Greek Culture

Question 1

What is the general pattern when comparing settlements’ plans within an between LBA and EIA?

Answer 1

Variation

Question 2

What were two priorities in the laying out and organisation of the LBA and EIA Greek settlements?

Answer 2

Connections w the past and civic identity
Defence

Question 3

What are the 5 features of urban planning that can be used in study?

Answer 3

domestic areas
artisanal regions
house layouts
presence of temples or not (or places of cult)
presence of open spaces or not

Question 4

What are two continuous features of EIA settlements across Greek communities?

Answer 4

Archaeologically distinct artisan quarter
Necropolis outside city walls

Question 5

What building plan becomes particularly common in the EIA?

Answer 5

apsidal

Question 6

What does Snodgrass (1993) say on the nature of EIA communities?

Answer 6

Likely were not big enough nor long lasting enough to develop significant hierarchies suggested by certain interpretations of the archaeological evidence

Question 7

What sort of plan did later EIA rectangular buildings have?

Answer 7

Courtyards at centre with smaller rooms arranged around their perimeter

Question 8

What was a feature of the Cretan EIA towns rather unique to their topography?

Answer 8

Defensive walls built in between two slopes by the settlements

Question 9

Around when does the idea of the Greek polis become clearer? What should be added as nuance here?

Answer 9

8th-7th centuries
There was still a great degree of heterogeneity among settlements

Question 10

Why does dev of polis around this time help to explain variation?

Answer 10

The period was defined by major developments and changes in political/social organisation. Therefore, communities go down different pol/social routes in different ways as part of a general pattern. A lot of potential for ways in which communities could change.

Question 11

Why is burial evidence so important for LBA and IA studies?

Answer 11

It makes up large proportion of the evidence we have

Question 12

What can be used to deduce info about person buried and/or their community?

Answer 12

offerings within grave/associated w burial

Question 13

What is the problem with using burial data to extrapolate info about society/individuals?

Answer 13

treatment in death may not equate to the experience of that person when alive

Question 14

What social characteristics are often studied through burial data? (3)

Answer 14

status
ethnicity
gender

Question 15

What was a major shift in burial rites from LBA to EIA? Why should caution be taken with this conc?

Answer 15

collective tombs to individual ones
it wasn’t a complete shift with collective burials still occurring in G world

Question 16

What form of burial becomes popular in EIA? When precisely?

Answer 16

Cremation
10th-8th cents

Question 17

What were the two forms of cremation? What made them different?

Answer 17

Primary - body burnt on pyre at the location of burial
Secondary - body burnt elsewhere then ashes put into urn whihc is then buried

Question 18

What was a common secondary cremation form of burial in Attica?

Answer 18

trench-and-hole

Question 19

What were the common primary crem tomb types?

Answer 19

cist or shaft tombs

Question 20

When were earliest burial in Kerameikos? What kind of burial were they?

Answer 20

11th cent
secondary trench and hole types

Question 21

In Kerameikos, what was main distinctive characteristic between female and male secondary crems?

Answer 21

female - belly amph urn
male - neck amph urn

Question 22

What are the different cemeteries in Lefkandi? Periods?

Answer 22

SKOUBRIS 11th-10th c.
KHALIOTIS finds date to LH IIIC
PALIA PERIVOLIA 11th c.
EAST CEMETERY uncert
SOUTH CEMETERY uncert
TOUMBA 10th c.

Question 23

Where in Athens was the ‘rich Athenian lady’ grave found? What type of burial was it?
What made it very distinctive? (3)

Answer 23

Areopagus
9th cent BCE
cremation, trench-and-hole
possible foetus cremation, rich finds related to females specif, variety of finds e.g. faience imports

Question 24

What consideration should be made in light of the fact a foetus was cremated w the rich athenian lady? Papadopoulos’ take?

Answer 24

who the unusually wealthy dedications were being made to and whose status they may reflect
They should not be separated but rather both the deaths and bodies were representative of life taken too soon

Question 25

Interpretations as to who ‘the rich athenian lady’ could have been?

Answer 25

Smithson: daughter of high class pentakosiomedimnos, or of king Arriphronos.
Coldstream: part of Mentonid clan, aristocratic family that had great power in early athens

Question 26

How were secondary crems in Kerameikos made distinctive?

Answer 26

grave markers like simple stones or amphorae

Question 27

Where was the panoply tomb found? What is its significance?

Answer 27

Argos, buried c720 BCE
Evidence of early armour, continuation of Argos with burial rather than cremation, relationship betw indiv when alive and dead

Question 28

When was their a significant increase to the number of cemeteries in Attica?

Answer 28

10th-8th cents

Question 29

What are the 3 theories as to increase in number of Attican cemeteries?

Answer 29

population increase
emergence of the polis (conc of people)
increase in visibility of graves

Question 30

What was the typical way of child inhumation?

Answer 30

enchytrismos - buried in a pot

Question 31

When was the Phaleron (Piraeus) cemetery in use? Type of burials?

Answer 31

10-4th cents
inhumations, lower status
mass graves of shackled males

Question 32

Why is settlement at Lefkandi so good for EIA evidence?

Answer 32

uninhabited from 8th cent BCE

Question 33

Name of settlement at Lefkandi?

Answer 33

Xeropolis

Question 34

What do Lefkandi burial dedications, especially of Toumba cemetery reveal about connections in the Agean?

Answer 34

wide range of contacts (Syrian, Cyrpriot items) and a thriving local production at the same time

Question 35

What are suggestions as to causes behind the abandonment of Xeropolis?

Answer 35

-lelantine war
-intense socio-political competition that prompted cultural development too complex for the area on which the settlement was based/community imploded
-migration to Eretria (aligns w settlement patterns of E at this time)

Question 36

What are the theories as to origins of cremation that became so popular in G as EIA came?

Answer 36

from East - Hittites
from Italy, practiced since LBA

Question 37

Why would cremation have been expensive?

Answer 37

limited access to timber
a lot was required c3-4 days to burn a body