The Greeks and the Mediterranean World c.950 B.C. - 500 B.C.

This course explores, through the archaeological evidence, the period during which Greek society expanded rapidly from relative isolation and poverty to a fully-fledged structure of flourishing city-states. As recent controversial claims have highlighted, contacts with the non-Greek world played a vital role in this period: trading posts were established in the Levant and later in Egypt, colonies were sent out to Sicily, Italy, North Africa and the area of the Black Sea, and hostile pressure was increasingly faced from Anatolia and Persia. A major part of the course is devoted to the reciprocal relations of the Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples, as traced through the movement of Greek and imported goods and through Greek reactions to, and uses of, foreign motifs and conventions.

Those taking the subject should become familiar with the material evidence (lectures on the main artefact types are provided), and with the most important sites (Lefkandi, Zagora, Delphi, Al Mina, Naukratis, Cyrene, Syracuse, Pithecusae). Emphasis is placed on the problems of interpreting the evidence and the critical assessment of the general picture based on it. The approach is more historical than art-historical, and will be most interesting to those who are intrigued by the bridge between the physical object and abstract deduction. An ability to read ancient or modern foreign languages is not requisite.