The Cycladic Spirit

Arts & Photography

Renfrew, A. Colin

Sculpture

Thames and Hudson

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 good excavation in Greece'. Since that time Phylakopi has been a key site both for the study of the Cycladic Bronze Age and of prehistoric Aegean interconnections. This volume completes the authoritative account of the excavations undertaken for the British School of Archaeology from 1974 to 1977 under the direction of Colin Renfrew. Leading specialists contribute full descriptions of the stratigraphy, of the pottery of successive phases and of the other finds, now making Phylakopi one of the most comprehensively documented and published sites of the Aegean Bronze Age. Phylakopi was a settlement in close touch with other areas, notably Minoan Crete and Helladic Greece, from the Early Bronze Age onwards, with a marked increase in Minoan imports during the Middle Bronze Age. The chronology of the fortifications is here re-assessed in the light of stratigraphic associations. The painted plasters, now assigned to the Late Bronze I period, are also re-evaluated, as is the important central building of the time (with the find of a tablet fragment in the Minoan Linear A script). Significant material of the Mycenaean period is described in detail and supplements finds from the 1974-77 excavations published in The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi. BSA Suppl. 18 (London 1985). The growth of settlement in Melos has been outlined in C. Renfrew and J.M. Wagstaff (eds.), An Island Polity: the Archaeology of Exploitation in Melos (Cambridge 1982). With this new volume publication of the project now reaches completion, offering the documentation upon which earlier and more recent conclusions must rest. This work should stand for many years as the definitive account of this important Bronze Age site, one of the first proto-urban centres of the prehistoric Aegean. It offers much of the evidential basis needed for assessing the role of the Cyclades in the developing field of Aegean Bronze Age studies.

Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos 1974-77 (BSA Supplementary Volume)

History

Ancient Civilizations

British School at Athens

Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and language families can be traced back to the early developments and dispersals of farming from the several nuclear areas where animal and plant domestication emerged. For instance, the Indo-European and Austronesian language families may owe their current vast distributions to the spread of food plants and of farmers (speaking the relevant proto-language) following the Neolithic revolutions which took place in the Near East and in Eastern Asia respectively, thousands of years ago. In this challenging book, international experts in historical linguistics, prehistoric archaeology, molecular genetics and human ecology bring their specialisms to bear upon this intractable problem, using a range of interdisciplinary approaches. There are signs that a new synthesis between these fields may now be emerging. This path-breaking volume opens new perspectives and indicates some of the directions which future research is likely to follow.

Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis (McDonald Institute Monographs)

Politics & Social Sciences

Bellwood, Peter

Anthropology

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Contemporary art and modern archaeology are increasingly seen to share much common ground yet their interactions have yet to be fully investigated. This innovative volume explores key themes, including the role of display in art, in the practice of archaeology and in daily life, and the material transformations which underlie the physical reality of the archaeological record as much as the creative processes of the contemporary artist. Prominent practising artists Simon Callery and Antony Gormley provide seminal papers considering the role of materiality and embodiment in their own work, exploring issues that are directly relevant to current archaeological thinking. They are joined by archaeologists actively involved with visual approaches, including Anwen Cooper, Christopher Evans, Steven Mithen, Joshua Pollard, Nicholas Saunders, Aaron Watson and the editorial trio. The book is lavishly illustrated in colour. Table of Contents Introduction: art as archaeology and archaeology as art (Colin Renfrew et al); Art for archaeology (Colin Renfrew); Making and display: our aesthetic appreciation of things and objects (Chris Godsen); The art of decay and the transformation of substance (Joshua Pollard); Segsbury Project: art from excavation (Simon Callery); Making space for monuments: notes on the representation of experience (Aaron Watson); The pot, the flint and the bone and House Beautiful (Anwen Cooper et al); Unearthing displacement: surrealism and the 'archaeology' of Paul Nash (Christopher Evans); Art of war: engaging the contested object (Nicholas J Saunders); Art as process (Anthony Gormley); Contemporary Western art and archaeology (Steven Mithen).

Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology and Art (McDonald Institute Monographs)

Gosden, Christopher

DeMarrais, Elizabeth

History & Criticism

The Cycladic Islands of Greece played a central role in Aegean prehistory, and many new discoveries have been made in recent years at sites ranging in date from the Mesolithic period to the end of the Bronze Age. In the well-illustrated chapters of this book, based on the recent conference held at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, international scholars including leading Greek archaeologists offer new information about recent developments, many arising from hitherto unpublished excavations. The book contains novel theoretical insights into the workings of culture process in the prehistoric cultures of the islands. It will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars interested in the prehistory of the Aegean and in the contributions made to its development by the prehistoric inhabitants of the Cyclades.

Horizon: A Colloquium on the Prehistory of the Cyclades (McDonald Institute Monographs)

RENFREW,COLIN

Gavalas, Giorgos

Doole, Jennifer

Gavalas, Giorgios

The site of Dhaskalio Kavos, on the remote Cycladic island of Keros, was extensively looted in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Investigations starting in1963 then revealed large quantities of fractured marble bowls, broken marble figures and smashed pottery of the Early Cycladic period from around 2500 BC. This report of the subsequent survey and rescue excavations of 1987-88 reveals the extraordinary richness of the site, now confirmed as one of the most prolific in Èlite goods of the entire Aegean early bronze age. Was it an unprecedentedly rich Early Cycladic cemetery, recently wrecked by looters? Or was the damage deliberately produced during early bronze age times in some procedure of ritual breakage and ceremonial deposition? Here the survey of the site and the rescue excavations undertaken within the looted area are documented in detail, with a full account of the finds. Alternative explanations for this extraordinary deposit are explored. What has been termed 'the Keros Enigma', in the light of the finds at the site, can now be reconsidered with the full documentation which this volume offers.Table of ContentsForeword (Photeini Zapheiropoulou); Preface and Acknowledgments (Colin Renfrew, Christos Doumas, Lila Marangou Giorgos Gavalas); Introduction (Colin Renfrew); Keros And The Islands Around (Lila Marangou); Earlier Work: (A) The 1963 Surface Collection (Colin Renfrew), (B) The 1963 Excavation (Christos Doumas), (C) The 1967 Rescue Project (Photeini Zapheiropoulou), (D) Earlier Work On Keros (Photeini Zapheiropoulou), (E) Other (Looted) Materials (Colin Renfrew); The 1987 Surface Survey: An Overview (Todd Whitelaw); Trenches Excavated In The Disturbed Area Of The Special Deposit (Colin Renfrew et al); The Pottery (Cyprian Broodbank, with an appendix by Jill Hilditch); The Marble Figurines (Colin Renfrew); The Stone Vessels: Introduction (Colin Renfrew), (A) The Marble Open Bowls (Sophia Voutsaki), (B) The Other Marble Vessels (Giorgos Gavalas), (C) The Grey Marble And Limestone Vessels (Kiki Birtacha), (D) Vessels Of Chlorite Schist (Colin Renfrew); Other Finds Of Stone: (A) The Obsidian (Tristan Carter, With Colin Renfrew, Paula Geake And Anastasia Angelopoulou), (B) The Stone Pestles (Chris Scarre), (C) Stone And Emery Tools (Kiki Birtacha), (D) Ornaments (Kiki Birtacha), (E) Miscellaneous Objects (Kiki Birtacha); Other Finds Of Clay: The Animal Protomes And Theriomorphic Vases (Christos Doumas), The Leaf, Mat And Cloth Impressions (Jane Renfrew), The Spindle Whorls (Giorgos Gavalas); The Metal Finds: (A) The Metal Artefacts (Kiki Birtacha); (B) The Metallurgical Remains (Myrto Georgakopoulou); Thraumatology (Breakage Patterns) (Colin Renfrew); Dhaskalio Kavos: Preliminary Discussion (Colin Renfrew); Summary In Greek; Index; Bibliography.

Keros, Dhaskalio Kavos: The Investigations of 1987-88 (McDonald Institute Monographs)

D̲oumas, Christos

Marangou, Lila I.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Renfrew, A. Colin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Renfrew, A. Colin