Greek Archaeology

At the center of the Palace of Nestor near modern-day Pylos there is a feature we call the megaron, a room with striking similarities to megara at the contemporary palaces of Mycenae and Tiryns: laid out along a central axis with a porch, vestibule, and main hall containing a large circular hearth at its center, surrounded by four columns, and a throne emplacement along one wall. According to scholarly consensus, these megara were "throne rooms" in which the wa-na-ka (the king in Linear B) and his retainers held court. Although scholars have subjected other rooms of the Palace of Nestor--such as the archives complex, the northeast building, and the storage pantry--to intense scrutiny, and in so doing have revealed how close attention to rooms of such utilitarian function as storage can reveal a great deal about Mycenaean society. Since the megaron was not devoted to storage, and was clearly the largest and most central room of the mainland palaces, it seems a serious oversight not to question our assumptions about the megaron as medieval-style audience hall. The discourse surrounding the megaron itself—as a throne room occupied by a king and his retainers for political audiences—does not rest on careful treatment of the evidence. The physical evidence actually indicates that the megaron was a "hearth room," a highly structured space in which Mycenaean persons ritually consumed wine in the presence of fire. Furthermore, iconographic evidence suggests that a woman, not a man, officiated in ceremony here. The picture that emerges of Mycenaean palace life, then, is more complex than widely assumed.

"""From 2003 to 2005, excavations in the Corfu Opera House plot, revealed an important part of the ancient city’s necropolis. Approximately 300 tombs have been excavated, dated from the 7th to the 1st century B.C.
More than a thousand clay vessels, together with numerous metallic and stone finds produce valuable information about the Kerkyrean trade and shed light on the contacts of the island from the Archaic to the late Hellenistic and Early Roman period. The Archaic period is characterized by the domination of Corinthian type pottery, either imported from Corinth or locally manufactured on Corfu, although imported vessels from Ionia, Laconia, Attica, Southern Italy and Etruria are also apparent. From the 5th century B.C. onwards, products of the Athenian workshop as well as vessels imitating South Italian prototypes are more common.
Despite the preliminary state of research, the finds from the Opera House excavation further verifying the picture of an outward looking city, clearly oriented to sea networks."""

A Gortynian inscription (ICr, IV, 64), now in the epigraphic collection of the Herakleion Archaeological Museum, includes much interesting information about Gortyn itself. The inscription dates from the early 5th century BC, and attests that the community of "Aulòn" (now Aghii Deka) was not formed by Gortynian citizens, but by "perioikoi". According to the text, a gymnasium existed at Gortyn, perhaps in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, as in many other Greek towns in 5th century BC. The Gortynian gymnasium was not constituted by buildings, but simply by running tracks and wooden avenues, as at the Academy in Athens.

"All’interno di una serie di esempi sulle politiche monetali messe in atto dalle poleis o dai leader siciliani fra il V e il III sec. a.C., è stata analizzata la distribuzione sul territorio della moneta di bronzo, spesso rinvenuta anche a notevole distanza dal centro di coniazione, in contrasto con la communis opinio che ha da sempre considerato la valuta bronzea come la moneta locale destinata alle transazioni interne.
Lo spostamento di valuta, anche al di là dei confini “politici”, potrebbe essere motivato dalla generalizzata necessità di avvalersi di tutto il numerario che il mercato monetario poteva offrire, soprattutto in luoghi per esempio a vocazione agricola o situati in posizione strategica a controllo del territorio, verosimilmente sede di stanziamenti di truppe, o centri costieri, aspetti che potevano far convergere in quelle determinate zone vari interessi e quindi moneta divisionale bronzea, necessaria per le transazioni quotidiane, spesso veicolata dai militari in transito sul territorio che l’avevano ricevuta a integrazione o anticipo della paga finale.
Le modalità di dispersione della moneta in Sicilia fanno escludere la possibilità di un fenomeno di “diffusione” delle emissioni, che sottintenderebbe un movimento regolare e senza soluzione di continuità tra territori contigui. In realtà, invece, lo spostamento del denaro è strettamente dipendente dai movimenti del possessore, anche se ovviamente, dopo il momento dell’emissione si innesca – automaticamente - un fenomeno di circolazione che fa muovere - per i più disparati motivi e nelle direzioni più diverse - le monete che permangono in corso legale.
In generale grazie ad uno studio diacronico sulle testimonianze della circolazione monetale si nota un riproporsi di situazioni che presentano analogie nonostante si tratti di periodi diversi, dei patterns che si ripetono ogni qualvolta la situazione politica presenti delle caratteristiche simili (potere accentrato dei tiranni o sovrani siracusani, situazione di costante conflitto con la parte punica, necessità di corrispondere moneta spicciola agli eserciti che si muovono sul territorio per le esigenze dell’approvvigionamento quotidiano - “sitaresion”-).
Sembra dunque che la destinazione della moneta bronzea, funzionalizzata di volta in volta a particolari pagamenti - come evidenziato dall’episodicità delle coniazioni -, sia strettamente legata alla politica dei centri egemoni e soprattutto agli aspetti militari di essa, senza escludere le scelte legate al controllo e alla produttività del territorio."

"In summary, the Karians lived in a close symbiosis with the Greeks, first the Mycenaeans, then especially the Ionians, for more than a millennium. Interestingly, Karian-Dorian contact was not that long-lived, nor was it as intensive as the Ionian-Karian one. This remains true until the Hellenistic period, when Rhodes established its large peraia on the Karian mainland. 
The peninsula of Knidos existed as a Dorian Greek ‘island’ on the Karian mainland from at least Geometric times onwards. The Isthmos was surrounded by the other cities of the ‘Dorian Hexapolis’, and connected with them via the sea. The Triopion, the common sanctuary of the Dorian city league, was located at its western tip, Cape Tekir. The peninsula was easy to cut off from the hinterland, which allowed the Knidians to build a five stadia long ditch at its narrowest point to protect themselves from the advancing Persian army (Herodotus 1.174).
The ‘Dorian’ past of Halikarnassos receded in favour of a ‘Kekropid’-Ionian one early on, as is indicated in her foundation story in the Hellenistic Salmakis Epigram. The reason will have been Halikarnassos’ exclusion from the Dorian ‘Hexapolis’ in the sixth century BCE, henceforth a mere ‘Pentapolis’, comprising the Dorians concentrated on the adjacent islands of Rhodes and Kos, whose only mainland footings were Knidos and the Triopion.
From the fifth century BCE on, the Karians gradually gave up the main marker of Karian identity, their language and script, in favour of the Ionian one. Their closeness to the Ionian Greeks, as well as the will to widen their zone of influence, may have caused the Hekatomnids Maussollos and Idrieus to back the refoundation of the Ionian League and the common festival of the Panionia at Mt. Mykale. This is strongly supported by their involvement in the refoundation of New Priene, the city managing and protecting the Panionion (see § 6.3). At the same time, however, the parallel relocation of Knidos, again initiated by Maussollos,  may have aimed at the simultaneous control of the adjacent Triopion.  It is important to note that the new Karian capital at Halikarnassos was a former member of this league (see § 1). The Hekatomnids clearly aimed at establishing their influence on the Greek mainland also, again instrumentalising Greek as well as Karian cults: the relief from Tegea testifies to the translation of Zeus Labraundeus to the Peloponnese by Ada and Idrieus (Fig.17), while around 345 BCE, dependent Miletos erected statues of the ruling couple in Panhellenic Delphi, instead in her own oracle sanctuary in Didyma. 
The Hekatomnids have this ambition in common with another Hellenized ‘barbarian’ people (Isocrates, Philippus 105–108), who were ultimately more successfull: the Macedonians. When Alexander the Great conquered Karia in 334/33 BCE, Ada adopted him. For this stroke of genius he made her satrap of Karia. Nevertheless the Hekatomnid dynasty came to an end, when she died in 324 BCE.  After her death or slightly earlier, the Karian language was gradually replaced by Attic Koiné. This is evident from the recently found bilingual proxeny-decree in Kaunos, dated to c. 322-314 BCE, which was written in local Kaunian-Karian and in Attic Koiné. 

I hope to have shown that the final assimilation of the Karian language and culture into the Greek, recognizable even in the loss of Karian personal names, is not the result of a cultural inferiority. This is simply the version of history that the Greeks have fostered, and passed on until today. They stylised the Karians as the prototypical ‘barbarians’ in the process of their own ethnogenesis as Hellenes. They did this with sayings like the following, which was still being repeated as late as the fifteenth century CE (Diogenianus Epicureus 6.24; Michael Apostolius, Paroemiae 12.37):
Λυδοὶ πονηροί, δεύτεροι δ’ Ἀιγύπτιοι, τρίτοι δὲ πάντων Κᾶρες ἐξωλέστατοι.
“The Lydians are base, second the Egyptians, but third and most abominable are the Karians”.

It was the failure of Karia to achieve political independence and unity that was decisive for the loss of its cultural identity.  The central rule of the Hekatomnid dynasty (395/94 or 392/1 to 324 BCE) was too short-lived,  and the cultural impact of Alexander and the Diadochi on Karia was too strong, while the Karian ‘Chrysaoric League’ (third/second century BCE) was too weak and active too late, and by no means purely Karian as it incorporated the Macedonian colonists in Stratonikeia (cf. Strabo 14.2.25) 
The Karians, like many other ‘Luwic’ people of Asia Minor, disappeared in the Roman Imperial period at the latest. Only the name of the land survived as the Byzantine province of Karia up to the thirteenth century CE, signalling the remnants of some form of ‘regional identity’."

"Following his victory over Spartan forces at the
battle of Sphakteria in 425 B.C.E. (Thuc. 4.28-40), the
demagogue Cleon dedicated several captured Spartan
shields in Athens. This same dedication of shields plays
a major role in the comic debate for the favor of Demos
in Aristophanes' Knights (lines 843-59), produced a year
after Cleon's triumph. Common opinion holds that the
dedicationo f shields referredt o in Knightiss the same that
Pausanias (1.15.5) saw inside the Stoa Poikile during his
tour of the Athenian Agora. There is no reason, however,
to believe that Cleon hung all 120 of his Spartiate shields
in the Painted Stoa. Indeed, the archaeological context
of the famous shield from Pylos excavated in the agora
demonstrates that not all of Cleon's shields were seen by
Pausanias in the Stoa Poikile. A set of unusual cuttings on
the Nike temple bastion is perhaps relevant here. Since
1908 these cuttings have been interpreted as the fastening
points for a dedication of shields. While perfectly suited for
this purpose, the form of the cuttings on the Nike bastion
is unlike that of cuttings used for dedicated shields known
in the archaeological record. Here, it is significant that
Aristophanes( Knights8 48-49) specifies that Cleon hung
his dedicated shields in an unusual manner, namely, with
their handles still attached. Considering both the specific
language and context of the comedy and how closely Cleon
and his victory were associated with the completion of the
Temple of Athena Nike, it is possible that strangely hung
shields on the Nike temple bastion and Cleon's strangely
hung shields described by Aristophanes are one and the
same."

ABSTRACT This study seeks to reassess the conventional chronology for the beginning of the Grey Series amphorae from the isle of Lesbos. Based on a rediscovery of a Lesbian amphora in a secured Iron Age IIB context at Tell Qudadi (Israel), it is suggested that the beginning of the Lesbian series should be dated to ca 700 BC (that is significantly earlier than previously assumed), similar to other archaic East Greek amphorae series (e.g., Samian, Chian and Clazomenian). The study is accompanied by thin-section and NAA analyses carried on the Lesbian amphorae from Tell Qudadi and Meẓad Ḥashavyahu (Israel).

""Among settlements throughout late Republican Italy, relationships between fortifications and the protective deities of the city are common. In most basic terms, the gods protected the city and in turn the citizens protected their gods by placing their sanctuaries within the safety of fortifications. The sculptures of divinities protecting the city gates of Volterra, Falerii Novi, and Perugia, are the most evident manifestation of this relationship, where it also reflects political ties with Rome. At Pompeii, evidence indicates associations between Minerva, Venus Pompeiana, and the fortifications, but their nature has remained enigmatic.

Pompeians evoked Minerva at the city gates in various ways; a keystone depicting the goddess still decorates the Porta di Nola, whereas niches in the Porta Stabia and the Porta Marina reference her cult. Recent excavations at the Porta Stabia have uncovered remains of an early altar associated with two niches in the main passageway of the gate, suggesting a continuity of cult stretching to its construction in the late fourth century BCE. Initial excavations of the Porta Marina in 1861 also recovered three fragments of a terracotta statue of Minerva once placed in an aedicula in its southern bastion. Although published by Hermann von Rohden in 1880, the fragments subsequently vanished and were considered lost. In the summer of 2010, the director at Pompeii, Dott.ssa Grete Stefani, rediscovered them, presenting them for study for the first time in over 140 years.

Beyond the gates, moreover, the Doric Temple and the Temple of Venus used the fortifications as terracing structures, creating a powerful visual relationship with the defenses. Both carried political associations that defined the communal identity of Pompeii. Excavated metopes and votive statuettes connect the Doric Temple to Athena Phrygia, whereas recent excavations at the Temple of Venus indicate a continuity of cult stretching to the foundation of the city. Epigraphic evidence points to Venus Pompeiana as a Roman appropriation of the Samnite goddess Mefitis Fisica, suggesting a complex relationship between civic identity, the fortifications, and the city’s protective deities. Using a combination of archival research, art historical analysis, and archaeological evidence, this paper explores and elucidates the connection between the Pompeian fortifications and the two goddesses protecting the city. The results deliver fresh insights on Pompeian civic identity, and raise new questions on the wider role of fortifications in the image of the city. 
""