John K. Papadopoulos

A Ketos in Early Athens: An archaeology of whales and sea monsters in the Greek world

This article publishes a fragment of a scapula of a fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) found in an Early Geometric well in the area of the later Athenian Agora. Deriving from the carcass of an immature beached whale, the bone was brought to Athens and was used probably as a cutting surface, before being discarded ca. 850 B.C. The context of this extraordinary artifact is analyzed and discussed, as are its possible functions. The occurrence of whales in the Aegean and Mediterranean is reviewed, so too the use of whales and whalebones in ancient Greece and in other cultures. Although the incidence of whalebone is rare in archaeological contexts in the Aegean, Classical literature is full of references to both fantastic sea monsters and real whales. The words that the Greeks and Romans used for whales and the language of whales in mythology and natural history reveal a rich and varied tradition. There is a similarly rich and long tradition of iconographic representations in ancient art, particularly of fabulous sea monsters, one that extends from Aegean prehistory into the Classical era and well beyond. The Agora whalebone provides a unique insight into the archaeology of whales and sea monsters in Greek literature, natural history, art, and material culture.

Minting Identity: Coinage, Ideology and the Economics of Colonization in Akhaina Magna Graecia

This article focuses on the early coinage of the Akhaian cities of South Italy — Sybaris, Kroton, Metapontion, Kaulonia, Poseidonia — against the backdrop of colonization. Minting an early and distinctive series of coins, these centres were issuing coinage well before their ‘mother-cities’, a phenomenon that has never been fully appreciated. With its origins in a colonial context, the Akhaian coinage of Magna Graecia not only differs from that of the early coin-minting states of the Greek mainland, it offers a case study that challenges long-held assumptions and potentially contributes to a better understanding of the origins of coinage. It does so by suggesting that coinage is much more than a symbol of authority and represents considerably more than just an abstract notion of sovereignty or hegemony. The images or emblems that the Akhaians of South Italy chose for their coins are those current in the contemporary cultural landscape of the historic Akhaians, but at the same time actively recall the world of the heroic Akhaians of the Bronze Age by referring to prehistoric measures of value. More than his, the vicissitudes of colonial and indigenous history in parts of South Italy in the Archaic period were not merely reflected in coinage, the coins themselves were central to the processes of transformation. By boldly minting — constructing — their identity on coinage, the Akhaians of South Italy chose money in order to create relations of dominance and to produce social orders that had not existed before.

Drawing circles : Experimental archaeology and the pivoted multiple brush

This study explores variety of multiple brushes that have been used by potters of different periods and places to decorate their wares. Following an overview of the history of scholarship on these devices, special attention is given to the mechanically drawn circles and semicircles of various Mediterranean wares in the Early Iron Age, particularly Aegean Protogeometric. Earlier arguments put forward to show that such concentric motifs could not have been drawn with a multiple-brush device are challenged. To this end, alternative types of multiple-brush devices were made and tested and the result of these experiments was the construction of a pivoted multiple brush that could easily replicate all the details observed on ancient pottery, including errors and idiosyncracies. This device, fashioned from material readily available to ancient potters, is presented in this article. The question of the origin of this technical innovation is discussed and an attempt is made to place it where it belongs: in the potters workshop.

Magna Achaea Akhaian late geometric and archaic pottery in south Italy and Sicily

Imported Akhaian and locally produced Akhaian-style pottery occurs in South Italy, Sicily, and beyond, found not only in the Akhaian apoikiai, but also in other settlements. The most characteristic Akhaian shape-the kantharos-is discussed within the context of its home region, including Elis. Examples of Archaic Akhaian pottery in the West are assembled and the distribution is compared to that of Akhaian and West Greek imports in the Late Bronze Age. A pattern emerges that suggests a complex reality of interaction and movement of people, commodities, and ideas between Greece and Italy in the pre- and protohistoric periods, thus contributing to a better understanding of the first western Greeks.

The early history of the Greek alphabet: new evidence from Eretria and Methone

Abstract Inscriptions on new archaeological finds in the Aegean, examined alongside linguistic evidence relating to Greek and Phrygian vowels, are here used to explore the origins and spread of the Greek alphabet. The ‘invention’ of vowels happened just once, with all of the various Greek, Phrygian and Italic alphabets ultimately deriving from this single moment. The idea spread rapidly, from an absence of writing in the ninth century BC to casual usage, including jokes, by 725 BC. The port of Methone in the northern Aegean emerges as a probable candidate for the site of origin. A place where Greeks and Phoenicians did business together, with international networks; was this where Semitic, Greek and Phrygian letters first coalesced?

Reconstructing the prehistoric burial tumulus of Lofkënd in Albania

When a monument is excavated it removes a piece of cultural property from the landscape. So modern thinking in field archaeology rightly includes the maintenance of monumentality in its initial design. Better still if that value is enhanced. Reconstructing their excavated tumulus in Albania, the authors found they could leave the monument in place and give it added value from the new knowledge of its relevance to local people, not to mention the revival of a dying craft: the making of mud-brick.

The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean From the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World

This is a spectacular book: wellconceived, beautifully structured, elegantly written, and magnificently illustrated. The scope of the volume is breathtaking: 1.8 million years ago to ca. 500 BC. It ends where most other volumes begin: Horden and Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea (2000, Blackwell: Oxford) deals with the era of written records—ancient and medieval—and even Abulafia’s The Great Sea (2011, New York: Allen Lane) presents the first Mediterranean at about 22,000 BC. Broodbank follows in their path, and Braudel’s La Méditerranée et le monde Méditerranéen à l’epoque de Philippe II (1949, Paris: Colin), putting the Middle Sea on center stage by looking at its physical geography and human history. Against this kaleidoscope of seminal works, Broodbank’s singularcontribution is to spiral back to the very beginning of human history and present a synoptic overview of the preand protohistory of the Mediterranean.

Greece in the Early Iron Age: Mobility, Commodities, Polities, and Literacy

The late second millennium BC on Sardinia is among the most dynamic and vital periods in the islands history, when Nuragic society undergoes massive changes. This chapter examines this perplexing period, drawing on the evidence of imports and the built environment to construct a picture of a still inward-turning society whose emergent elites were unsuccessful at overcoming a tradition of acephalous cohesion. The chapter focuses on the best provenanced and best dated of Aegean imports and imitations, Cypriot-style goods, amber, Iberian imports, the Aegean-style pots, the copper oxhide ingots, and two amber bead types such as the Tiryns and Allumiere beads. The Cypriot-style metals, for which it is virtually impossible to confirm if they are imported or locally made, belong to the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC, with some objects dating to the tenth century BC. While some Cypriot-style oxhide ingots have been found in the south, they cluster more in the central zone.

The Motya Youth: Apollo Karneios, Art, and Tyranny in the Greek West

All interpretations of the celebrated Motya Youth, dating to about 480–450 BCE, have neglected the full significance of the five holes on the statues head, which were there since its discovery in 1979. A reinterpretation of the figure taking these holes into consideration points to its identity as an initiate of Apollo Karneios, shown at rest after having performed the dance in honor of the god. Art, history, and iconography combine to suggest that the figure may have been none other than Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, as a young man.