Early Greece: The Bronze and Archaic AgesM. I. Finley here reconstructs the “preliterary” background to Greek civilization by an examination of recent archeological discoveries and a critical reappraisal of older archeological evidence. He discusses the problems that dependence on such evidence poses for the historian, for, although archeology reveals changes and even cataclysms, it rarely allows us more than a restricted view of a society under normal conditions. He points out the difficulties in reconciling the mythological “evidence” and the archeological, particularly in Crete and Troy, and analyzes and distinguishes the elements of historic fact and legend in the Iliad and Odyssey. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
The Coming of the Greeks | 13 |
The Islands I The Cyclades | 22 |
Copyright | |
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activity Aegean already Anatolia ancient appearance archaeological Archaic aristocracy Asia Minor Athenian Athens authority became beginning Bronze Age called central centres century Chapter civilization classes Cnossus coast considerable continued Cretan Crete culture Cyclades Cyprus Cyrene Dark Age earlier early east eastern evidence example existence fact Figure finally finds followed further gods graves Greece Greek Helladic Homeric human important individual island Italy kind king known land language Late later least less Linear mainland material means Messenia metal Middle migration Minoan movement Mycenae Mycenaean nature Neolithic never objects original palaces particular perhaps period poems political population possible pottery Press probably record region relations remains reveals rule sense settlement social society Spartan status structure suggestion tablets tion tradition Troy tyranny tyrant University wealth whole writing