Early Greece and the Mediterranean c. 950-550 BC: archaeology and history

The period from 800 to 500 BC saw the emergence of many of the institutions, practices and products that characterise Greek civilisation – city states, Panhellenic sanctuaries, colonies, monumental building and sculpture, alphabetic writing, coinage, and many others. It is a period within which Greeks, Phoenicians, and others travelled widely in the Mediterranean, in search of wealth in both finished goods and raw materials, and also in search of land.

This course has two main broad aims: (1) the in-depth study of culture contact between the Near East and Greece on the one hand, and between Greece and the Eastern and Western Mediterranean on the other; and (2) the study of a period during which literary evidence comes to be available, and of the problems and possibilities for integrating the diverse literary evidence with the material record.

During the period 800-500 BC Greek society expanded its horizons both geographically and in terms of the complexity of its organisation. Relatively isolated and impoverished communities turned themselves into rich self-governing city-states exercising power that was felt and feared over a wide area. 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, settlements were established abroad in Italy, Sicily, the North Aegean, the Black Sea, and North Africa, and Greeks in Asia Minor came increasingly under pressure from powers further east. A major part of this 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 and the reactions of others, and particularly of the Etruscans, to Greek motifs and conventions.This course is only taught every other Hilary Term: it will next be taught in HT 2012. (Convenor: N. Purcell, St John’s).