An illustrated guide to Minoan images and symbols

Before Sir Arthur Evans, the principal object of Greek prehistoric archaeology was the reconstruction of history in relation to myth. European travellers to Greece viewed its picturesque ruins as the gateway to mythical times, while Heinrich Schliemann, at the end of the nineteenth century, allegedly uncovered at Troy and Mycenae the legendary cities of the Homeric epics. It was Evans who, in his controversial excavations at Knossos, steered Aegean archaeology away from Homer towards the broader Mediterranean world. Yet in so doing he is thought to have done his own inventing, recreating the Cretan Labyrinth via the Bronze Age myth of the Minotaur. Nanno Marinatos challenges the entrenched idea that Evans was nothing more than a flamboyant researcher who turned speculation into history. She argues that Evans was an excellent archaeologist, one who used scientific observation and classification. Evans's combination of anthropology, comparative religion and analysis of cultic artefacts enabled him to develop a bold new method which Sir James Frazer called 'mental anthropology'. It was this approach that led him to propose remarkable ideas about Minoan religion, theories that are now being vindicated as startling new evidence comes to light. Examining the frescoes from Akrotiri, on Santorini, that are gradually being restored, the author suggests that Evans's hypothesis of one unified goddess of nature is the best explanation of what they signify. Evans was in 1901 ahead of his time in viewing comparable Minoan scenes as a blend of ritual action and mythic imagination. Nanno Marinatos is a leading authority on Minoan religion. In this latest book she combines history, archaeology and myth to bold and original effect, offering a wholly new appraisal of Evans and the significance of his work. Sir Arthur Evans and Minoan Crete will be essential reading for all students of Minoan civilization, as well as an irresistible companion for travellers to Crete.

This book assesses what we really know about the Minoans' life and times, defining the essential characteristics of a distinctive Cretan culture and setting this within its contemporary historical context which included not only Greece but the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. The author discusses the major themes of daily life such as social and economic organization, agriculture, architecture and religion, drawing upon the latest archaeological research including examples of Linear B and the evidence of recent excavations to paint a broad chronological picture of a fascinating and important culture. J. Lesley Fitton is an Assistant Keeper in the Department of Greek Roman Antiquities in the British Museum.

A new look at the Cult of the Saints in late antiquity: Did it really dominate Christianity in late antique Rome?

As Homer remains an indispensable figure in the canons of world literature, interpreting the Homeric text is a challenging and high stakes enterprise. There are untold numbers of variations, imitations, alternate translations, and adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, making it difficult to establish what, exactly, the epics were. Gregory Nagy's essays have one central aim: to show how the text and language of Homer derive from an oral poetic system. In Homeric studies, there has been an ongoing debate centering on different ways to establish the text of Homer and the different ways to appreciate the poetry created in the language of Homer. Gregory Nagy, a lifelong Homer scholar, takes a stand in the midst of this debate. He presents an overview of millennia of scholarly engagement with Homer's poetry, shows the different editorial principles that have been applied to the texts, and evaluates their impact.

Beginning with a detailed study of Homer's balance of negative and positive elements in the Circe-Odysseus myth, Judith Yarnall employs text and illustrations to demonstrate how Homer's Circe is connected with age-old traditions of goddess worship. She then examines how the image of a one-sided "witch," who first appeared in the commentary of Homer's allegorical interpreters, proved remarkably persistent, influencing Virgil and Ovid. Yarnall concludes with a discussion of work by Margaret Atwood and Eudora Welty in which the enchantress at last speaks in her own voice: that of a woman isolated by, but unashamed of, her power.

Thoroughly researched, Rodney Castleden's Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete here sues the results of recent research to produce a comprehensive new vision of the peoples of Minoan Crete. Since Sir Arthur Evans rediscovered the Minoans in the early 1900s, we have defined a series of cultural traits that make the ‘Minoan personality’: elegant, graceful and sophisticated, these nature lovers lived in harmony with their neighbours, while their fleets ruled the seas around Crete. This, at least, is the popular view of the Minoans. But how far does the later work of archaeologists in Crete support this view? Drawing on his experience of being actively involved in research on landscapes processes and prehistory for the last twenty years, Castleden writes clearly and accessibly to provide a text essential to the study of this fascinating subject.