Sarah P. Morris

Homer and the Near East

In their historical and literary setting, the poems of Homer and the epic cycle belong to the eastern Mediterranean: they share narrative elements with neighboring cultures since the Bronze Age, and show specific connections to Near Eastern history and mythology. Evidence for these connections has increased since the nineteenth century, with the discovery of Near Eastern texts and of archaeological evidence for the transmission of ideas. This chapter examines those discoveries, compares Near Eastern sources with Homeric themes and references, and suggests modes of contact and influence. The principal narrative poems of the Near East which show close connections to Homer belong to Mesopotamia (Sumerian and Akkadian verse epics) and the Levant, especially ancient Ugarit. Extant Near Eastern literature is an incomplete resource for understanding Greek epic poetry: many texts were lost, and comparison depends heavily on accidents of survival.Keywords: ancient Ugarit; Bronze Age; eastern Mediterranean; Greek epic poetry; Homer; Mesopotamia; Near East

The towers of ancient Leukas : Results of a topographic survey, 1991-1992

The author reports on the results of a topographic survey in 1991 and 1992 of fifteen Classical tower sites on the Ionian island of Leukas. Plans, photographs, and elevations of remains visible after thorough cleaning are presented, based on drawings to scale in the field and both archival and recent photographic documentation. A brief history of the exploration of Leukas introduces a summary of the two seasons, with detailed description of each site. The date and function of the towers and adjacent structures are evaluated in the context of current research on rural settlement in classical antiquity, defensive architecture, and the regional history of the area.

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.

Frogs around the Pond? Cultural Diversity in the Ancient World and the New Millennium

This essay examines relations between Greeks and non-Greeks in the eastern Mediterranean in three case studies. A Geometric clay pyxis from Athens is compared to an older Egyptian granary, to consider how shapes, images, and beliefs might travel across time and place. In the second case, a famous image of Artemis from Ephesus is traced to Anatolian traditions of the second millennium. Finally, the role of myth, or the narrative behind such images, is examined in the figure of Midas, whose asses’ ears could harbor royal Anatolian attributes. Details of these connections are explored elsewhere; this essay asks how and why we pursue them in classical art and myth, and what the results accomplish for our purposes as teachers and scholars of classical antiquity.

ΛAΣANA: A Contribution to the Ancient Greek Kitchen

E XCAVATIONS AT GREEK SETTLEMENTS have frequently revealed a curious clay artifact whose function still eludes archaeologists despite imaginative explanations. A solution to this puzzle emerges from ancient art and literature; it is presented here to encourage the retrieval and identification of companion pieces.1 The shape seems so deliberately eccentric, yet remains so consistent among examples from a wide range of geographical and chronological circumstances, that it suggests a specific and universal purpose.2 The object is essentially a standing cylinder with broad base (sometimes offset as a disk or torus) and flaring crown, deliberately bent above its midpoint to produce a curving profile. The rim, closed by a concave disk, thus cants at an angle of about 300 to the horizontal base. A single ring or strap handle is attached to its outside face; a long, narrow groove, furrow, or even a fold sometimes runs vertically down the opposite (incurving) side. The fabric of known examples is most commonly coarse, often resembling the cooking or table ware in use, if not produced (e.g. at Histria), at the same site; the temper is heavy (grit or straw) with visible inclusions, sometimes in the form of quartz particles, suggesting that the object was intended to be sturdy and heat resistant. Traces of burning are frequent and (where their location is published) appear on the inside face. Quality varies from semifine, wheelmade versions (Fig. 1) to compact and heavy shapes (Figs. 5, 6); finer examples (e.g. from Kavousi, Crete) can include slip and incised or molded decoration. Dimensions also vary but proportions are nearly constant: the objects range from 10 to 25 cm. in height, their base and rim diameters from 10 to 15 cm. with a midpoint diameter of ca. 5 to 10 cm.

Reciprocity: A Response

This response to a set of wide-ranging papers on the dimensions of reciprocity in Bronze Age Greece introduces three areas for further research, in order to expand the framework in terms of gender, space, and time. These include greater emphasis on the role of women and gender relations in the circulation of labor, land, goods, and prestige; the question of reciprocal relations beyond the Aegean; and, last but not least, the afterlife of prehistoric relationships of reciprocity in ritual practices and elite display in Iron Age Greece. Alternate methodologies are required for these investigations, particularly in archaeological science for exploring diet, health, and foodways that indicate access to resources, in the analysis of non-Aegean documents relevant to Late Bronze Age Greece, and in the juxtaposition of Homeric views of reciprocity with those identified in Bronze Age Greece. As in the evolving development of theories of reciprocity and gift exchange over a century, the ethnographic and ethnohistoric record, largely outside Greece, informs Aegean research.