early fourth-Dynasty. These start in Seila at the northeastern edge of the Faiyum Oasis and include – proceeding those of Zawyet Sultan – Nubt (Naqada), Abydos (Sinki), Hierakonpolis (el-Kula), Edfu (Ghonemeia) and Elephantine. The individual sites are characterised on the background of their local topography and changing nature of their development over time as reflected by the position of individual monuments, including the principal pyramids of the Old and Middle Kingdom. Each each site provides a different story in terms of its structure and content, reflecting the simple fact that every site developed under different conditions, in different local setting, had its own internal logics, its pace and its genuine characteristics. Each site also reflects a specific historical situation and tells a different story of its development and rediscovery. Most pyramid fields are increasingly more intensively endangered by modern development and locally-dominated neglect of the need for their preservation. It is strongly believed that the latest technological advances, including the satellite imaging in Egyptology, will ultimately translate into their systematic use in sites’ protection and management, site and landscape analysis and long-term strategies for both ongoing and future excavation and survey projects in Egypt.

This volume presents a complete study of the architecture and finds from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos, a Neopalatial building uncovered by Sir Arthur Evans and Duncan Mackenzie in 1923 and 1926. Located in a prominent position, a few meters south of the Royal Road and close to both the Theatral Area and the north-west corner of the Palace, the House of the Frescoes owes its name to the large deposit of painted plaster discovered within its ruins. Reinvestigation of the House took place in 2016–2019 and included: on-site cleaning of the remains in 2018; detailed analysis of the pottery and other finds; and study of archival material from the original excavations (excerpts presented in this volume). The results offer new insights into the architecture and finds’ contexts, as well as fresh perspectives on the building’s occupation, purpose and abandonment. They suggest that the House of the Frescoes was a non-residential building, and instead had a public role with strong ritual connotations. Its memory survived for a while after its abandonment, as demonstrated by the structured depositions – including the frescoes – found within. Finally, this analysis highlights the urban context of the House of the Frescoes and its connections with the Royal Road area, where much archaeological work has been carried out after Evans. The emerging picture helps to shed further light on the character of Knossos, pre-eminent centre of Minoan Crete at the height of the Bronze Age.

This book explores the cost, expressed in labour, of constructing fortifications during the Late Bronze Age in Greece (ca. 1600 - 1050 BCE). The underlying question for this study is whether the cost of large scale constructions, built with large, unwieldy blocks, may have overstretched the (economic) capabilities of communities, leading to their collapse. In order to determine the labour costs, the building process is deconstructed and for each sub-process, the costs are determined. The costs for these sub-processes are based on the amount of material that is required and the speed with which the tasks associated with these processes can be performed. However, a simplistic number expressing the labour (in person-hours, for example), gives limited insight into the impact such building projects may have had on the communities. Hence, elaborate comparisons are made to put these labour costs into context. This involves, for instance, comparisons between different fortifications, different building styles, as well as between types of structures. It is in these comparisons where the true strength of labour cost studies lie. This study on its own cannot definitively answer the question whether these construction projects led to the downfall of the Mycenaean communities. However, based purely on the results of the labour cost analyses, it is shown that, despite the impressive nature of the walls, both due to their size as well as due to the size of the stones used, communities seem to have been able to cope with the stress it may have put on their economies. This study, therefore, provides insights into building processes, the impact of material and building styles on construction costs as well as the large varieties that exist within a context collectively known as ‘Mycenaean’.

This book explores the cost, expressed in labour, of constructing fortifications during the Late Bronze Age in Greece (ca. 1600 - 1050 BCE). The underlying question for this study is whether the cost of large scale constructions, built with large, unwieldy blocks, may have overstretched the (economic) capabilities of communities, leading to their collapse. In order to determine the labour costs, the building process is deconstructed and for each sub-process, the costs are determined. The costs for these sub-processes are based on the amount of material that is required and the speed with which the tasks associated with these processes can be performed. However, a simplistic number expressing the labour (in person-hours, for example), gives limited insight into the impact such building projects may have had on the communities. Hence, elaborate comparisons are made to put these labour costs into context. This involves, for instance, comparisons between different fortifications, different building styles, as well as between types of structures. It is in these comparisons where the true strength of labour cost studies lie.This study on its own cannot definitively answer the question whether these construction projects led to the downfall of the Mycenaean communities. However, based purely on the results of the labour cost analyses, it is shown that, despite the impressive nature of the walls, both due to their size as well as due to the size of the stones used, communities seem to have been able to cope with the stress it may have put on their economies. This study, therefore, provides insights into building processes, the impact of material and building styles on construction costs as well as the large varieties that exist within a context collectively known as ‘Mycenaean’.

Woven textiles are produced by nearly all human societies. This volume investigates evidence for patterned textiles (that is, textiles woven with elaborate designs) that were produced by two early Mediterranean civilisations: the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, that prospered during the Aegean Bronze Age, c. 3000-1200 BC, contemporary with pharaonic Egypt. Both could boast of specialists in textile production. Together with their wine, oil, and art, Minoan and Mycenaean textiles were much desired as trade goods. Artistic images of their fabrics preserved both in the Aegean and in other parts of the Mediterranean show elaborate patterns woven with rich decorative detail and colour. Only a few small scraps of textiles survive but evidence for their production is abundant and frescoes supply detailed information about a wide variety of now-lost textile goods from luxurious costumes and beautifully patterned wall hangings and carpets, to more utilitarian decorated fabrics. A review of surviving artistic and archaeological evidence indicates that textiles played essential practical and social roles in both Minoan and Mycenaean societies.

Presents a thematic collection of papers dealing with the Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeology of the Ionian Sea, situated off the south western Balkan peninsula. It is based on an international conference held in Athens, Greece in January 2020. The eastern Ionian occupies a geographically complex area, which since the Pleistocene has undergone significant alterations due to tectonic activity and sea-level fluctuations. This dynamic environment, where islands, mainland, and sea intertwined to present different landscapes and seascapes to the human communities exploring the region at different times in the past, provides an ideal setting for their study from a diachronic perspective. This book deals thematically with the processes of circulation of people, materials, artefacts and ideas by examining patterns of settlement, burial and multi-layered interconnections between the different communities via land and sea. It investigates aspects of regional and interregional communication, isolation, collective memory and the creation of distinct identities within and between different cultural and social groups. It focuses on the islands of the Central Ionian Sea, offering new data from excavations and surveys on Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaki and the smaller islands of the Inner Ionian Archipelago between Lefkada and Akarnania. The cultural interchange between the islands and the continental coasts is reflected in the volume with the addition of chapters dealing with contemporary sites in west Greece and southeast Italy. The Ionian, often regarded as 'at the fringes' of the Aegean, the Balkan and the central Mediterranean archaeological discourse, has lately offered new and exciting data that not only enrich but also alter our perceptions of mobility, settlement and interaction. The collection of papers in this book enhances theoretical discussions by offering a geographically and culturally comparative approach, ranging from the earliest Palaeolithic evidence of human presence in the region to the end of the Bronze Age.

This volume presents a series of reflections on modes of communication in the Bronze Age Aegean, drawing on papers presented at two round table workshops of the Sheffield Centre for Aegean Archaeology on 'Technologies of Representation' and 'Writing and Non-Writing in the Bronze Age Aegean'. Each was designed to capture current developments in these interrelated research areas and also to help elide boundaries between 'science-based' and 'humanities-based' approaches, and between those focused on written communication (especially its content) and those interested in broader modes of communication. Contributions are arranged thematically in three groups: the first concerns primarily non-written communication, the third mainly written communication, while the second blurs this somewhat arbitrary distinction. Topics in the first group include how ritual architecture is represented in the Knossos wall-paintings; a re-interpretation of the 'Harvester Vase' from Ayia Triada; the use of colour in wall-paintings at Late Bronze Age Pylos; the use of painted media to represent depictions in other (lost) media such as cloth; and re-readings of Aegean representations of warfare and of the sequence of grave stelae at Mycenae. In the second group Linear B texts and archaeological data are used to explore further the colour palette used at Pylos, how people were represented diacritically through taste and smell, and how different qualities of time were expressed both textually and materially; the roles of images in Aegean scripts, complemented by a Peircian analysis of early Cretan writing; and a consideration of the complementary role of (non-literate) sealing and (literate) writing practices. Topics in the third group range from defining Aegean writing itself, through the contexts for literacy and how the Linear B script represented language, to a historical exploration of early attempts at deciphering Linear B.

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, cultural change and collapse in prehistory, 2013-18), led by Caroline Malone (Queens University Belfast) has explored issues of environmental fragility and Neolithic social resilience and sustainability during the Holocene period in the Maltese Islands. This, the first volume of three, presents the palaeo-environmental story of early Maltese landscapes. The project employed a programme of high-resolution chronological and stratigraphic investigations of the valley systems on Malta and Gozo. Buried deposits extracted through coring and geoarchaeological study yielded rich and chronologically controlled data that allow an important new understanding of environmental change in the islands. The study combined AMS radiocarbon and OSL chronologies with detailed palynological, molluscan and geoarchaeological analyses. These enable environmental reconstruction of prehistoric landscapes and the changing resources exploited by the islanders between the seventh and second millennia bc. The interdisciplinary studies combined with excavated economic and environmental materials from archaeological sites allows Temple landscapes to examine the dramatic and damaging impacts made by the first farming communities on the islands' soil and resources. The project reveals the remarkable resilience of the soil-vegetational system of the island landscapes, as well as the adaptations made by Neolithic communities to harness their productivity, in the face of climatic change and inexorable soil erosion. Neolithic people evidently understood how to maintain soil fertility and cope with the inherently unstable changing landscapes of Malta. In contrast, second millennium bc Bronze Age societies failed to adapt effectively to the long-term aridifying trend so clearly highlighted in the soil and vegetation record. This failure led to severe and irreversible erosion and very different and short-lived socio-economic systems across the Maltese islands.

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone (Queen’s University Belfast) has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta, and its antecedents and successors through investigation of archaeological sites and monuments. This, the second volume of three, presents the results of excavations at four temple sites and two settlements, together with analysis of chronology, economy and material culture. The project focused on the integration of three key strands of Malta's early human history (environmental change, human settlement and population) set against a series of questions that interrogated how human activity impacted on the changing natural environment and resources, which in turn impacted on the Neolithic populations. The evidence from early sites together with the human story preserved in burial remains reveals a dynamic and creative response over millennia. The scenario that emerges implies settlement from at least the mid-sixth millennium bc, with extended breaks in occupation, depopulation and environmental stress coupled with episodes of recolonization in response to changing economic, social and environmental opportunities. Excavation at the temple site of Santa Verna (Gozo) revealed an occupation earlier than any previously dated site on the islands, whilst geophysical and geoarchaeological study at the nearby temple of Ġgantija revealed a close relationship with a spring, Neolithic soil management, and evidence for domestic and economic activities within the temple area. A targeted excavation at the temple of Skorba (Malta) revisited the chronological questions that were first revealed at the site over 50 years ago, with additional OSL and AMS sampling. The temple site of Kordin III (Malta) was explored to identify the major phases of occupation and to establish the chronology, a century after excavations first revealed the site. Settlement archaeology has long been problematic in Malta, overshadowed by the megalithic temples, but new work at the site of Taċ-Ċawla (Gozo) has gathered significant economic and structural evidence revealing how subsistence strategies supported agricultural communities in early Malta. A study of the second millennium bc Bronze Age site of In-Nuffara (Gozo) likewise has yielded significant economic and chronological information that charts the declining and changing environment of Malta in late prehistory.