CLAS20C1: Art and Archaeology of the Greek Islands

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• To introduce students to the art and archaeology of various communities inhabiting the Greek islands of the Mediterranean between the Bronze Age and the Classical period.
• To give students some understanding of some of the most important or best-known type-sites and collections from across the region.
• To consider how visual and material evidence from relatively text-deficit communities complements and enriches our broader understanding of ancient Greek history.
• To investigate how evidence from individual islands fits into broader regional patterns, whether in the area of economic and political networking, religious festivals, or the history of seafaring.
• To explore how islands might be at different times variously more connected to or isolated from other neighbouring islands.
• To learn about how important developments in archaeological techniques and methodological (particular in the area of survey archaeology) have much expanded our understanding of the Aegean region in recent decades.
• To develop students' skills in analysing material and visual sources and to test these skills by producing site reports and essays.

• In this module, we will look at the art and archaeology of Greek islands between the Bronze Age and Classical period.
• By examining closely individual island case studies and considering the connections between different island groups, this module will consider in particular the economic, political and religious networks that formed across the Mediterranean sea throughout different periods of Greek history.
• A comparative study of style between the visual culture of different contemporary island communities will give students an understanding of the effects of connection and isolation in the articulation of different visual languages.
• Students will also critically evaluate the evidence for early seafaring, based on the material and visual culture available from the Aegean islands.
• This module will also give students the opportunity to explore in-depth the archaeological techniques and methods that have been used in the discovery of ancient Aegean communities (particularly survey archaeology), reflecting also on the extent and nature of the ancient evidence.
• Specific subjects covered may include topics such as: early seafaring - Melos and Syros; palaces and populations - Crete and Thera; transformation in the Early Iron Age - Euboea; mainland islands - Peloponnese, Chalkidiki and Methana; thalassocracies of the east Aegean - Samos and Chios; surveying Greek islands - Kythera and Antikythera; the economy of Greek islands - Thasos and Naxos; the greater and lesser Cyclades - Paros and Antiparos; religious networking - Delos and Despotiko; islands in an age of empire? - Aegina and the Sporades

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Detailed knowledge of the material and visual culture of some Aegean islands at various crucial points in Greek history.
• Detailed knowledge of the economic, political and socio-cultural networks of the island groups studied.
• Engagement with current scholarship on those regions, particularly on the florescence of survey archaeology in the area since the 1980s.
• An understanding of how islands can be outposts of both connection and isolation, and that their communities were at different times more or less integrated into wider Aegean networks.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Capacity to access, discuss and engage critically with a combination of different material and visual sources which inform our understanding of Greek islands in their second and first millennium BCE context.
• Ability to make proper use of the basic reference tools and bibliography.

Key Skills:

• The ability to assess and compare a range of different arguments and methodologies.
• The ability to synthesise data from a range of sources, and to present that information in a tone and style appropriate as a report.
• Ability to pursue independent research on an aspect of the course and to produce well-evidenced, clearly expressed, and original arguments in written form.

• Weekly lectures that will first introduce the analytical frameworks for studying island archaeology, and, thereafter, will focus on individual island case studies.
• Five seminars examining thematic case studies that draw together the evidence of multiple islands, where topics might include trade and political networks, religious festivals, seafaring, artistic style, and island survey archaeology.
• Summative assessment will be by one 4000-word research project: students will choose a theme, period, or geographical area studied over the course of the module to explore further and to develop through an independent research task.

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