The archaeology of Minoan Crete, 3200-1000 BC

This course explores the archaeology of Bronze Age Crete. The Aegean Bronze Age saw major cultural, social and political transformations, many of which originated in Crete and in most of which it was a major player: the first ‘state societies’ in Europe began here. Crete is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus and Corsica; its insularity allows the examination of internal and external change across clear-cut physical boundaries and the differing ways in which the island has related to wider patterns of economic and political interaction within the Mediterranean.

Topics explored include: Crete’s role in the emergence of the Bronze Age in the Aegean and the colonisation of the Aegean islands; the Early Bronze Age and the island’s relations with the broader Eastern Mediterranean; the emergence of the palace-based social organisation of the Middle Bronze Age; the earliest writing systems within the Aegean; the expansion of Minoan interaction within the Aegean; the chronology of the eruption of Thera an the eruption’s effects; the transformation of the Minoan palatial system; how Cretans responded to the ‘collapse’ of BA palace societies in the Early Iron Age. (Convenor: L. Bendall, Keble)

Link to tutor's room in weblearn